The authors use a method for military-to-civilian occupational matching previously developed by RAND Corporation researchers for the U.S. Army and extend it to the U.S. Navy, Marine Corps, and Air Force. The method involves administering the U.S. Department of Labor's Occupational Information Network (O*NET) survey to service members in selected military occupations and comparing these data with the O*NET data collected for civilian occupations.

Military-to-Civilian Occupational Matching

Using the O*NET to Provide Match Recommendations for the U.S. Navy, Marine Corps, and Air Force

Jeffrey B. Wenger, Elizabeth Hastings Roer, Jonathan P. Wong

ResearchPublished Jun 6, 2023

Each year, about 200,000 U.S. service members leave active duty and transition to civilian employment. Many of these service members find this transition difficult because some military occupations have no direct parallel in the civilian economy.

In a previous study, researchers at the RAND Corporation developed a method of matching occupational characteristics from the civilian economy to occupations in the U.S. Army. In this report, the authors extend that method to the U.S. Navy, Marine Corps, and Air Force.

The authors collected data from more than 5,100 active component enlisted personnel across the three service branches using the U.S. Department of Labor's (DoL's) Occupational Information Network (O*NET) survey. For each military occupation surveyed, the authors identified the most-similar civilian occupations by comparing service members' responses to the O*NET survey items with the responses that DoL obtained on those same survey items for almost 1,000 civilian occupations. This approach contrasts with existing methods for generating military-to-civilian occupation crosswalks, which rely on analyses of high-level job descriptions by occupational analysts.

The authors were able to algorithmically match a military occupation to every civilian occupation and determine the best fit. The job-matching algorithm provides both high-quality occupational recommendations for each military occupation and the reasons that those matches are high quality. These results will be useful for service members who are leaving the military in search of civilian employment, job counselors, and employers in search of workers with specific skill sets.

Key Findings

  • At least two good civilian occupational matches were found for each military occupation, but there also was a wide disparity in the number of high-quality matches for each occupation within an individual service branch.
  • The methodology accurately created occupational matches based on similarity of occupational characteristics captured in the O*NET.
  • Most occupational matches are based on general skills associated with military service, but many matches are also based on occupation-specific attributes, such as specific technical knowledge, skills, or abilities.
  • There were relatively few high-quality matches for military occupations that entail highly specialized military-unique tasks, such as U.S. Navy boatswain's mate and Marine Corps infantry rifleman.
  • Service members generally were satisfied with their military occupation, suggesting that they might find the match results useful for identifying civilian occupations that are both attainable and acceptable.
  • There are general military-wide traits related to leadership, management, detail orientation, and stressful working conditions that appear to permeate throughout most military occupations.
  • These traits, which might not be obvious in traditional occupational analyses, might provide value across a wider variety of civilian occupations than is currently recognized.

Recommendations

  • Transition Assistance Program (TAP) officials should be made aware that there are some military occupations that have very few high-quality matches; additional resources might need to be dedicated to help service members in these occupations transition to the civilian economy.
  • The results from this study should be posted on the DoL's My Next Move for Veterans career website.
  • Providing transitioning service members access to this information could allow these members to better target their job searches to civilian occupations that best match their military occupations and could directly improve service members' articulation of their skills when discussing their prospects with a future employer.
  • Posting results on the My Next Move for Veterans website also can serve as a resource to educate civilian employers that veterans from certain military occupations might be especially well-suited to fill a given civilian job.
  • To maximize the number of veterans helped by the job-matching algorithm, the U.S. Department of Defense could commit to issuing the O*NET survey to service members across all military occupations on a regular basis, enabling the posting of up-to-date match results for all separating service members.

Topics

Document Details

Citation

RAND Style Manual
Wenger, Jeffrey B., Elizabeth Hastings Roer, and Jonathan P. Wong, Military-to-Civilian Occupational Matching: Using the O*NET to Provide Match Recommendations for the U.S. Navy, Marine Corps, and Air Force, RAND Corporation, RR-A2289-1, 2023. As of September 23, 2024: https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA2289-1.html
Chicago Manual of Style
Wenger, Jeffrey B., Elizabeth Hastings Roer, and Jonathan P. Wong, Military-to-Civilian Occupational Matching: Using the O*NET to Provide Match Recommendations for the U.S. Navy, Marine Corps, and Air Force. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2023. https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA2289-1.html.
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This research was sponsored by the Military-Civilian Transition Office in the Office of the Secretary of Defense and conducted within the Forces and Resources Policy Program of the RAND National Security Research Division (NSRD).

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