Air Traffic Controllers
Controlling and tactically employing combat aircraft provides relevant aircraft-direction experience, although civilian traffic separation differs from sea combat control.
How to prepare: Have existing certifications, facility ratings, and documented traffic-separation experience assessed against the appropriate hiring route before selecting additional training. FAA entry-level applicants must be under 31 and have one year of progressively responsible work experience, a bachelor's degree, or combined postsecondary education and work totaling one year; the 2026 experienced-controller notice sets an original-appointment maximum age of 35 and requires 52 consecutive weeks of full-time active traffic separation after certification or a facility rating, within five years of application, at a qualifying FAA, DOD, National Guard, or FAA-contract facility, with no educational substitute or credit for pre-certification military training.
What the civilian work involves
- Inform pilots about nearby planes or potentially hazardous conditions, such as weather, speed and direction of wind, or visibility problems.
- Provide flight path changes or directions to emergency landing fields for pilots traveling in bad weather or in emergency situations.
- Transfer control of departing flights to traffic control centers and accept control of arriving flights.