Veterans Day Is a Good Reason to Rethink How You Read a Military Resume
On November 11, the United States marks Veterans Day, while Canada and Australia mark Remembrance Day and Britain observes Remembrance Sunday on the Sunday nearest the date. The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs explains in Veterans Day Facts and Information that the American holiday honors everyone who served, largely the living, and that Canada's observance is similar. The New South Wales Office for Veterans Affairs describes Australia's Remembrance Day as a day to remember those who died for Australia in wars and conflicts.
The names and emphases differ, but the date is shared. For anyone who hires or promotes, it raises a practical question. An organization can sincerely appreciate military service while overlooking the experience it produced, because gratitude and sound talent assessment are different work and neither substitutes for the other. When a military resume reaches your desk (or a CV, as the British call it), what are you actually reading?
Most panels read it for rank and job title. Those are the least portable parts of the record. The evidence of leadership sits elsewhere, and you can find it in a record from any country's forces.
Veterans Find Work but Employers Struggle to Read the Record
Unemployment is not the problem. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reports in Employment Situation of Veterans — 2025 that veterans had an unemployment rate of 3.5% in 2025, against 4.2% for nonveterans. In England and Wales, the Office for National Statistics found nearly identical shares of veterans and nonveterans unemployed (1.6% and 1.7%) once age, sex, and region were adjusted, in The labour market status of UK armed forces veterans, England and Wales: Census 2021. The countries define and time their counts differently, and the UK census was taken during the pandemic, so read the figures as a pattern and not a precise comparison.
Where veterans land is more telling. In the United States, 16.2% of employed veterans who served since September 2001 worked for the federal government in 2025, against 2.1% of nonveterans. In England and Wales, 11.6% of employed veterans worked in public administration and defence, against 5.9% of comparable nonveterans. In Australia, the Australian Bureau of Statistics found in Characteristics of previous Australian Defence Force personnel that 17.8% of former service members aged 15 to 64 worked in public administration and safety, a group that includes police, against 6.0% of those who never served. The three measures differ, and none explains the gap. Preference, security clearances, and familiarity with government employers could all contribute, and the Australian Bureau of Statistics notes that reservists' leave entitlements are guaranteed in public-sector jobs. So could private employers finding the record harder to read.
Veterans and employers describe that difficulty from opposite sides. In the UK Employment, skills and volunteering, UK armed forces veterans, UK: Veterans' Survey 2022, run by the Office for Veterans' Affairs and the Office for National Statistics, 52.5% of veterans said they had taken a job below their last military level. The second most cited reason, after a lack of other jobs, was that the employer did not recognize their transferable skills. The survey is self-reported and carries an official label of statistics in development. In Canada, Statistics Canada reported in Life After Service Survey, 2019 that 52% of veterans who worked since release held jobs that used their military knowledge and skills.
On the employer side, a 2024 survey supported by USAA points the same way. SHRM and the SHRM Foundation polled more than 1,000 US HR professionals for Completing the Mission: Best Practices for Recruiting and Hiring Veterans. Most (93%) agreed, to some degree, that their organization values veterans. Fewer than a third (31%) agreed or strongly agreed that it hires them effectively. Nearly a quarter (23%) called matching military experience to civilian job requirements a major challenge, and just 2% used a military skills translation tool.
Why a Rank Title Tells You So Little
Titles mislead first. The U.S. Department of Defense lists comparable grades across services in DoD 7000.14-R Financial Management Regulation Volume 7A, Comparable Grades. A captain in the U.S. Army holds pay grade O-3. A captain in the U.S. Navy holds O-6, the grade of an Army colonel. Same title, very different responsibility, and a panel that reads only the word will misjudge one of the two.
Titles also bury scope. The facts a civilian panel needs are the people led, the budget and equipment controlled, the sites covered, and the decisions owned. RAND Corporation researchers, working for the U.S. Department of Defense, documented how that scope grows in What Veterans Bring to Civilian Workplaces: A Prototype Toolkit for Helping Veterans Communicate to Private-Sector Employers About the Nontechnical Skills Developed in the Military. Its enlisted-leader course descriptions, which reflect training in 2014 and 2015, put a new Army team leader over about 5 soldiers, a maneuver platoon at 20 to 40 people, and a company at up to 100, and describe Marine Corps sergeants leading 13 to 15.
The toolkit's opening letter, from Karin A. Orvis of the Transition to Veterans Program Office, says civilians unfamiliar with military training struggle to see these skills. It is a prototype covering enlisted combat-arms roles, so treat it as a translation aid and not a credential.
