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Re-upping’s new rules

Get used to it — most sailors now need Big Navy approval to ship over. And many will have to switch jobs if they want to stay.

That will soon be the reality for the nearly 150,000 sailors, E-6 and below, who have less than 14 years of service.

Even as the Navy’s drawdown pauses, more and more sailors are trying to stay in the Navy rather than attempting to get a job on the outside. Now, manpower planners find themselves with more sailors than they need.

To solve the problem, officials have expanded the Perform to Serve program, through which sailors request to re-enlist and face the prospects of forced job changes if there’s not enough room in their current rating.

TAKE OUR QUIZ: Find out what you need to do to re-enlist

PTS has been in effect for first-term sailors since 2003. Earlier this year, it was expanded to sailors with six to 10 years of service, and is expected to capture all sailors E-6 and below with up to 14 years later this year.

But there is another reality that most sailors aren’t aware of yet: Most commands aren’t ensuring their sailors are properly counseled and processed through the system, personnel officials say. This hurts sailors’ chances of staying Navy — or, at the very least, getting a job they want.

The system is not automatic. Sailors must state their goals, and command career counselors need to put in their applications. It’s up to sailors to arm themselves with knowledge to work the system and push their leaders to ensure they get a fair shake.

The program can be confusing, and not everyone knows how it works. Navy Times talked with top personnel officials to figure out the best ways to either keep your job or get a new one you like.

1. Start on time

Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy (SS/SW) Rick West says many commands neglect to process their sailors’ paperwork when they’re supposed to, which is 12 months before a sailor’s end of active service. Each application is reviewed monthly a maximum of six times — called “looks” — until the six-month point.

Under PTS, sailors are evaluated by computer using criteria such as a commanding officer’s recommendation, critical Navy enlisted classification, paygrade, advancement selection, regular evaluations and “passed, not advanced” status. Sailors are assigned scores and ranked.

If you start two months late, you’re only getting four looks, and that hurts your chances. If you are within 14 or 15 months of your end of active obligated service and no one has talked to you about your plans for re-enlistment, then your command career counselor isn’t on the ball.

You must immediately go to your chief or leading petty officer to get started. If that doesn’t work, knock on your command master chief’s door.

2. Go to a career development board

“Sailors should get most of their career advice and counseling from their leaders,” said Randy Miller, a retired master chief Navy counselor who works in the Career Development Programs and Policy division at Navy Personnel Command in Millington, Tenn.

A good place to start is a conversation with your leading petty officer or chief; that can happen at any time.

But the way to ensure sailors get the best guidance is by using a formal career development board chaired by the department’s leading chief and career development team members. In this forum, supervisors discuss a sailor’s strengths and weaknesses — and help the sailor map out short- and long-term career goals.

“It should really start the day a sailor checks into his/her command,” Miller said. But not all commands hold these boards, a problem identified by previous MCPON Joe Campa, who said that “chiefs who don’t hold career development boards are failing their sailors.”

Though current MCPON West believes there has been some progress in the fleet in getting commands to comply, he still believes it’s a problem.

“We continue to overlook the importance of career development boards,” he said. “If you want to set a sailor up for success, then you should provide a road map starting the day they receive orders to your command, to include sponsorship, [indoctrination], divisional qualifications, watch-standing duties, warfare qualifications, CDBs, etc., everything through the PTS submission.”

But Miller also said that for boards to be effective, leaders need to know the current state of the sailor’s rating. They should be up front and “brutally honest” with sailors about their chances for staying in the Navy and in their current career field, and not be reluctant to encourage sailors to investigate other ratings where their chances could be better.

If you haven’t had a career development board in the past six months to a year — or possibly ever — Miller said to ask your chain of command for one. Start with your leading petty officer and chief; if you don’t get any movement there, move on to the command master chief. As a last resort, you can request captain’s mast and ask the CO, he said.

3. Get a critical NEC

If you have the right Navy enlisted classification, you stand a significantly increased chance of keeping your rating, officials say. So if staying in your rating is your goal, review the latest Career Re-enlistment Objectives list, which features the most critical NECs. Then investigate how you can qualify for one that applies to your rating and is available at your command.

“For some ratings, such as electronics technician, almost everyone has an NEC — so sailors need to seek out and obtain the most critical NECs for their rating, along with striving to reach the highest paygrade and get the best promotion recommendations possible,” Miller said. “It is a competitive process, so do what it takes to stand out in the system.”

You should consult your leading petty officer or chief to find out what’s most critical and might fit your abilities.

