Career Transition - Private to Public sector

Has anyone moved from Private Sector to Public sector employment? The pay will be less in the public sector, but I am hoping that taking a step back will lead to better career training and more opportunities down the road. I am now soliciting opinions about making such a career move.

Kind of vague but..

I went from working in MEP Consulting (small firms, 30-70 people) to working at the Water Company and I enjoy it. I make more money, better benefits, less stress, less hours worked etc. I enjoy my transition and I do consulting on the side for extra money.

I worked in the private sector for about 8 years before moving to public sector. I had worked in the oil field, where I made big bucks but just about destroyed my health and sanity with 100+ hour weeks, and then I worked for an A&E firm doing construction management. I went to work for a state-level environmental agency and was very happy with the move. I had absolutely sane hours, lower stress, actually had "fun", and my private sector experience made me a superior performer. And like you said I took advantage of a lot of training opportunities and eventually used that to transition to an entirely new branch of engineering from where I had started. And also as you said, it exposes you to a lot of employment opportunities, provided of course you are a good worker and have decent interpersonal skills.

Now I am in the federal government, which significantly ups the pay and benefits side of the equation, and at the same time I am assigned to a municipal-level water and wastewater utility, so I am seeing both of those sides of public sector work, and both are really great.

I don't regret the move from private to public at all.

I have worked for a municipality for over 10 years now.

I cannot advance because there is only one "chief engineer" position above me and that guy is not leaving or getting promoted.

Career training is almost nonexistent. We get the minimum continuing ed and that is about all. People above me don't want to spend more than the minimum on many expenses including career development. For example, I went through grad school and they would did pay for a class, book or even an hour of parking. As part of my grad studies, I took an independent study class for drinking water certification. My bosses then would not even pay for me to take the exam because I would have to renew the license and take more continuing ed if I had the cert.

A couple times a year, a flier will come through for an 8-hour, $25-50 class in something like cross connections or ADA and we will be asked if we want to go. But then if we have to leave the office by 6am to arrive at the class on time, we are expected to volunteer our time from 6am-8am.

In summary, not all public jobs offer the same opportunities.

I believed from my experience, you tend to stuck in a pigeon hole situation. Also promotion is non existent unless you transfer department or your boss quit or died on job. A lot pub sector employees tend to over stayed past their retirement, hence holding back a lot younger people

This is what I observed.

Don't get start about the career ones!

you do have to do some research. I would say State Agencies your a # and its very tough. Federal agencies tend to overpay and also seem to allow for pretty lavish trips.

There are some good local governments who pay people fair and there are those that don't, again you just have to research them before you accept..

and the biggest advice I can give is if you go local government get as much money on the front end as you can cause after your "in" its going to be slow going...

Made the transition about a year and half ago. Everything said here is pretty much on the money. You can expect the following:

1. Continuing Education will be a battle. Tuition reimbursement isn't particularly generous and the paperwork can bury you.

2. There isn't much training available for professional development. Most of the available training is very basic - think Microsoft Office etc. Obtaining permission for outside professional development is pretty much impossible.

3. As RG stated, play hard ball (if you can) coming in. The salary you enter with is pretty much going to determine where you're at for the rest of your career. You can forget about the yearly 4-5% raises that private industry puts out in addition to raises for PE licenses, Master's degrees etc.

4. Promotions are almost non-existent. You can apply internally, but more often than not someone is already slated for that position. There are no Engineering grades/levels (Eng I, II, III etc.) to get promoted through so you're forced to move around in order to grow/get more money.

5. People stay on their job until they're eligible for retirement with full benefits. If you're stuck behind a guy with no other options, you're there until he retires.

PROS

1. Work environment isn't as hectic and taxing as private industry. It's a fairly laid back atmosphere.

2. Benefits are vastly better (to compensate for the not as good salary).

As a corollary to #5:

Municipalities also get lots of once-retired guys in mid/upper management - a guy will reach full retirement one place and then jump to another.

One big downside of that phenomenon is that the guy coming in, doesn't really need the new job and knows he won't be there for 20 years. So he is not planning long-term and doesn't want to make waves.

Good point ALB - double dipping of pensions / pension padding is quite common and is disastrous on the career progression of the younger folks.

My advice would be if you cant get some type of a management position wait a few years until you have some more experience to come in at a higher level. Because if you come in at say an engineer one level and unless you have someone kind of looking out for you it's a long road