Joelanda Joelanda:
I have a Canadian citizenship and a College diploma involving electronic communication and engineering. Both which can be an asset for positions outside of just being "the average rifleman".
Honestly, there are at least 5 or more of advertisement posters at my campus alone in different sizes and shapes. An officer or two sometimes come to attend a job fair, I remember. I also overhearing someone in the military getting around $20/hr or more.
Usually I won't consider this but seeing as how most of the engineering/manufacturing in the "civilian" sector has been outsourced and with disasters like Nortel, I am thinking of the Canadian Forces as an option.
My reasons:
1) government job.
2) full time employee benefits
3) above average salary?(confirm please)
4) Vital skills such as management, co-ordination, problem solving which big shot
companies would love you to have.
5) paid salary while studying in the military academies.
Most are what I have heard from ads but I would like to ask first hand from employees or employees you know rather than from the ad.
1)Is it a pre-requisite that all new employees must be first trained as foot soldiers first? Or can you just jump right into higher positions like airforce, navy, and tele-communications without going through infantry? or is it mandatory to start off as a "private" foot-soldier?
2)Even though they say the do need electrical and computer engineers.
3)What are the chances of getting that non-infantry job anyway? Like pilot for example.
4)Is the job as promising as the ad?? and the fact that its a "government job" makes it good enough to jump at?
So how is working in the military?
Being the most recent member on the board to go through "the machine" (training phase, still in it, fuck), I hope to be able to give the most accurate and up-to-date info possible.
Firstly, talking to a recruiter is not your best bet.
Your best bet would be
http://www.army.ca/forums. Create an account and ask about what trades you can get into, the prosses, etc. there is atleast one person there from every trade, including the poor bastards that get sent to Alert.
Go here to look up all the different trades:
http://www.forces.ca/v3/engraph/jobs/careermatcher_en.aspx?bhcp=1 The page is fairly self explanitory, use the menu's and options to narrow down your search based on your skills and wants.
As for my personal experiance: Some recruiting centres are better than others. I went through victoria, and from the date they recieved my application to the day I was on the plane was a solid 28 days, compared to 6-8 months or even several years for other people who were on my BMQ (basic training). they were also very helpful in gettng me on the plane, as I had lost basically every piece of ID I owned the day before I was supposed to leave. They also dug and found an open armoured slot for me so I wouldn't have to wait to start until June. They also processed my application far faster than usual to get this done. This is without me getting buddies to pull strings. Most recruiting centres wont do this for you.
When you do sign up, there is plenty of initial paperwork to fill. The most important for your future being the prt on what trades you want; you have a maximum of three slots to fill. Remember you don't have to fill all three slots, so specify ONLY what you want, and make sure that is all that you want. This can't be emphasised enough. If you fill all three slots, and one or more of the trades you chose is not the trade you want, you risk getting sucked into it. They will stick you in the spot in most need of people, it isn't based on your order of peference. So if you want only one trade, put only one trade down, thats what I did with Armoured. Told them not to bother with the paperwork if they weren't going to find me an armoured spot, both on my application and during the interview.
Once you send your initial paperwork off, you will eventually be assessed for both mental capaity (do you think or are you a vegitable?), and during the interview. you want to get brownie points in both.
The assesment test is basically to judge the quality of your thought, your perception, memory, etc. For me it wasn't hard at all, had some dificulty with the english component, but finished tops anyways. I can't actually say what is on the tests or what my score was, but a good tip given to me was to take every online IQ test you can find on the internet, and it paid off. Unles you can fit an english university course inbetween now and your test, you wont be able to develop that part much.
The interview is the interview. There is a small questionair before it, but on both be brutally honest about everything, drug use, orientation, etc. there are very few drugs they would actually care about aslong as they were used in the past, and not currently. A drug test taken on the spot will prove whether or not you are drug free as of the interview. You are more likely to get nailed for drinking than drugs, even if you have been a hardcore addict for 10 years. The point is at th moment of the interview you are "clean."
As for other things on the interview, you may have to make shit up. When asked what I did for my community I told them I clesned graffitti off the back of the school... I didn't clean graffitti of the back of the school. Be honest as much as you can, but in a pinch (like mine with community stuffs), make something up.
After they process your info, you will be contacted with a job offer. In my case the job offer was on a tuesday, and that friday I was sworn in and saturday morning at about 4am I left for St. Jean, Quebec. If the job offer is of what you want, you may choose to accept it, and you will be given a time and date for your swearing in ceremony. If it isn't of what you want, or you aren't ready for watever reason to jin, you may decine the offer.