And don’t wait to get started. The process of getting an NEC can take years, and you might not have that much time if you’ve already started the PTS process. Get to know your rating and what it offers early, and ask for the schools or on-the-job training that can lead to these career-saving job codes.

As sailors with six to 14 years of service start moving into the PTS system, NECs will become more important, Miller said. That’s because most sailors with that much time in uniform will be E-5s or E-6s, and having a critical NEC will be one of the few ways to stand out from the pack.

4. Consider switching ratings

The harsh reality is this: If a sailor doesn’t receive an “in-rate” quota after his first two looks, he should consider updating his application with the “willing to convert” option.

“Eighty-four percent of those who get approved in rate get that quota in the first two months,” Miller said.

“Beyond that, any sailor whose goal is to stay in the Navy needs to start looking at conversion options. Don’t wait until the last look, because by then it could be too late.”

Sailors should start, at the latest, at 15 months before their discharge date to ensure they can investigate and qualify for new career fields.

Personnel officials have created a computer program that every career counselor can access called Fleet RIDE, or “ratings identification engine.”

This computer-based program asks sailors questions about their interests and abilities first, looking at their Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery scores and medical and legal data; it then cross-references those things with Navy jobs that have needs.

Sailors will only be shown jobs they qualify for based on their test scores.

5. Retake the ASVAB

Your scores on the ASVAB will make or break your chances of converting into a new rating.

If you’re not satisfied with your ASVAB scores, you can take the test every six months. This test, more than any other, determines which ratings a sailor can qualify for.

Start with your command’s career counselor, who cannot look only at test scores, but who can provide study aids or classes to improve chances of a higher score. Officials have long said that just a couple of years in the fleet is enough to significantly boost ASVAB scores alone — and a little studying can make even more difference.

6. Track conversion quotas

If it looks like you’re not going to be able to keep your job, it’s time to start looking at other ratings. The best options are always the undermanned ones.

You should track conversion quotas, which are posted on Navy Personnel Command’s Web site early each month. These give sailors a couple of weeks to rework conversion options on their applications based on what’s hot at the moment.

The update shows which ratings are the Navy’s biggest areas of need, and they can change from month to month. If there’s a rating on the list that’s offering quotas and the sailor qualifies for that rating, then officials encourage the sailor to re-submit their application to indicate they would be willing to convert.

Hurry, those quotas could be gone next month.

7. Choose the right job

Before choosing a new rating, sailors must be sure they’ll be happy in the job.

“Once the system gives an acceptance, that’s it,” Miller said. “There’s no going back and asking for another look — it just doesn’t work that way.”

Beyond job satisfaction, sailors must also be sure they don’t go for a conversion without being completely qualified. A sailor approved for a rating change who is later deemed not qualified could end up being booted from the service.

8. Manage your looks

This is not a “fire-and-forget” system where you send off your paperwork and hope for the best. You must manage each look along the way to try to maximize your chances of staying in.

This means you must update information on your application when something has changed or if you were not picked up in rate right away.

Because of the weight put on rank in the system, if you are selected for, or advanced to, a higher rank, update your application immediately.

This also goes for evals: If you have received a new, regular periodic performance evaluation — special evals aren’t allowed here — put the new details in there This also goes for any Navy enlisted classifications you’ve earned since the process began.

Only your career counselor can change your application’s details in the system.

Though everyone is given six chances to get picked up to ship over, there are some cases where sailors get more than six chances in the system, Miller said.

This is because many sailors – especially those in high-tech fields — come in with an initial four-year enlistment coupled with a mandatory extension agreed to up front in exchange for a given rating or specialized training.

These sailors can compete in the system as they come up on their initial end-of-service date. If they don’t get picked up, they simply let their extension kick in and compete again when they are within a year of the end of that extension.

9. Go Reserve

Starting Oct. 1, sailors will be allowed to ask the system for a guaranteed Selected Reserve quota in addition to their active-duty request. It requires no extra effort; you can ask for this on the same application that has your active-duty preferences, Miller said.

A sailor can request a Reserve quota without hurting his chances of getting an active one. This dual track increases a sailor’s options; a sailor conceivably could be approved to convert into another rating on active duty and simultaneously have the chance to stay in his current rating if he opts to go into the Navy Reserve.

Regardless of how they end up with a quota, sailors must decide quickly on whether they’ll use it or risk losing their “reservation” to stay in.

Once picked up for an active-duty quota, a sailor has 30 days to sign a written agreement accepting the reservation. Reserve quotas do not expire.

Related reading:

MCPON: Commands are failing sailors