Screening Board Results And Some Unsolicited Advice
Via Bubblehead, Blunoz has the results of the submarine CO/XO screening board. (Warning: his blog has an autostarting music widget hidden at the bottom of the post that can irritate.) In the past I have railed mightily against the secretive nature of those results, and the sub force has done much better by putting the results out as a message to ALSUBFOR.
(Note well, however, that there are guys wanting to be on this list who are in jobs that are not ALSUBFOR. How are they getting the news and who has the responsibility to ensure they aren’t left in the dark like they have been in the past?)
Blunoz has some good advice to give in his post. I’ll pile on and add a little of my own. It’s out of date and I know I have some lurkers here who can improve it. Click “more” if you so desire.
Been selected? Congratulations! You’ve been both good and lucky. Keep your pants on. Be frickin’ humble, dammit.
COSS? Congratulations! Since you know this by now I’ll put this out for junior pups who stumble on the post. You’ll likely make O5 if you haven’t already…and there are a limited number of billets that might get you to O6. Worst situation I saw for a COSS was a guy who was very sensitive about his status, and put on a shore job around a bunch of other O-5 1120s with sheriff’s badges who occasionally hurt his ego. Most bitter man I’ve ever met. He eventually got a decent job in the Nav then got out, but that tour was hard on him.
You now know that the arc of your career is different than it might be, but that’s useful knowledge. You have until year 28 if staying in is what you want. Lateral ain’t happening unless it’s one of those special cases (like the IP community if you’ve got mad skillz; seen it happen to a guy in another URL community.)
If you’re an “installed spare CO”, then you work hard waiting for someone on the waterfront to bollix up, and then you will get a harder and more challenging command tour than the other golden boy dudes around the waterfront. Build a support network for it; you’re going to need the help. By the way this doesn’t guarantee you’ll going to go much farther; one COSS I know made commodore, but others did jobs like strike group N6 and missed out on major command. They retired as captains knowing they did a heck of a hard job well.
There are a lot of billets the detailer has to fill. Some of them will be very interesting and fulfilling. Good luck in finding ones that fit you.
XOSS/nonselect: Mottainai. This was my status. This info is dated but corrections can be made in the comments, folks. XOSS and XO nonselect is the hardest thing to deal with in a career like this, I think, because nowhere in the pipeline has anyone ever allowed you to seriously deal with the possibility of anything but success. That and we all have huge frickin’ egos. To suddenly be the guy who the JOs blow off because you are some guy from an external command who “didn’t make XO” is painful. Here’s what I’d recommend:
- You have just shifted from demand item to surplus item. Although control grade 1120 billets are going empty at a rate that is painful to the sub force, you are no longer treated as quite the valuable asset that is a normal path 1120. The detailers have a hard job here, because they get special requests and pleadings and the crappy jobs shall get filled and the bad news shall get delivered. They can fill a couple of traditionally 0-5-making billets, but there are not many of those. They have to fill a lot of other billets. Your negotiation leverage is small but it is still a negotiation.
- You also will get an ugly surprise in your bank account at the wrong time. For me I lost sub pay, and retroactive “I’ll take that back thanks” bonus, at the same time we moved and the better half had to quit her job with a new baby. It took a little scrambling and the way it was done was tough on us. Others I’ve talked to–particularly the nonselects–described similar difficulty. And of course you’ll get no sympathy from the surface guys…
- If you’re XOSS, you are on a list with a number on it–the rank of where you were on the screening. You will likely not be able to find out that number, which sucks; one guy I knew found out that he was low enough in the ranking and far enough away from the waterfront that he knew to change his expectations and made different decisions. You’ve been given a thirty grand gift compared to the nonselects, and will likely not be the one guy that may or may not get picked up on the extra look.
- Okay, let’s say you made SS and want to get a boat. First, look hard at yourself and see if that’s the right thing to do; I knew of guys who could do the job but would not have been happy and not have done the job really well. This is hard to do.
Related: I just met a fella a few days ago in another job who from thirty seconds of meeting unknowingly indicated his career arc and was blissfully unaware of where he really stood. (It’s kind of like when you walk on a boat and know it’s a really good boat or a really bad boat–after a while, you can sometimes predict pretty well quickly.) The advice I gave that guy is advice I’ve recently given to others because it worked for me: Get someone senior you trust who’s sat a few boards, hand them all your FITREPS and ODC, and ask them to tell you the truth with the bark off. If you have deficiencies in who you are relative to selection–and we all do, including the selected bunch–people tend to not tell you about them in a way you understand. This is human nature. For the selected, this hasn’t gotten in their way yet, but everyone in this job eventually gets told to go home and rare is the officer who will turn down major command in order to stay at home with the family.
