48 Best Tips for Veteran Job Seekers in 2025

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Posted: December 31, 2024-- Military.com | By Jacey Eckhart

Updated December 30, 2024 | Published December 22, 2023

In our military family, we believe there is no higher calling than making the world a safer place. In our Veteran Employment Project family, we believe there is no higher calling than helping warriors and spouses find their next high-impact job. That's why we spent the last year hosting 11 engaging master classes, producing dozens of veteran jobs articles and sending out weekly veteran jobs newsletters to keep you on track, informed and encouraged when it comes to your own job hunt.

Before we close out the year, we want to offer the 48 best tips we learned from experts, colleagues, employers, recruiters, veterans service organizations, coaching clients and our generous community of military job seekers. The biggest trend in job hunting this year is to lean into artificial intelligence (AI) tools to help with your job hunt, but you shouldn't stop there. These tips cover every category of job hunting, from identifying your next role to resume writing to networking to the last moment of negotiation before you accept your job offer.

Here are our 48 best tips for veteran job seekers in 2025:

Identify Your Next Role

1. Get off to a great start. If you are looking for a job in 2025, get your job hunt off to a great start (or a fresh, new start with no mistakes in it) with our free master class, "New Year, New Career." Answer your three most important questions:

Where do I start?

How do I network?

How do I pay for it all?

2. Enter the dragon. Start your job hunt by asking ChatGPT, HIX Chat, YouChat or any of the other recommended AI tools a simple question, such as: What kind of job can I get with this kind of experience? Copy and paste your resume or your Linkedin profile into the chat box and see what the AI matrix behind the scenes spits out.

3. Expand your AI comfort. Lean into AI tools on LinkedIn that will help you identify suitable target jobs. Don't know how? Start with our free Stealth LinkedIn Demo.

4. Identify "civilian" skills you learned in the military -- and what to call them now. Download our work skills assessment, Dream Job Handout. By listing the skills you used during your military career, you can figure out which roles, companies and departments will suit you best.

5. So, you want to be a project manager? Project management is one career path that is open to many transitioning military members. Not only do we have a free master class on how to be a project manager, but we also included the flip side. This year, we collected the surprising signs that you should not be a project manager and that you would be much happier pursuing a different job. We will do anything to save you time and energy on your job hunt.

6. Discover which paths lead to leadership jobs. I think the best way to encourage your leadership gene to grow in the civilian world is to give up the use of the word "leader” right now. Instead, break down what you really liked about being a leader into specific work behaviors.

To help you out, I've identified eight parts of leadership that can hint at which job you should start following the military.

7. Confirm you really need that certification or degree first. The decision to spend time and money on further education takes a lot out of you. What if you make the wrong pick? What if you fail at the certification? What if you try really hard, get the cert, land the job and then hate it? The uncertainty makes you crazy.

Here is the best way to know what certification or degree you really need. When you scan down to the "required” section of a job listing you like, see whether that cert or degree is listed. Even though you can work your way around some requirements in a civilian job, certifications are usually not negotiable. If the listing says they require a particular degree, license or certification, they do. If the certification is in the "preferred” section, you might be able to let it slide.

8. Pursue possibilities with a Fortune 500 company. This is a great year to expand your search outside the realm of defense and government. If you don’t have a robust corporate network, you will need some mentorship. Get personally matched with a free mentor with American Corporate Partners. I’ve never met a group so willing to connect veterans and spouses with everything they need to know to break into a corporate role.

9. Focus on your hard skills. No matter how many times hiring managers tell reporters they long for a veteran's transferable skills such leadership, drive and creative problem-solving, no veteran ever got a job based on their transferable skills alone. You will get hired for your hard skills -- what you can do. Your transferable skills -- who you are and how you treat others -- will get you promoted.

10. Believe that there is more than one dream job allotted to you per lifetime. Even if you loved your military career, even if you have already had the dream job, know that plenty of options are out there for you -- especially if you buckle down and network.

11. ​​Your career do-over starts now. Even if your military transition is way, way back in your rearview mirror, there are some signs that you would benefit from a career makeover now. Maybe you think your job or agency is going to be on the block in 2025. Maybe you have mastered your job and don’t know what you are supposed to do next.

Maybe you don’t have the training for what you really want to do. Maybe you are just plain bored out of your mind. That’s OK. Really it is. People don’t stay with the same company forever anymore. What you need now is a little direction and our tips for figuring out what a veteran or spouse could do next to get unstuck from the wrong career.

12. Invite your spouse on board with your transition. Military couples do not always expect transition to be world-changing. It is. Transition is like the Earth reversed its magnetism. It is like the sun now sets in the East. From many accounts, transition is practically a Venkmanesque era of dogs and cats living together. Mass hysteria.

Well, maybe not mass hysteria. It is probably more a case of: No plan survives the first contact with the enemy. Make no mistake. Transition is the enemy. Your wife is not the enemy. Your husband is not the enemy. Even though it might look like a battle the two of you are fighting, the transition itself is the enemy. Get your spouse on board with your transition plan, and everything works out so much more smoothly.

