The Best Place for Current Students and Recent Graduates to Work.

Tinker AFB

Being a college student can be very stressful. With all the homework, midterms, finals, and group projects, one would think that there cannot be much more that can stress you out. There is one thing we forget about college, though. And that one thing is the very reason we are going to school; to get a job. It is important to have an idea of a place that could potentially be where you start a career after school, and that can be very stressful. It is a big decision as it could affect the rest of your life. That is why I am here. In this blog I will be telling you about a place in Oklahoma that, in my mind, is no doubt the best place to pursue a career during or after college. That place is Tinker Air Force Base. There are a number of reasons that this place is a great choice. In this blog I will give a little bit of a history lesson about Tinker AFB, I will give a little view about the kind of work that is out there, I will overview the advantages of being a federal employee, and lastly I will talk about job opportunities that are current, and some that happen a couple of times throughout the year. I hope that this blog can give some of you a little piece of information that may help you decide on where to work.

First, Tinker Air Force Base has a pretty interesting history. In March of 1941, a site selection committee came to the Oklahoma City area looking for a place that could be a potential spot for a repair depot. A couple months later, construction began, and a year after that, the Oklahoma City Air Depot was born. Over the first couple of years, most of the work at the depot was repairing and modifying planes to make longer trips require less stops. From the first few years of productivity, it just grew and grew. In 1966, the depot added a new building, the one hundred thousand square foot building 3001 (Crowder). Which at the time was called OCAMA headquarters. Now that building is called the OC-ALC, or the Oklahoma City Air Logistics Center. That building is now home to the most employees on Base. Tinker Air Force Base as a whole is also the state of Oklahoma’s largest “single-site” employer. The Base as a whole has around fifteen thousand civilian employees, one thousand reservist, and nine thousand active duty (Fast Facts). Tinker Air Force Base is home to both Air Force and Navy military members and their families. Just recently the Base took over control of the GM plant that was just outside of the gates. It was renamed building 9001, and it is easily the largest building on the instillation. It could also potentially over take building 3001 for most employees, too. It is still in the early stages of productivity, so there are still things being added to it. Tinker Air Force Base leases out building 9001 from the City of Oklahoma City for a whopping price of one dollar a year.

Second, the installation of Tinker Air Force Base is home to a huge variety of jobs. That is why I think this is the best place to pursue a career. A great thing about the Base is that they hire a large amount of people with and without college degrees. The first thing a person could do out here is join the Air Force and do whatever it is that your boss places you. Joining after you graduate college with a Bachelor’s degree, you would join as an officer, and immediately begin at a higher position than somebody who joins as an enlistee. If the air force is not the route you are trying to go down, there is almost an opportunity to do anything you can think of. If you are looking for work and do not have a degree, Tinker seems to be constantly hiring new maintenance employees. Those types of jobs would be mechanics, painters, paint strippers, and other kinds of blue collar types of jobs. For people who are in the process of going to school, Tinker has many internship programs for current students. Current student internships are paid internships for students that are enrolled in a school (OPM). I recently got a job as an intern in the Supply Chain Management wing, and it is a very good opportunity, and it was a fairly easy application process. Other areas of the Base will also hire interns for their certain degree fields. Tinker AFB and the University of Central Oklahoma used to have a partnership, and representatives from the Base visit UCO and hire students. That has ended, but they still give strong consideration to UCO students, and UCO still advertises opportunities at Tinker. If you are a recent graduate, you can still go the internship route, you would just have to begin a pursuit of your Master’s, which is a great idea if you are trying to pursue the highest possible pay. The recent graduate program that is offered is for students who completed a degree within the last two years. If not, there are a number of jobs that would hire a person with a Bachelor’s in some kind of business degree field. Some of the job areas out at Tinker Air Force Base are Finance, Human Resources, Supply Chain Management, Operations Management, Protocol, and many more. Each of those job areas have another branch of different job areas that come from them. It is really a job rich place. There are constantly people retiring, so in response to that, jobs are always opening up.