Now, if you want to take the job of a selected XO who broke his leg or career, there are positions which maximize that possibility. Go find those and lobby for them, find some influential help, and/or otherwise be in a position to be potentially yanked in the dead of night to take over when the admiral fires the CO and XO for going bonk in the night. Be prepared for disappointment if this tragedy does not occur on your watch. By now PERS-42 may have institutionalized that more, but at the least you know that at a joint command you will not get that phone call.
Oh, yeah. The selection rate for COSS of served XOs who were XOSS may be worth noting.
- Get ready for the emotional component of what you know intellectually. There are a few places which are 1120 non-XO dying grounds, and in those concentrations of officers I saw some trends in how guys encountered the next couple of years. You may intellectually know that your chance of making O5 is low, but that first look on the board without your name on it is painful. You know that people will assume your lower social status and it will suck. Be ready for it.
- Contra Blunoz’ observation, I have seen two officers around my yeargroup who got out at the 15 year point. Neither one was going to make O-5 in the active force as an 1120 despite being better officers than others I’ve seen, and they didn’t want to spend time being low man on the totem pole in a detailer’s-choice shore job. One went reserve and made O-5 off the bat in the reserves, the other did so the next board; both are making much more money than me and have bigger nicer houses. They seem pretty happy.
- If you’re only just now thinking about lateral transfer, it’s pretty late in the game. If you were thinking about it, you have at least one and maybe two documented alternate skill sets where you could take your service record and squint so that it looks like a good guy in another community. Prepare a package as carefully as a guy who made LDO. Get advice from the gaining community and find a mentor or two in that community if you haven’t already. Make sure you know the position PERS-42 has on people generally and you specifically–you remember that shortage of control grade billets I mentioned? Might get in your way. I was lucky to shift over, but prior to doing so I had to ensure 42 would let me go without a fight I couldn’t win, and have a package that showed I was good at doing the things the gaining community needed in a fellow at a higher rank than I was. (It isn’t fun shifting over and then not making rank; for my community the selection rate this year for O-5 looked high in the precept but when all the “above zone” guys (from lateral transfers) were added in the actual selection rate was maybe a third of that.)
- I highlight “at a higher rank” above because I know a guy who tried about five or six times to go to another community but never got picked up because he was so senior he’d never make rank in the new community without having any tickets punched and the community knew it. Said guy found a niche and did well–finding a special job range and staying with it. Picked up O-5 and did some useful and fun jobs that fit his non-submariner skill set. This is a good lesson: the guys who looked at the number of tours they had left in the Nav and looked at the decision space of good and useful tours were more happy than the ones who let the whims of fate drive their time. (That’s LCDR Fate, by the way, the detailer…)
- O-4 can be waived once passed over for promotion twice and retire at 20 years with pay. O-5 can go to 28. You’ve got some time to be planning on life outside. If you enjoy being a nuke, the pay at first isn’t great but ramps up pretty quickly. Bubblehead mentions the Gold Dolphin network and networking; that network has gone from tiny to big and is potentially very useful. I’ve seen similar networks for other groups out in the real world.
Me, I did okay so far. Back in the day I had a good shot at going to Perisher but got beat out by a guy who had better connections than I did. I got a good deal out of it, sort of, but it turned out badly and the fallout from that put me in a bad position to succeed in another tour. I crashed and burned, wound up in another place licking my wounds, and around that time got lucky in that an opportunity popped up that matched interests I’ve had since I was enlisted. I volunteered to go to Iraq and Afghanistan but never got allowed to go; went to sea to work up and deploy there but world events changed a bit and the strike group broke up four days before deployment. I kept working hard because the job isn’t just a job and “support and defend” doesn’t have an “if convenient” clause. I’m glad I did.
13 Responses to “Screening Board Results And Some Unsolicited Advice”
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June 8th, 2008 at 6:35 pm
Chap,
Very good info in your post. Just to update a couple of things you mentioned:
- Before the results were released via message to ALSUBFOR, they were emailed out to all the squadron commodores and submarine flag officers. Included in the email was a list of the current command and mailing address of where each selectee was currently serving so that senior officers could send them a note of congratulations. For the people whose names were going before the board, I’m sure their command gets a phone call (especially if it’s a non-submarine command) to let them know the results. However, I agree with your point that there are a lot of people whose names weren’t going before the board, but would like to read the results to see what shipmates and friends were selected, and those guys who work at non-submarine commands are out of luck. I knew that from experience at my last shore duty job, so I figured I would post the results to my blog when they came out so others could see them.
