Your First Job

***READ ME - update JUN2022***

This may be the most quickly outdated section of my website. I was in the last residency classes to use the AIM 2.0 system for job hunting. This has now been superseded by the "Career manager" for new grads, and by IPSS-A for attendings looking for any subsequent jobs. I'm leaving most of the info here for posterity (and I spent a lot of time on it, dammit!, but I will make it clear what still applies and what does not. 

How the Match is Changing

When you are in your senior year of residency and are applying for jobs, you will NOT be using the AIM 2.0 system, you will have your job assigned via the Career Manager as I discussed above. The point of this will be to prevent exactly what happened to me - being assigned a position that is not appropriate given this stage of your career. With the Career Manager pulling the strings, you will still interview and submit your preferences, but ultimately, your fate is in the hands of your Career Manager. This will likely result in some people not getting locations they otherwise would have, but it SHOULD prevent people from being assigned to inappropriate positions fresh out of residency. How will this turn out? We'll just have to wait and see.

The Army Match

If you thought you were done playing the rank-matching game with residency, you are sorely mistaken! The Army has picked up that trend and currently (as of the 2021-2022 cycle), uses a nearly identical system for assigning graduating Transitional Years and Residents to jobs in the military. 

Big disclaimer: THE ARMY CHANGES THINGS ALL THE TIME. THIS IS ACCURATE AS OF THE 2022 SUMMER JOB APPLICATION CYCLE. The system actually changed right after I went through it, which I discuss at the bottom.

Overview

On the AIM website (https://aim.hrc.army.mil/portal/officer/portal.aspx), you can do several things including checking your ORB, updating your Army resume, and looking at/ranking jobs in the Talent Marketplace. This website and the rank system it supports were created to replace the traditional means of obtaining jobs whereby the "Career Manager" would play matchmaker and assign people to jobs roughly based on their preference. This system was designed to be more "fair" with the classic caveat that, as always, the needs of the Army come first. The date varies year to year, but this past cycle the marketplace was open from 23SEP-03NOV2021. 

The Marketplace

Within the "Talent Marketplace" tab, you will see an endless list of all the jobs that are available this cycle (some jobs do disappear and are added over time as the incumbent officers change their life plans). You can filter the jobs by rank, AOC (61N, 61H, 62B, etc) and location to see just the ones in which you are interested. You are usually permitted to apply for jobs at, or one level above, your current rank.

When you click on each job, it SHOULD list the name of the incumbent, the point of contact for interviewing/questioning, and give a description of the position. In my experience, a huge number of jobs had either missing, incorrect or unhelpfully vague information. The most useful information you can glean is the actual unit to which the position is assigned. With that, you can go to that unit's website and track down who you need to talk to yourself. The right idea is here, but hopefully that gets improved over time.

When you see a job that you like, you can save it by "liking" it. There is a green checkmark that you click that accomplishes this. By clicking that checkmark, you not only save the job to your personal rank list, you also notify that unit that you are interested in that job. You can add or remove the job as many times as you want until the close of the marketplace where your list will be locked.

The Marketplace

Within the "Talent Marketplace" tab, you will see an endless list of all the jobs that are available this cycle (some jobs do disappear and are added over time as the incumbent officers change their life plans). You can filter the jobs by rank, AOC (61N, 61H, 62B, etc) and location to see just the ones in which you are interested. You are usually permitted to apply for jobs at, or one level above, your current rank.

When you click on each job, it SHOULD list the name of the incumbent, the point of contact for interviewing/questioning, and give a description of the position. In my experience, a huge number of jobs had either missing, incorrect or unhelpfully vague information. The most useful information you can glean is the actual unit to which the position is assigned. With that, you can go to that unit's website and track down who you need to talk to yourself. The right idea is here, but hopefully that gets improved over time.

When you see a job that you like, you can save it by "liking" it. There is a green checkmark that you click that accomplishes this. By clicking that checkmark, you not only save the job to your personal rank list, you also notify that unit that you are interested in that job. You can add or remove the job as many times as you want until the close of the marketplace where your list will be locked.

