Essential Nontechnical Skills Service Members Gain During On-the-Job Experience

A Resource for Veterans and Transitioning Service Members

by Tracy C. Krueger, Michael G. Shanley, Chaitra M. Hardison

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This reference booklet can help veterans and transitioning service members communicate to civilian employers about the skills they have developed through on-the-job experience in the military. The booklet offers quick-access summary tables showing the criticality of each skill for performance in select military occupations; and a sampling of vignettes that illustrate on-the-job experiences relating to these nontechnical skills. The booklet can help veterans better craft résumés, conduct interviews, and explain how their military experience translates into valuable civilian skills.

The booklet is derived from research reported 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.

This research was sponsored by the Transition to Veterans Program Office of the Office of the Secretary of Defense. It was conducted within the Forces and Resources Policy Center of the RAND National Defense Research Institute, a federally funded research and development center sponsored by the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the Joint Staff, the Unified Combatant Commands, the Navy, the U.S. Marine Corps, the defense agencies, and the defense Intelligence Community.

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