What the Research Supports and Where It Stops
One peer-reviewed study is worth knowing. In Military CEOs, published in the Journal of Financial Economics in 2015, economists Efraim Benmelech and Carola Frydman studied chief executives of large U.S. public companies. In 1980, 59% of those CEOs had served in the military. By 2006, only 6.2% had. Military service was associated with a 70% lower likelihood of alleged corporate fraud compared with the average, and with stronger company performance during industry downturns. Those CEOs also invested less in capital and research, and they showed no overall valuation advantage.
Benmelech and Frydman urge caution. Their results show association, not proven cause, and they cannot rule out that military CEOs sorted into firms with conservative policies. The authors describe military training as sequential programs that pair education with on-the-job experience to develop command skills, which is one reason service might shape executives, though they cannot confirm that mechanism. The sample covers large U.S. companies and executives born between 1913 and 1960, so it says little about a candidate today or a candidate in another country.
One detail matters most to a resume reader. These CEOs rarely had long military careers. They served fewer than 4 years on average, about 90% of those with a known rank were lower-ranking officers, and fewer than 5% reached major or higher. Because the sample is people who became chief executives, it cannot show how the typical short-service veteran would fare. The UK survey cuts the other way. Veterans who served under 4 years were the least likely to have used their military skills in a civilian job (61.6%), against about 86% of those who served 13 years or more.
Appreciation Can Still Narrow Opportunity
Many HR professionals hold the favorable image. In the SHRM report, 58% said veterans perform better or much better than civilian employees on leadership. That is perception, and the report's own authors say hiring managers must "avoid prejudging candidates."
A favorable image can still narrow the work a candidate is offered. In Military veterans are morally typecast as agentic but unfeeling: Implications for veteran employment, Steven Shepherd, Aaron C. Kay, and Kurt Gray found that people see veterans as capable of planning and acting but less suited to work that calls for social and emotional ability. In Research Shows Military Service Can Hurt Some Job Seekers' Prospects, Duke University's Fuqua School of Business reported 10 studies and randomized experiments with almost 3,000 participants, including seasoned managers and recruiters. Kay, the senior author, said "This bias was occurring among actual managers who are in the business of hiring people." The research was funded by a Microsoft Military Affairs research gift, and it examined perceptions of US veterans, including one study set in a large American restaurant. Read it as evidence about stereotypes in those settings, not a verdict on any employer or any veteran.
Averages also hide groups. In 2025, US women veterans who served since September 2001 and were aged 25 to 34 had an unemployment rate of 8.1%, against 4.2% for nonveteran women the same age. The UK survey found women veterans more likely than men to be unemployed (2.8% and 1.3%), a result the Office for National Statistics says may reflect who chose to answer. The evidence is mixed, which is a reason to look at the person.
How to Read a Military Resume for Leadership Potential
Set the title aside and read for evidence. General Gustave Perna, then commander of Army Materiel Command, wrote in Mission command requires sharp commander's intent that "Leaders who use mission command empower others to figure out the ways and means to get to the end state." That describes doctrine and not any applicant's record, so use it to shape questions:
How many people reported to this leader directly, and how many through other leaders? Add the budget, equipment, and sites involved.
What could the person decide without approval, what did they delegate, and what happened when someone challenged the plan or a decision went wrong?
What conditions shaped the work, such as tight timelines, limited resources, or changing teams?
Who did this person develop, and where did those people go next? A record of promoted subordinates is evidence that travels to any organization.
Assignment cycles vary. Service members in the United States generally move every 2 to 3 years, Military Times reports in Here's where the services stand in cutting PCS moves, and the Marine Corps says its moves tie to operational need and professional development. The Pentagon now questions the pace and ordered the services in May 2025 to halve discretionary move budgets by fiscal 2030. Treat a short tenure as a question about the assignment cycle, and don't assume rotation made the candidate a faster learner.
In the interview, the SHRM report recommends structured behavioral questions that invite a full account in place of a short answer. A translation tool can start the reading, and a colleague who has served can check it.
A Test Case for Your Whole Leadership Pipeline
A military resume is unfamiliar to many panels, which makes it a clean test of your talent assessment. A process that recognizes only leaders who look like the last leaders you promoted will miss the ones it was never taught to read. Some are in your applicant pool. Others are already on your payroll, in roles whose titles never signaled scope, or in careers built abroad. Hiring is only the first test, so review who gets stretch assignments, mentoring, and sponsorship, and consider veterans for broader roles on demonstrated performance.
Take the last promotion slate you reviewed. Which candidates' records could you read in under a minute? Then ask whether that speed measured leadership or familiarity.
When Unfamiliar Records Hide Your Next Leaders
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Thanks for reading!
~ Jerry Justice
Living to Serve, Serving to Lead™
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