The Interview Process

This is your time to shine. As you finally figure out who you need to talk to for each position, you will likely be required to interview with either the incumbent or the direct supervisor of the position to which you are applying. Everyone does this differently: some people prefer video chats, others phone calls, and a few don't interview at all. The only thing they are supposed to be able to see is whatever you put into your resume on AIM 2.0. They are not supposed to ask you for a picture of yourself, or your ORB, or your most recent ACFT card, or anything else like that, but you can guess how that goes... This is a great time to learn more about the position: deployment cycle, work/leave schedule, etc.

The Match

Once you've submitted your resume and done your interviews and made your rank list and it's still a few days before the marketplace locks, your work still isn't done. An important factor to keep in mind is the concept of the "1:1 match." Hypothetically, as the algorithm works (here's a YouTube video explaining the concept https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9mEBe7fzrmI), if both the officer and the unit rank each other #1, they are guaranteed to be matched up and the officer will be assigned to that unit. Now, the unit cannot ask you how you have ranked them, but they sure don't want to run the risk of being matched up with someone they don't like. You may be indirectly asked how you have ranked them, or more likely, you will freely volunteer that information. If you tell a unit that you have ranked them #1, and you are in their top 3 candidates, and the other 2 don't tell the unit where they are ranked, you can be sure the unit will want to go for the sure thing. 

Is this morally wrong? Does this completely break the idea of fairness in the match system? Will this cause you to have sleepless nights and overall undue stress? Yep, but you should be used to this by now, right?

Somewhere between late January and early March, the match results will come out and you will get an e-mail from your Career Manager with your assignment. From here, you will obtain your RFO, or Request For Orders, from the AIM 2.0 website. This is essentially your pre-orders, which has your assignment listed. You can use this document to submit to your HRC to get your real orders and to start your PCS process. 

My Experience

If you couldn't tell from my tone in the above text, I'm a bit jaded with the whole process. I was frustrated at the lack of available information available for each position (what type of unit it was, is this a MAP position?, what is the actual job???). I was also displeased with the whole fight for the 1:1 match - openly knowing who is ranking who where completely breaks the system. If everyone, both officers and units, just ranked who they liked the most, more officers would have their preferences met. By sharing your rank list with the unit, they get the power to choose their #1. Sure, this works out for some officers, but more often than not, it goes against our best interests as applicants. 

Now, I secured a 1:1 match with a position I was quite happy with. When it came time that I found out about my selected position, I was displeased to learn that I had been assigned to a unit nowhere near my top. I spoke with my Career Manager and learned that due to the "Needs of the Army," I was assigned to another unit, and the position to which I had a 1:1 match was simply being left unfilled as it was deemed not as important as there were not enough physicians to fill all of the positions. Because I used my #1 rank on a position that did not exist, and likely because the other positions below this had other people rank them #1, I fell down the ladder to a job lower down on my list. 

Needless to say, I was, and still am, rather salty about this (I am writing this about two weeks before I PCS from residency). This job is in a great location, so I can't argue with that. I was assigned to be the Brigade Surgeon of a FORSCOM unit - I don't inherently hate this position, but it is not exactly appropriate for me at this point in my career (this job should be reserved for O-4 officers) - see below (and in another page I will write at a later date). ***After reaching my new assignment, one of the established battalion surgeons was reassigned to be the Brigade Surgeon, and I took their place in the Battalion, which is a far more appropriate position. This type of internal shuffle is not uncommon in the Army, but it could have just as easily not happened.***

I got "Armied" or "screwed-over" or whatever else you want to call it. The match was not all I had hoped it would be, but it also definitely could have been worse. Also, most of my colleagues did get their #1 job as promised. Nevertheless, I have learned that Army GME is going to change how positions for newly graduating residents are assigned, to prevent what happened to me from happening to you.