- For the XOSS list, YES, they DO tell you what your ranking is. This is good for the guys at the top or the bottom of the list. If you’re at the top of the list, you have a pretty good chance of getting called up to go be an XO. If you’re at the bottom of the list, you know you’re not going to be an XO and you can start planning your career elsewhere. If you’re in the middle… what do you do???
- This year was an interesting data point. Ever since they created the XOSS title, they’ve said that you get another look at XO if you screen XOSS. I don’t think any previous years have had any significant numbers of XOSS guys subsequently screen for XO. THIS year, FOUR guys who were previously XOSS got picked up for XO on their 4th look.
- WRT Lateral Transfers, the MILPERSMAN actually says that nuclear trained submarine officers aren’t allowed to lateral transfer until after completing a department head tour. Additionally, at least one community, the new Foreign Affairs Officer (FAO) has a prerequisite that you must have 8 years of service before you can apply to lateral transfer into the community. As for other communities, it varies year to year what the demand signal is for the other community, and as you said, it all depends on Pers-42 being willing to allow you to leave the 1120 community. When I was waiting for the XO screening results, the Intel (1630) community had a severe shortage of O-4′s and was ready to take me if I failed to screen for XO.
- WRT promotion to O-5 after lateral transfer, in the case of one close friend of mine who transferred to ED, they moved him back a YG on paper to allow him time to “mature” in the community before going in front of the O-5 board.
- WRT the financial implications of failing to select, I failed to mention something on my post. As you said, if you stay in the 1120 community after failing to screen for XO, your chance of promotion to O-5 is almost zero. However, the financial impact can be mitigated by the new Submarine Support bonus. If you continue working for the sub force, then you can still collect a chunk of change at the end of the year, not as much as the nuke bonus, but better than nothing.
- Finally, sorry you find my music annoying. Maybe I’ll change it so it only plays if you want to listen to it. :-)
Kevin
June 8th, 2008 at 6:59 pm
Heh. I usually open about seventy tabs at once, and it’s always one tab that autostarts something over the music I’m already playing. I gotta ping you for something!
Good points and thanks. I was one of those guys who spent two passes of the board in different non-submarine-force billets who had to find out my own darn se’f. I note that the message probably didn’t have the mailing list of the guys not selected since they aren’t getting a congratulatory letter.
There are a couple of billets that a guy can go to that look close enough to an XO job that it fools the O-5 board. Less than five I speculate, more like three. ASDS pilot ain’t one–that’s one of the guys who got out at 15YOS.
The MILPERSMAN has some loophole action in there. I know of many guys who have not followed the letter of the policy in their careers–but the wording is really handy if’n you’re discouraging the transfer. Elephants stomp when guys change communities, that’s for sure. You’re right about year-to-year variation; intel was hurting the other way when the DHs I knew on the waterfront when I was a JO suffered the fate of the cone DH and looked for another path.
Great to hear the ranges for SS showed up and that four of the guys escaped. Thanks again.
June 10th, 2008 at 8:28 am
Chap,
WRT informing the guys who don’t screen (especially those at non submarine commands), it seems they do it differently each year. In 2005, myself and a close friend of mine (both same YG up for our last look at XO) were both stationed in the DC area at non-submarine related commands. He got a personal phone call from the admiral at N87 (I think it was Walsh at the time) telling him he hadn’t screened. I didn’t find out the results for a week more after that, but based on the fact that I DIDN’T get a phone call from the admiral, then I must have at least screened XOSS if not XO.
The next year in 2006, another very good friend of mine (one YG behind me and up for his last look at XO) was stationed at a VERY non-submarine force related job overseas, but by sheer coincidence he was in DC for a conference, and he and I were out hiking in the woods together in the Northern Virginia when his cell phone rang and he got the news. That year it was the detailer that called the guys who failed to screen.
I don’t know how they’ve done it in the years since. I assume they have continued the practice of someone calling the guys who failed to screen before they release the results, though. My CO got a call from the detailer to inform him the results for our department heads, but I realize that falls under the “inside the lifelines” category and doesn’t scratch the itch of informing guys on tours outside the submarine force.
