Military Guard/Reserves and IB - would I be screwing my team over?
I have enjoyed five years in the Guard/Reserves and have just started my AN1 year in IB. I have eight months until I fulfill my current Guard/Reserves contract. Should I reenlist?
Pros
- I enjoy the military – it keeps me out of trouble, makes me stay fit and healthy, my leadership will call me out faster than anyone on the civilian side (if I get sloppy, they'll recognize it first)
- I have a sincere love for our country and getting to serve in the small capacity I do is meaningful to me (cheesy, but stay with me)
- If the market goes derriere-up, I can always hop onto active orders for a few months to a few years until IB ticks up again
- Exposure to leadership (both in practice and observing others) will allow me to better serve my IB teams in the future – make my team members feel valued, encourage top performance, and deliver pristine work product
- Incredibly cheap health insurance, retirement after 20 years (this means pulling ~$3000/month once I turn 65 no matter what the markets do)
- If there is a fire drill that conflicts with a military weekend, I can reschedule the obligation for another weekend so I can be fully present for my IB team
- Field events (generally once or twice a year plus two weeks in the summer) would be a great excuse to go spend some time in nature and recenter, especially considering the tempo of my civilian job the next 2-3 years
- I am willing to work through the nights on the weekends, then go to the base straight from the office to lessen the burden on my IB team
Cons
- The Guard/Reserves means one weekend every month and two weeks of the summer is the government's time, not mine
- Furthermore, generally one or two weekends a year, plus two weeks in the summer, I'll be dark and unable to access my phone/email (field training)
- I would have slower response time and slower work efficiency on 25% of my weekends (one weekend every month)
- Possibility of getting pulled from IB to deploy (relatively unlikely, maybe once or twice in next 15 years)
- While this would interfere with my "ideal" career timeline and it wouldn't be pleasant, I would be happy to go serve in this capacity if requested
Can you wait to reenlist after a year or two?
Yes, next summer I can suspend the monthly obligation for a few years. Might be a good strategy for the analyst years.
Why don't you become an officer?
I would love to serve as an officer - I've seen firsthand the positive impact they can have on moral and training outcomes. I am planning to help offset the cost of attendance for business school through an ROTC program. Afterwards, the training pipeline for my branch and ideal mission specialty is 1.5 to 2 years. I decided not to commission after undergrad because of the extended timeline.
Do you think letting my enlisted contract expire, then commissioning after b-school (into the Guard/Reserves) would be a solid strategy?
It might be more beneficial to apply for B school as an officer to crack M7, but coming from IB, you'll likely have a good shot anyway. Also, I think you can use the 9/11 GI Bill for B school.
Those are good points, thank you.
The pros don't really sound like pros to me.
I was AD and never spent any times reserves or guard, so take this for what you will.
What are your aspirations within the organization? Do you enjoy serving, do you want to lead, is there a position you want to obtain, a unit you want to assess for? If it is for passive income and healthcare, there are better ways to obtain that IMO.
If your goal is IB, why dedicate less time to it? I would offer that advice to people wanting to come to selection all the time. Why wait, why half ass it?
Just simply based on what you typed, I'd get out, get your disability rating, and go head first into what it is you want to do. If you want to do the military that is fine, but again, based on what you typed I'm not convinced you're /that/ passionate about it.
He sounds passionate about it. Wondering which MOS he is doing though.
Thank you for the insight. I agree there are better ways to establish passive income/ solid healthcare, and these are not unique to the military. You are right that the goal is IB, and anything that detracts is automatically a material concern.
As far as passion - I imagine that we share the same affinities of the military as you experienced: being pushed to be better by people who don't know what "euphemism" means, doing fun stuff (as my high-speed, low-drag POG MOS permits), being responsible for the development of your juniors, and interacting with people from all over the US from different backgrounds (instant reach network-wise and genuine connection). In my opinion as a green professional, the military is the best centralized way to ensure these experiences are present.
Open to any additional input you may have.
Honestly, I think you can seek what you're looking for elsewhere. Did you do 90 days AD for the GI bill yet?
As far as leadership goes, I believe your experience being exposed to good, and shitty leadership is enough. It is also different, in the military these people 'have' to listen to you. Being a leader in your peer group is a very different brand, and being around the leaders in your group will pay larger dividends than being around an NCO/field grade.
Again take my advice with a grain of salt as I never did any NG/reserve time. In theory everything I'm saying could be wrong about your leaders and experiences.
Hey man, I was an officer in the reserves while in banking and now at H/S/W. My path was a little different because I had to go do BOLC and schedule that around the start of my analyst stint which added some difficulty.
If you're just starting your analyst time, I would withhold judgement for now. Really you should see what your schedule looks like once you're in the swing of things. You can say I'm willing to grind it out all you want, but your perspective will change once you do a string of 70+ hour weeks and then have drill. You may say, wow I can't believe I'm spending my only free time at drill. Or you may say, wow I work less on a drill weekend than on a normal weekend, this is great.
It's not a financial decision. Forget the healthcare / retirement stuff. Finance is way more lucrative and depending on your banks policies, you may actually lose money going to drill.
If you're looking to get b-school paid for, I would suggest getting 90 days of active duty, which you may have already, and ride that partial GI.
IB and finance is a selfish game. It's not the military where you put the needs of the military first-you must put your needs and interest first-your bank sure as hell won't. They "can't" hold it against you (explicitly). If you haven't already, study USERRA (written in understandable language and it's short). And read your banks military policy. If anyone every pushes back on you for being out of pocket, you better keep those emails.
Lastly, just be brutally honest with yourself about what you want your life to look like over the next five years. Between work and drill will you have time to meet someone, keep up with friends, start a family? My thought would be, you served your country now go get yours.
Happy to chat more about any of this
Thank you. This is a great perspective - a better informed decision is likely standing down the road after a string of 70 hour weeks. Congrats on successfully juggling BOLC and your analyst start back then.
I have seen a couple people in Reserves over the years. Big thing is they were all more senior than analyst though. I would defer for 2 years and then decide - see if you are even still in IB at that point. Most of your "pros" are not really pros - maybe for a blue-collar job, but you're solving most of those already by being in a high-paying finance job.
An associate or VP leaving a project for a weekend is not a huge problem, an analyst leaving a project means you'll have to restaff it once per month and your class would hate you if they are constantly picking up work. It's really hard to plug and unplug analysts that often as they are intimately familiar with the model and materials. You would eventually get put on less important projects as an analyst can't be leaving a big live deal frequently.
The other issue is doing Reserves essentially counts as your "vacation" time. No one is going to restaff a project for your vacation week when they are doing it all the time for you to go to training. It'll be nice to be outside for your field events, but consider if you want to take very little to no additional vacation.
tldr - This is somewhat doable once you hit ASO, but I would hit pause for analyst years
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