It's a question asked in every bar, locker room or office where enlisted airmen gather: How do I get that next stripe faster?
While there's no silver bullet to scoring a quick promotion, of course, airmen in some career fields tend to advance faster than others. An Air Force Times analysis of eight years of promotion data showed the 20 Air Force specialty codes that consistently had the shortest average time-in-grade.
No surprise that the list of thetop 20 fastest-promoting career fields lines up in many places with some of the Air Force's most critical and undermanned skills. There are battlefield airmen, such as combat controllers, pararescuemen, explosive ordnance disposal and Tactical Air Control Party airmen.
And there are intelligence airmen in the geospatial intelligence, airborne cryptologic language analyst, fusion analyst, airborne intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, and cryptologic language analyst career fields.
To come up with the list, Air Force Times collected data, including the average time-in-grade of selectees broken out by AFSC, for each promotion cycle going back to 2008. Air Force Times then observed which were the 10 AFSCs in each cycle that had the shortest number of time-in-grade years. Finally, Air Force Times checked which AFSCs most frequently end up in the top 10 lists of each promotion cycle.
The results show where the Air Force is moving up airmen the fastest. And an airman looking to turbocharge his climb up the ranks could possibly use the list as a guide — if he's willing to retrain.
"If there's a retraining opportunity into those career fields, that's probably where you would want to go," said retired Col. Terry Stevens, a personnel expert.
Remotely piloted aircraft sensor operators consistently put up some of the shortest time-in-grade scores in the Air Force. For example, airmen in that AFSC, 1U0X1, who were promoted to senior master sergeant in 2014 had an average time-in-grade of 2.0 years. That was the fastest any career field got promoted to E-8 that year, and it was well less than half the overall average E-8 time-in-grade of 4.25 years.
That wasn't a fluke. Four years earlier, RPA sensor ops getting promoted to technical sergeant had an average 3.04-year time-in-grade, again the fastest in the E-6 promotion cycle. That was far quicker than the overall 5.65 average time-in-grade for all E-6 selectees that year. There were eight other promotion cycles in which RPA sensor ops were in the 10 fastest promoting career fields.
Stevens said high turnover and retention problems are likely contributing to the faster-than-average promotions.
Retired Gen. Billy Boles agreed, and he said highly skilled and talented airmen in these fields are likely to be lured by lucrative opportunities in the private sector — especially when they hit 20 years and become eligible for retirement. And some airmen may leave because they're dissatisfied with military life, he said.
"When a geospatial [intelligence airman] gets out, there will be people beating at his door," Boles said. "It's supply and demand, Economics 101. If people have other opportunities and are disgruntled, they'll go somewhere else."
And at the same time, Stevens and Boles said, many of these airmen do jobs that are so critical that the Air Force can't stand to lose them. That's why the service sweetens the pot with retention bonuses, retraining opportunities, and in some cases, additional promotion slots.
"EOD, for example, you can do that for so long, and then you get a little skittish," Stevens said. "And combat controllers, that's something that you don't work without. They gotta have 'em."
For example, five of the eight enlisted career fields the Air Force deemed stressed in February — airborne crypto language analysts, TACPs, fusion analysts, pararescuemen, and survival, evasion, resistance and escape airmen — are also on the list of fastest-promoting career fields.
All but three of the career fields on the fastest-promoting list were open for retraining under the fiscal 2014 noncommissioned officer retraining program list announced two years ago. The fiscal 2016 list will be released later this year.
And eight of the fastest-promoting jobs — combat control, SERE training, airborne crypto language analyst, airborne ISR, fusion analysts, EOD, TACP, and pararescue airmen — are eligible for up to $90,000 in selective re-enlistment bonuses.
Earlier this year, some EOD master sergeants and senior master sergeants for the first time became eligible for critical skills retention bonuses of between $30,000 and $75,000. Those two ranks are where EOD airmen are promoted the fastest.
And the pace of EOD promotions appears to be accelerating. In the last eight years, EOD showed up among the fastest-promoting career fields five times. But in the last two years alone, EOD showed up among the fastest promotions three times.
High turnover has a ripple effect down the ranks that further encourages faster promotions, Stevens said. If a senior master sergeant in a critical field such as combat control leaves, that means a master sergeant can get promoted up to E-8. Then a slot is open for a tech sergeant to move up to E-7, and so on.
And on the opposite side of that coin, the statistics also show which career fields frequently take the longest for airmen to get a promotion. For example, in the last two years, 7S0X1 special investigations airmen, 3N1X1 regional band musicians, 8R000 recruiters and several avionics career fields had some of the longest average time-in-grade scores.
Stevens said the Air Force is likely also concerned about the long pipeline that is required to train these critical enlisted airmen, which is why some could receive additional promotion slots.
"When you talk about direct combat mission support, they're going to pay or promote to keep those people," Stevens said. "And they should. They're stupid if they don't."
Stephen Losey is the air warfare reporter for Defense News. He previously covered leadership and personnel issues at Air Force Times, and the Pentagon, special operations and air warfare at Military.com. He has traveled to the Middle East to cover U.S. Air Force operations.
