Veteran Resume: Translate Your Service
A veteran's resume often gets passed over not because the experience is weak, but because it's written in a language the civilian hiring manager doesn't speak. Rank, MOS codes, and acronyms have to become scope, skills, and plain-English results before anyone outside the military can judge them.
What actually makes a difference
- Translate your rank and role into civilian terms right in the summary — "Infantry Platoon Sergeant" becomes "supervised and trained a 40-person team across high-stakes operations," not a title a recruiter has to decode.
- Drop the acronyms and MOS codes unless you spell them out — "11B, led a fireteam" means nothing to someone who hasn't served; "led a 4-person team through 12 months of deployed field operations" does.
- Quantify what you managed: equipment value, personnel supervised, or missions/operations completed — the military trains exactly this kind of scope, and it's the strongest thing on the page once it's in plain English.
- List transferable certifications and clearances by name (active Secret or TS clearance, CDL, Security+ equivalency) — many employers and ATS systems filter directly on these, and a lapsed clearance is still worth noting with its level and date.