If you chose to accept it, you will be given a date to go to the recruiting centre, you will fill out more paperwork, be sworn into the military, solve any last minute problems (me and my ID), etc. There is a personal information document they say you have to have filled out by then for your security clearance, but you don't have to have it filed out. that will be dealt with during your basic course. However, it shows initiative to have completed it beforehand.
Once this is done, you will be given a date to leave for basic, and you leave. from here on the process differs from officer and NCM. Being an NCM, I know the process is a 3 month basic course, sometimes longer if you take leave during basic (for christmas, summer, etc.) you have to complete a 13 km ruck march with a 24.5KG load, a firemans carry for 100 meters of a person of equal weight and size, and a tranch dig measuring 6 feet by 24 by 18 inches to be completed in 6 minutes. Tthis is done week of the course. so if you aren't fit, get fit now, if you are fit, get more fit. we had one newfie on our course complete the trench dig in 2:34, the course finished the ruck march in 1 hour and 57 minutes, after catching up to and getting stuck behind the platoon ahead of us (we could have finished it faster), and the 100 meter was simply if you got it done or not. For fun I loaded my ruck up over 80 pounds, and including everything ele I strapped on for kit, plus my 135lb (at the time) body weight, my march weight came out to 273lbs. My feet were fucked for the rest of course. Yes it gives you bragging rights to double your body weight for the march, but it isn't worht the pain during the last two weeks in the field. Lucky i didn't fuck my knees.
Back to basic, the first 9 weeks, 8 f whcih are numbered, you are mostly in classroms save for the period of time during week 5 or 6 that you get C7 training. you also have a fitness test your first week. it isn't hard to pass, 19 pushups, 19 situps, grip test of 60 pounds total (30 per hand), and a 6 on the huttle run. least that was for me at 18 years old and beig male. as you get older or are female the standards go down somewhat.
wek 9 is your first field week. If you go to St. Jean, as 90% of recrutis do, you will go to the Farnham training area. it is a cakewalk. week 10 you get to dress up in cadpat bunny suits which are supposed to protect you in a nuclear, chmical, or biologically contaminated environment. this is CBRN week, and it sucks. weeks 11 and 12 are in farnham again, cept you are actually out in the field doing shit. week 11 is mostly more learning, but week 12 is all practical application, and between the 2-4 hours sleep you might get daily, it is fun as hell. week 13 you practice for your grad parade, and you graduate. Your boots better be shiny!
After basic training you are sent off to some other base for trainng, depends on yoru trade. guys from my course went from Esquimalt, BC all the way to out here in Gagetown, NB. depending on your trade, you could start course immediately, or wait on a holding latoon for weks or months. sometimes they get you to do useful things on olding, othertimes not. in my case i sat on my ass the whole time and took a weeks leave to prevent myself from going insane. was fun.
Depending on your trade, you will either start your SQ (Soldiers qualification) if you are in the army, Environmental training if you are navy, or spend 7 nights in a 5 star hotel if you are airforce. This is followed by your actual trades training, which used to be reffered to as your QL3, but in my case is a DP1... So i'm not to sure. The DP1 might be specifically for me and infantry guys because Armoured and Infantry have now scraped the SQ and QL 3 in favour of merged courses to speed up the training process. seems to be working. over the past week i've learned 3 new weapons systems, and next week there will be more,then even more after summer block leave.
I otherwise couldn't tell you what happens after basic for the other two elements.
I'm afriad that since I didn't go Officer, I'm not familiar with that process. All I do know is that you still hav to do a (longer) basic course, but you don't have to be an infanteer.
As for something you might be more interested in: pay. As a private (soon to be Trooper), I am recieving in my pocket 1400 dollars monthly after paying taxes, living expenses, etc. out of around 2500 Gross. Not bad for someone fresh out of highschool. If you go officer it is more. Either way, the first few years your salary jumps quickly. By the time I am corporal less than 3 years from now I'll be making Gross $4200 per month. many people 10-15 years into their civvie careers arenèt making that much. And since it is the army, it is basically reccesion and shock-proof. banks and credit card companies will love you.
Anyways, hope that helps. Pardon my spelling and grammatical errors, it is almost 1am here, and I am using a latop balanced precariously atop three different objects.
And for you 2Cdo, to quote something funny I read on the bathroom stall, "Infantry is the Queen of the Battlefield, Armour is the Steel Chastity Belt that Keeps that Bitch from Getting Raped."
cheers.
CKA Uber 