Kevin
June 11th, 2008 at 12:49 pm
I was right ahead of you on the screening process. The first board I didn’t get anything–crickets–until I found another submariner, found he got the results, and called my detailer. The one on which I made SS I found out only because I had acquired access. The one past that I was at sea and on a surface ship; the DH on the submarine in that strike group didn’t know he didn’t make it because (I guess) the squadron or higher didn’t want to tell him the bad news at sea. Unfortunately for that plan, strike groups have email and chat nowadays…
June 11th, 2008 at 8:09 pm
Chap,
I believe I may be Blunoz’ “friend from the very non-submarine related post overseas.” I fall in the similar category as you, a former submariner who successfully negotiated the Scylla and Charybdis of the lateral transfer process.
Blunoz and I had some good discussions about career paths based on his fears from the previous year so I had some good ideas what I wanted to do, and I had put out some feelers regarding options, possibilities and probabilities. My personal feeling going into the final screening was that if I did not screen, I wanted to lateral transfer. While there are no doubt good, important and hard jobs for 1120s who have not been an XO, my impression of them from my experience was that they were not particularly fulfilling jobs, rather jobs that ‘just needed to get done’.
When I didn’t screen my ego was bruised, but not destroyed. Was I surprised, well, mostly. I had done two shore tours that were ‘unconventional’ by nuke standards, and honestly my DH tour probably wasn’t everything it should have been. It just took me some time to get over it. I thought (and well, I still think) that I had something more to contribute to the Navy. And I thought that I could do better than the jobs I saw myself being detailed to. As you said, there are jobs that have to be filled and interesting jobs to do but you just don’t have all that much leverage with the detailer.
I opted for the lateral transfer option. So far, I’m happy, doing an interesting job, with some good prospects for even more interesting jobs in the future.
By the way, we’re likely in the same community, as we had long discussions in the office regarding the proliferation of ‘above the zone’ O-5 selections.
June 12th, 2008 at 5:14 am
Good points. You’re pretty painfully honest; most of the guys who screen also feel that way but they never have to examine it like we do.
If you’re right, I’m outed–you’re the first guy to wander over here. You on the mailing list, by any chance? Not many ex-1120s in there. You know the others in that country? Drop an email!
June 12th, 2008 at 7:08 pm
Chap,
I’ve got another former 1120 (who just selected O-6) two floors down.
On the mailing list of course!
Painfully honest? I guess some nuke did rub off.
June 13th, 2008 at 2:45 am
Heh. That only took a few years. Wonder what I’ll need to do with this blog when I PCS.
You’re getting a passel of good people arriving in your neighborhood from my neck of the woods in a couple of months. Sounds like a lot of fun and decent work besides. Lemme know if I can be of assistance…
June 13th, 2008 at 6:30 pm
Back in ’99 and ’00 when I worked the XO/CO board, I remember a couple of COSS getting bumped up to CO, but can’t speak to the same with XOSS. Before the heavy tank sessions, there were a couple of light ones: first to vote to de-select folks that had previously screened due to specific events (DUI, libery incidents in Haifa involving MMs, nipple rings and toungue kissing, etc.) and a second to review previous COSS to see if they wanted to redesignate them fully screened.
As to E.P.’s experience, few things in my reserve time have been as painful or made me appreciate not being a active 1120 as watching those boards unfold. It was a very sobering experience to see all those good, highly capable boat drivers get left behind. As I’ve said before, in my opinion there was too much Rickoverism in the boards I worked (“select X, he’s a good nuke“) and I felt that the sub force was limiting its talent and skill available for post-CO jobs. Maybe I’m strange, but in today’s military I just kind-of feel that there’s a difference in the effectiveness of an 1120 who did shore at PG, float-a-type and N87 and one who maybe has NATO experience or worked on a Unified Command Staff when you get to the O-6 level.
June 18th, 2008 at 2:01 am
I’ll say this, While all of this discussion is incredibly enlightening, it makes me nervous as I’m still in the “not resolved” category and get my last look next May. Will I screen, I sincerely hope so. It’s in the hands of the Gods, as they say.
Oh, and speaking for the people not in Navy related commands (I’m at the Army CGSC), no one told me anything about the board. I had to dig around to find the results. Luckily there’s an 112o O-5 here who got the word from some friends.
Best of luck to everyone!!
June 18th, 2008 at 3:42 am
Good luck, shipmate. Keep a dispassionate eye on the possible outcomes…
March 22nd, 2009 at 6:19 am
It’s that time of year again. Chap, how about positing a refreshed post on the upcoming CO/XO board.
Has anyone ever seen the PRECEPTS LETTER for the submarine CO/XO board? The aviators post theirs.
Concerned DH
March 22nd, 2009 at 9:01 pm
Yeah, I probably need to do that. I’m getting stale, though; been a while since I smelled of diesel and tourmaline grease (although for weekend parties that’s a definite possibility).