Third, the benefits of working at Tinker AFB are very good. I think the benefits are probably one of the biggest reason that most of the civilian employees pursued their respective careers at the Base. I will start off with the just the benefits of having Base access. Having access to the base as a civilian employee grants you entry to all of the gyms on base. There are three, and all of them are free of charge. No memberships needed. There are also pools, a bowling alley, a movie theatre, a library, and a golf course that are also available and open to civilian use. Those are not free, but a big perk is that there is not a sales enforced on Tinker Air Force Base. The benefits are even greater for people who are military and military dependent. Those people are allowed to do all the things civilians do plus more. The Base has a commissary that is a giant grocery store, and we all know groceries can be expensive, so not having to pay taxes on those is a relief. There is also a place called the Base Exchange, which is a lot like a Target. So parents do not have to pay tax on things like clothes, school supplies, electronics, and all kinds of other things. Military and military dependents are also allowed to purchase gas and liquor from the liquor store. Next, the benefits you get from your career are second to none, and the reason this is such a great place to work. Being an employee at Tinker grants options for retirement plans, health insurance, life insurance, and dental and vision. As an employee, they also offer leave. An employee can earn paid leave for working a certain amount of hours during the pay period. A full time employee would earn two hours of leave for every 40 hours of work. You also would earn four hours of sick leave during every pay period. This is an awesome benefit because for the paid leave, you can build it up enough and end up taking a week-long vacation and end up getting paid for the whole thing. Also, sick leave can be crucial for parents, but it’s still important for those who are not. You never know when you are going to be sick, and being able to take sick days off and still get paid would definitely make me feel a little bit better. Parents who have sick children could be running back and forth for doctor’s or dentists appointments, or possibly have to take days off to take care of them. So, sick leave can also be very important. Another benefit is the opportunity to move up. There are a wide range of jobs that have target positions. Which means that you would start out at a lower pay grade, and every year or so you would be promoted to the next one, until you reach the target grade that your job reaches. Once you reach that spot, there are opportunities to look into other jobs at other places that might offer higher pay and a higher position. There seems to be constant growth, but you have to work to prove yourself. It is also important to try to reach a Master’s degree, because some of the higher pay grades require a Master’s degree. The opportunity to move up in the food chain is important to anybody looking to start a career and make some money.

Fourth, there are a bunch of jobs that are currently opening out at Tinker, and the hiring process can be kind of interesting at first. In this paragraph I will take you through my experience of applying for a job at Tinker, and some parts of the interview process. The best thing to do when looking for a job out at the Base is to go through USA Jobs. This is a website that posts job listings all over the place, and especially federal ones. When you get to the website all you have to do is type in “Tinker AFB” into the “location” search bar, and every job opening is listed with a description, requirements, and other information regarding the job. It is a very easy website to navigate. Once you find the job opening that you meet the requirements for and want to apply for, you can build a resume for the job through the website and upload it to the job listing and apply right there on the website. From there you just have to wait until you get some kind of update about the listing status. You will be sent emails about the jobs you applied for and your application status. If hired, you will be contacted by whoever hires you, and its history from there (USAJobs). When it comes to time to interview, I had a very interesting first experience. I went in ready for a panel of people to ask me a few different questions about myself, but it was nothing like that at all. I do not know if it is the same for everybody that is out hired out there for the first time, but I had 15 minutes to review five different questions, and come up with answers. The questions were more in depth than I was expected, but that was fine. When I went in and met the panel, they told me I had 15 minutes to answer the questions, and that was it. It was easy, but nothing like I was expecting. I only took up 7 minutes, but I guess that was enough! My advice is to over dress, and just be pleasant and honest in your answers.

In conclusion, Tinker Air Force Base is a great place to pursue a career. I hope that this blog will give you a little bit of insight about the history of Tinker Air Force Base, helps you learn a little bit about what kind of jobs are out there, informed you about the benefits of being a federal employee and having base access, and helped you understand the process of looking and applying for a job out there. I am very excited to pursue a career out at the Base, and I really hope this blog post will help answer any questions that you might have had!

 References

"Agency Action Needed: Employer Shared Responsibility Reporting." U.S. Office of Personnel Management. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 July 2016.

"Careers at OPM Opportunities." U.S. Office of Personnel Management. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 July 2016.

Crowder, James L. "Tinker Air Force Base History and Culture." Tinker Air Force Base | Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture. N.p., 2009. Web. 25 July 2016.

"Fast Facts." MilitaryINSTALLATIONS. N.p., 04 May 2016. Web. 25 July 2016.

"Tinker Air Force Base." Maj. Gen. Clarence L. Tinker. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 July 2016.

"USAJOBS - Government’s Official Jobs Site." USAJOBS - The Federal Government’s Official Jobs Site. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 July 2016.