Career Paths in the Army Civilian Workforce: Identifying Common Patterns Based on Statistical Clustering

What does the career of a typical Army civilian look like The conventional wisdom is that individuals who take civilian positions value the relatively high job security associated with government employment. Further, a common perception is that these individuals join the civilian workforce soon after earning a degree, spend a long career in the Army, and then leave upon becoming eligible for retirement. However, if many Army civilians follow a different career trajectory that is, if they spend only a few years in the Army, or if they move among various Department of Defense DoD components then workforce managers may need to tailor existing workforce management policies on hiring, training, and leadership development to account for these alternative career trajectories. To investigate these issues, we identified the most common career patterns among individuals who entered the Army civilian workforce between fiscal year FY 1981 and FY 2000 and were on the General Schedule GS pay plan. We used a statistical clustering method that identifies patterns of career trajectories that are the most similar in terms of length of service, promotion frequency and timing, and transfers between the Army and other DoD components. After identifying these common career patterns, we examined the extent to which each pattern is related to individual and job characteristics.