Navy Personnel Specialist 1st Class Holly Tucker wants to go to Germany.
Though she’s just recently landed at a command outside Washington and has several years before her tour there ends, she’s already mapping out her career. And she’s eyeing Germany as a possible duty station.
The release of a new website, MyNavy Assignment, earlier this month, could make planning that next step easier for her.
MyNavy Assignment launched Dec. 5 for active duty and full time support reservists after being announced by an administrative message.
It replaced the previous Career Management System — Interactive Detailing site, which the Navy had used since 2006, according to Chief of Naval Personnel spokesman Cmdr. Dave Hecht.
MyNavy Assignment incorporates expanded search functions, and allows sailors access to explore jobs any time, not just during the two-week job application window previously allowed under the old model.
With it, sailors can now bookmark up to 100 jobs and submit up to seven job applications — two more than previously allowed — during their detailing window.
There also are sections for comments so sailors, detailers and the command can provide feedback on applications, plus a MyResume tool for applicants to highlight their skills and accomplishments.
The goal is greater transparency, said Navy Personnel Command Force Master Chief Scott Rossiter.
“Sailors can see all jobs that are available," Rossiter said. "It allows them full transparency of what jobs are out there. Those jobs may be open, they may be closed, but they can at least view all of those jobs for greater transparency.”
Five preference categories — community, location, command, platform type and type duty — that sailors will rank will also help detailers know what’s most important, said Rossiter.
“We can better help overlap what the sailor wants and what the Navy needs," Rossiter said. "We’re hoping to make a bigger overlap of those two things and then hopefully steer people to where they’re most qualified. It benefits both us and the sailor by keeping them happy and keeping our jobs filled, and better readiness.”
The bookmarks and preferences allow the Navy to track interest in billets and and gather data on hard-to-fill jobs. With the new interface, commands also can learn more details about the sailors applying for the slots.
As many as 18,000 sailors will put the new system to test when their detailing window opens at the end of the month, Hecht said.
On the day it launched, 16,195 sailors logged on to MyNavy Assignment, Hecht added. There were 57,343 unique visits between Dec. 5 through Dec. 10 and sailors bookmarked 16,949 billets.
Information Systems Technician 1st Class Pawel Kuczmanski, who works for the Chief of Naval Personnel, said he likes the transparency and expanded options of the new system, including the ability to export jobs into Excel.
“It’s your career," Kucmanski said. "Bottom line. If you don’t take care of it, nobody else will.”
Just a few days after the launch of the new site, Tucker had bookmarked several jobs she wants to keep tabs on, including a PS1 billet on the Norfolk-based guided missile destroyer Gravely and another with a Naval Special Warfare detachment in Stuttgart, Germany.
For that billet, Tucker could see that she lacked a couple of requirements, including a top secret security clearance and some enlisted classifications, but she has years to prepare to get them.
“I bookmarked it because I want to go to Germany,” Tucker said.
Courtney Mabeus-Brown is the senior reporter at Air Force Times. She is an award-winning journalist who previously covered the military for Navy Times and The Virginian-Pilot in Norfolk, Va., where she first set foot on an aircraft carrier. Her work has also appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Foreign Policy and more.
