I am 24 years old with a bachelors degree and my AFOQT scores. I am currently finishing my private pilot license and hope to have it finished by December. I have been advised to go ahead and start contacting bases and units to get information on meet and greets or any type of visit to show interest. However, I am worried about contacting bases prior to being finished and not being ready to apply because it seems like contacting them asking about hiring boards and meet and greets would be jumping the gun prior to finishing my license. Or is it a good idea to go ahead and contact bases and try to make some contacts to see when their hiring boards are and to show interest in flying for the unit?

The process is long. Its never to early make an introduction and express your interest in a military flying career. Even if you aren't ready, just talking to squadron folks will give you an idea of the type of community and aircraft you could see yourself in. Also, the more you can show up to UTAs and meet and greets, the more the squadron bros will get to learn about you. Hopefully, they'll think your a "cool" guy. Don't be a tool or a dbag when visiting squadrons. 9 times out of 10 when cold calling ppl, they will be more than happy to talk to you about squadron life or point you to proper person to talk to. 

Good Luck.

Cheers 

I'm going to start all of this by saying that I assume you have your taken your TBAS and have a PCSM as well. If not, that is the next step before you can do much of anything.

But I would definitely start reaching out. A PPL isn't a hard requirement for most units, and "I'll finish it in December" seems like it would be an acceptable answer.

The whole process takes a long time, as @CharlieHotel47 said. And odds are, you probaly won't be hired by the first board you apply to anyway, so worst case, you get some feedback on your package.

If you wait until you finish your PPL, you will miss an MC-12 board, 7 heavy boards, and 2 fighter boards. And that's just what is on Bogidope. Start sending out your package now, even if you haven't visted the units. Try to get to drills when you can, but you are guarantee not to get a job you don't apply for.

17 minutes ago, N730 said:

I'm going to start all of this by saying that I assume you have your taken your TBAS and have a PCSM as well. If not, that is the next step before you can do much of anything.

But I would definitely start reaching out. A PPL isn't a hard requirement for most units, and "I'll finish it in December" seems like it would be an acceptable answer.

The whole process takes a long time, as @CharlieHotel47 said. And odds are, you probaly won't be hired by the first board you apply to anyway, so worst case, you get some feedback on your package.

If you wait until you finish your PPL, you will miss an MC-12 board, 7 heavy boards, and 2 fighter boards. And that's just what is on Bogidope. Start sending out your package now, even if you haven't visted the units. Try to get to drills when you can, but you are guarantee not to get a job you don't apply for.

Why'd you tell him about bogidope? Now we have 1 more person to compete against...

18 hours ago, Seadogs said:

Why'd you tell him about bogidope? Now we have 1 more person to compete against...

Unless you're being sarcastic and I can't tell behind a screen (then disregard), but I think you might be looking at it the wrong way. This entire forum's existence is based on the premise of sharing information to help each other out. And as a character attribute helping people out when it has no benefit to yourself is a worthwhile goal. What you do or don't bring to the table is responsible for whether you're hired or not (this applies to me also).