Navy personnel officials this week tabbed 17,221 active-duty, full-time support and selected reserve sailors to move up in or into the petty officer ranks from this year’s fall advancement exam cycle.
With a total force cohort of 150,317 sailors deemed eligible to move up this fall, the total Navy chance to advance from the exam alone came in at 11 percent.
Effective immediately, getting bumped up a paygrade for taking orders to hard-to-fill jobs is here to stay. Called “Advancement-to-Position” or A2P, the program was first announced as a pilot program for junior sailors in April. Navy officials are now saying those tests were so successful they’ve made the idea a permanent program.
The Navy’s experiment with online exams is gaining steam. Aided in part by a mobile application the Navy is now qualifying sailors for advancement through a new military knowledge exam that can be taken on smart devices such as tablets and smartphones — without needing a Navy computer. It’s a concept the service would love to expand on in the future.