What’s Next? 3 HRC Career Managers weigh in on Post KD CPT Assignments
You’ve just taken command, issued your first set of orders to the company, signed off on enough memoranda and delegations of authority that your hand is cramping, and your First Sergeant just sent everyone home so you can have a quiet moment to think. While you’re trying to wrap your head around the Battalion Long-Range Training Calendar, you should also take a moment to consider what’s next for you as a professional. In your first meeting with your rater and senior rater as a commander, they’ll want (and need) to know what your future plans are. Should you assess as a future member of the 75th Ranger Regiment, apply to be a USMA Instructor, Observer, Coach, and Trainer, or Small Group Leader, or do you have your eyes on a highly competitive broadening opportunity program such as the Bradley or Harding Fellowships?
Your future plans and timeline requirements are critical factors in determining the length of your command(s) and are indicative of your perceived potential for future service. At some point, your rater and senior rater will ask “what’s next?” for you. The first wrong answer here is to be unprepared to respond. The second wrong answer is to provide them with a list of selective opportunities that you would like to pursue without clearly indicating your #1 choice or showing you’ve done the analysis behind your response. The best answer is one where you’ve done your homework on application timelines, have contacted a recruiter (if applicable), and can coherently speak to your rater and senior rater about when you would depart the organization if you are selected. If you approach this conversation poorly, it may come off as “disloyal,” given you are just beginning your first true key developmental (KD) assignment. If you handle this conversation professionally and pragmatically, it demonstrates that you understand your career timeline, have established goals and means to attain them, and you have the ability to look up-and-out while accomplishing your daily requirements – hallmarks of a successful future field grade officer. Your leaders hope that you don’t regard Company Command as the pinnacle of your Army career. Give them something that shows that you see your career the same way.
What you want, and what you may need
Outside of the opportunities that are well-published and well-known, there are numerous positions available through the ATAP marketplace. This article covers many of them and ways to shape your career. When it comes to picking one, it is critical that you do so with an eye to your future development and goals. “Senior Dolphin Enumerator” in Miami, FL may sound like a fun opportunity and one that you’re personally interested in, but if you wish to continue to serve, you must also consider the next steps in your career. Take an honest look in the mirror and assess your strengths, weaknesses, and the attributes that make you unique. Your post-KD broadening assignment is a delicate balance of developing your weaknesses, reinforcing your strengths, and giving back to your family. Some positions naturally lend themselves to immersing you in the skills and experiences that you will need to round yourself out and gain professional momentum moving forward.
The best advice we can give when determining your post-command assignment is to consider three things.
1. the date your Major promotion selection board will convene,
2. your current and past performance on your Officer Evaluation Reports (OERs)
3. current promotion trends.
Once considered, ask yourself two questions.
1. Is this assignment a good fit based on my current/past performance?
2. How many OERs will I receive in this assignment prior to my promotion selection board?
As Career Managers, we have had many conversations with officers who use location as the singular driver of preferencing. While this may work out from a personal/family perspective, it is unfortunately more common than not that they find themselves on the wrong end of a promotion selection list. For example, if you are in a small, highly selective, highly competitive group of peers that share the same senior rater with you at a choice assignment and location, you could very well find yourself losing competitiveness for promotion or other professional opportunities. If you find yourself in this position, one of the best things you can do is express some humility and reach out to your career manager for help with moving you to a more professionally suitable assignment. There should be multiple reasons why you are preferencing a position both personally and professionally. As pointed out by MAJ Erin Williams in this article, using location can also move you into a highly competitive pool that “wastes” your ability to maximize the agency the marketplace gives you. Ultimately, promotion selection boards weigh your performance and OERs without consideration given to where you received them.
The Past is Prologue
Many officers express frustration with the culture of counseling at their units. Unit OPTEMPO, rater/senior rater availability, personality clashes, and lack of command emphasis all create barriers to providing timely feedback on performance and perceived potential. Despite this, every officer should at least receive a critical, career-impacting counseling at least once per year in the form of an OER. Take a hard look at the senior rater potential block check and narrative in your OERs over the totality of your career. This is the single biggest determinant in forecasting your promotion potential to senior field-grade ranks and your relative competitiveness for nominative assignments and broadening opportunity programs. Are you demonstrating the most potential (as shown by MQ block checks) in staff positions or leadership positions? Are you a strongly enumerated (#1 or #2) officer or one who is “among the top 25%”? Use this feedback to identify the “hole” in your professional development and align yourself towards an assignment that helps you fix it.
The Leader Development model is another way to assess your strengths and weaknesses and can help guide which types of assignments to pursue next. Reflect on the assignments you have served in, determine if there are any gaps, and consider pursuing an assignment that fills them. Ideally, that assignment is one that you walk into on day one and are immediately uncomfortable and forced to learn quickly while still being able to perform at a high level. As a field grade officer, your potential for future service hinges on showing that you are a complete officer who is equally adept in leadership positions and with staff work and analysis. Use your post-KD CPT assignment as an opportunity to close that gap before you begin ILE or report to your next unit.
You are your own Career Manager
Choosing your post-KD broadening assignment has impacts that will reverberate for the rest of your career. This assignment will potentially give you skills or education that opens opportunities later in your career. Analyzing this choice poorly, treating it as an inconsequential service period, or yielding your marketplace agency to the preferencing algorithm, is a mistake that may cost you promotion. It may also cost you joint or nominative assignments, and/or the ability to compete for an assignment that will prepare you for a successful transition from your military service. Successful career management requires a harmonization of your personal considerations and professional needs. Choose wisely.
Authors Biographies
MAJ Jesse Bryant currently serves as the post-KD CPT Career Manager for Infantry Branch. He has previously served in the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault), 3d Cavalry Regiment, US Army Cadet Command, and US Army Recruiting Command. He can be reached at jesse.r.bryant3.mil@army.mil .
MAJ Mark Pangilinan currently serves as the LT and Pre-KD CPT Career Manager for Field Artillery Branch. He has previously served in the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) and 3rd Infantry Division. He can be reached at mark.pangilinan.mil@army.mil
CPT Michael Kennedy currently serves as the post-KD CPT Career Manager for Military Police Branch. He has previously served in the 89th Military Police Brigade and the United States Army Criminal Investigation Division. He can be reached at michael.t.kennedy2.mil@army.mil.
