Nimrod
Midshipman

Greetings all, as the title implies, I’ve been lurking on and off for quite a while now, considering a career change. I decided to sit on my hands no longer, and called the recruiting hotline on the RN website. Friendly guy on the end of the line couldn’t really answer any of the questions I asked, but sorted me out with an intro at the AFCO in about 3 weeks.
I was hoping in the meantime, that somebody in the know might be able to provide a few answers to some of my questions!
1) I’m old. Really old. As it stands, I’d only be eligible for Logistics Officer, or Training Management Officer. The RN website is much much more modern and easy to navigate than the Army website, but there isn’t a great deal of hard information there about the day-to-day life of the two specialisations, nor what one can further specialise in.
I.e. I presume RN logistics go everywhere that the RN do - is this the case? Although a working life afloat isn’t a negative for me, I’d like to have the opportunity to work on land, and ideally on ops too. Is this a realistic possibility?
It states that there are a few places available for Training Management Officers with Arts Degrees (BA’s, that is, not painting) (which is what I have). What sort of things would a person with this profile do?
Basically, I’m really keen to join, despite my age, but I want a career with variety, and breadth of opportunity to diversify, or specialise if at all possible. Is this sort of career possible in Logistics or Training Management?
2) Career progression: The Army website has a clear career progression chart, with time-in-rank estimates, and so on. Would the Navy progression be very similar? For example - if one was to pass all training, good reputation and quality of work etc, what sort of timescale would we roughly be talking about to Lt. Commander, from graduating BRNC?
3) I found an archived page from the old RN website regarding ‘The In-Service Degree Scheme’. It is nowhere to be found on the current site, or the MOD site. Does it still exist? I recall reading somewhere that it is possible to achieve an MA at some point, perhaps at Staff College, or when you are in a more senior position?
Sorry for the massive first post, many thanks in advance!
ig:
I was hoping in the meantime, that somebody in the know might be able to provide a few answers to some of my questions!
1) I’m old. Really old. As it stands, I’d only be eligible for Logistics Officer, or Training Management Officer. The RN website is much much more modern and easy to navigate than the Army website, but there isn’t a great deal of hard information there about the day-to-day life of the two specialisations, nor what one can further specialise in.
I.e. I presume RN logistics go everywhere that the RN do - is this the case? Although a working life afloat isn’t a negative for me, I’d like to have the opportunity to work on land, and ideally on ops too. Is this a realistic possibility?
It states that there are a few places available for Training Management Officers with Arts Degrees (BA’s, that is, not painting) (which is what I have). What sort of things would a person with this profile do?
Basically, I’m really keen to join, despite my age, but I want a career with variety, and breadth of opportunity to diversify, or specialise if at all possible. Is this sort of career possible in Logistics or Training Management?
2) Career progression: The Army website has a clear career progression chart, with time-in-rank estimates, and so on. Would the Navy progression be very similar? For example - if one was to pass all training, good reputation and quality of work etc, what sort of timescale would we roughly be talking about to Lt. Commander, from graduating BRNC?
3) I found an archived page from the old RN website regarding ‘The In-Service Degree Scheme’. It is nowhere to be found on the current site, or the MOD site. Does it still exist? I recall reading somewhere that it is possible to achieve an MA at some point, perhaps at Staff College, or when you are in a more senior position?
Sorry for the massive first post, many thanks in advance!