Posted on May 13, 2016
Why does seniority trump merit, as it relates to career progression (even promotion)?
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Retention
Senior Leaders
Retention Senior Leaders
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Responses: 23
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I agree with the stuff already mentioned by COL (Join to see) and others. You will find, however that as you start to pass through the middle NCO ranks and gain experience as an NCO that these experiences are tracked through your NCOER as well as your academy school reports. These are some of the things that are looked at by senior leaders when deciding how and where to staff their unit leaders. In my experience, it often becomes the case where merit trumps seniority when you climb the career ladder past junior NCO. Just keep your head high, focus on excelling at your MOS and your military education and, more often then not, you will find yourself in a good place.
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This is true at the junior ranks. Even at the mid-ranks there is a TIS requirement. This is for a good reason. I don't want a SGT who hasn't had 3-5 years of experience as a trooper. Experience matters. I have to know that you've spent time in those positions AND that you understand the MOS before I put you in a leadership position. Until we have to instate the draft again, we aren't going to take recruits and make corporals out of them and make them SSG's in 2 years because they show potential. At more senior ranks, the TIS is still necessary, but the Army wide board process comes into play and merit takes over TIS (within the band going to the board).
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LTC Paul Labrador
Exactly. TIS is there to ensure you have enough opportunity to learn your job and to get your required schooling in. But it is merit that is going to get you on those promotion lists.
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Seniority nearly always brings with it a lot of experience that you can't learn in a book. A 50 year old machinist is much more wise than some kid who just graduated college, even though the old machinist may not have a degree. The machinist has experience and wisdom. A board needs to take both into account when deciding promotions.
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CW4 Tim Claus
The question is whether the SM has many years of experience to draw on, or one year of experience many times. TIS by itself may not that great of a discretionary factor for promotion, just one of them. In the same manner, there are those that believe height/weight and APFT trump all other factors. Maybe for combat arms, but for support MOS', that is a far less important. Depending upon the MOS requirements, fit enough to do the job, but extremely proficient technically may be far more valuable. In my old MOS, marine engineering, you can't run very far on a 128' tug or a 274' Logistics Support Vessel when underway, but endurance under demanding heat, vibration, and continued motion conditions are far more important than a two mile run time. And there is no direct correlation between the two. Unfortunately, the Army tends to veer towards common denominators that are easy to compare, rather than the far harder to assess technical competence under demanding field conditions.
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SFC Dave Parker
In TMDE calibration, our leadership frequently kept us moving to a different assignment. I never spent more than 2 1/2 years anywhere. It made us very adaptable and gave us experience in lots of assignments (made it hard to get equity in a house), with many different types of equipment. We were bench technicians, so PT and combat skills didn't seem to be near as important as it is in many of the front line units. A lot of the equipment we calibrated was critical to keeping vehicles running, commo equipment operational and helicopters flying, among others.
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