How to get a job at Old Navy?

How can I get my military job experience converted to civilian job? I was an electrician in the US Navy.?

• I have been working as a merchant marine electrician with various American-flagged vessels. But every timee I apply for a job on land, they always look for a license or a certification. I'm a good electrician because of my long years of experience working in different ships. The only proof that I have is my DD-214.Even thoughh I use my veterans preference, I still find it hard to find a land job.

• Answer:

  Are you a member of a merchant marine union? My husband belongs to AMO, and they have a training center that provides lots of training/certification - mostly for upgrading licenses and certifications for the merchant seamen, but many can be easily tranferred landside. Even if your union doesn't provide certification, can you test for the certification? Not too sure about the lingo, but perhaps certification as an electrician might even be different state to state. Landside jobs are not that easy to find, no matter what your qualifications. As an electrician, you should know that even the engineers with unlimited licenses and years of on-the-job experience have to compete for a very small number of landside jobs (most of them on the powerplant sector). If this helps, my husband often tells me that electricians in the merchant marine are becoming more rare and are a valuable commodity on a large, modern ship (he sails Deep Sea). Many companies often have electricians that are flown to ships that need electrical work - having working knowledge of a ship's electrics is a plus. If you are still working in the unlicensed capacity, perhaps you can take your seatime, and test/upgrade into a licensed position, and therefore use that license, as well as your electrician certification (if you have to pay for that on your own, consider that an investment in your future), and look toward landside jobs within the shipping companies.