Write a Better Corporate Resume

13. Stop applying at the deadline. When is a deadline not really a deadline? When it is on a job application. As a job seeker in the age of AI, you must be first to apply. If you apply at the deadline, or slightly before the deadline, you might as well not apply at all. Learn how to beat the first-to-apply rule with our easy shortcuts that will take you to the head of the line.

14. Do anything on your resume -- as long as you do it today. Often, you are procrastinating about your resume because it triggers all your anxiety. If you do one small thing on your resume, somehow it breaks your resistance and the rest comes easy.

15. Abandon the master resume. The master resume was a tool originally invented to collect all your past experience so a hiring manager could order from it like a Cheesecake Factory menu. Strangely, that did not work. Instead, find out the newest version of that document that we now call the Shoot-Me-Your-Resume Resume in our newest master class, "The ‘Shoot-Me-Your-Resume’ Resume: The One-Page Miracle That Makes All the Difference.” Sign up today.

16. Never write a corporate resume without a job listing. In our post-COVID world, every resume must match a specific job listing. You need to know the hard skills and keywords required before you can be compelling to a hiring manager.

17. Use a keyword extractor. Use a keyword extractor such as SkillSyncer or Jobscan to pluck out a group of hard skills from the job listing. Identify where you used those hard skills in your past jobs. The resume will write itself.

18. Dictate your resume to Word. Sometimes, typing gets in the way of good writing. Get out of your head and onto the page by using the Dictate feature of your word processing software.

19. Stop hiding your anxiety behind big words. Sometimes, it seems like a resume is the kind of document that deserves a lot of fancy, fluffy, four-syllable words. Not so much. Usually, those words signify only that you have not written a modern resume with keywords from the job listing.

20. Fill in a template. When writing a checklist resume, it is so much easier if you can start with a template. Find ours (and the checklist resume master class) here.

21. Start with the easiest stuff. On a corporate resume, the easiest stuff is at the back. Work back to front to break through your anxiety and stop procrastinating.

22. Resolve never to send your resume after 5 p.m. Send your resume tomorrow. Time (and sleep) are the great healers. A few hours between finishing the resume and sending it off will rest your brain. In the morning, errors tend to stand out in technicolor.

23. Use AI to catch your errors. Use an automated proofreader such as Grammarly.com. It’s available 24 hours a day to make sure you "manage” that project instead of "mange” that project.

24. Read your resume out loud. This will allow you to catch embarrassing resume mistakes, such as missing words, misspelled words and confusing sentences. Because no matter how strong AI will become, no tool in the world will replace your full attention.

25. Beg your mom or detail-oriented sister-in-law to read your resume (even though you hate anyone to read it). Dare her to find a spelling mistake. Even when AI fails you, certain people in your life will not.

Build a Better Federal Resume

26. Radically improve your chances of getting a federal job. After working with thousands of veterans and spouses who wanted to get federal jobs, I can tell you the one skill that makes the biggest difference and it is free: Act as if federal resumes and corporate resumes are two totally different things. Because they are.

27. Never "write" a federal resume. Instead, plan to build a federal resume according to code, because the code changes every year. We take you step by step through the federal job hunt process here. Then sign up for our upcoming free federal resume writing class in March 2025, "The Perfect Federal Resume: How to Outshine the Competition.”

28. Check the federal guacamole for core competencies. Just like guacamole is not guacamole without avocados, a federal resume isn't federal without core competencies. Find out how to find all those secret words and how to use them here.

Networking Is Not What You Think

29. Stop pretending there is a special award for people who navigate transition alone. Networking is the greatest source of active job leads. People who take part in private career coaching, programs from veterans service organizations and our own great Veteran Employment Project master classes can save themselves months of frustration. Sometimes, what you really need is a little feedback to get on the right path. And so many people want to help you.

30. Collect answers to your most asked questions about LinkedIn for 2025. If you are just starting the process of transition, you have a lot of questions about LinkedIn. We’ve answered your most asked questions about LinkedIn specifically for veterans, spouses and transitioning military members. Find out whether you should mention rank in your tagline, when to post a picture without your uniform, whether your current duty station should be your location and everything else you need to know now.

31. Stop picking people’s brains. It’s gross. Whenever a job seeker wants to "pick my brain,” my inner answer is always no. It is not because I think you are going to pull out a fork and knife and go all zombie on my cranium. My inner answer is no because these words indicate you hope I will come up with a magical answer that does not exist.

Instead, your message to anyone in your network could be something like, "Jacey, I already watched your federal resume class, and it helped a lot. I’m having some trouble figuring out where the core competencies are in the job listing I’m looking at. Do you have a few minutes to help me out?” The answer to that kind of request is always a big, fat yes.

32. Get Strange about networking. Instead of acting like you have been cast into the nine circles of networking hell, get a little strange instead -- Dr. Strange. Think of your inner job seeker as Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. To save the universe, you are required to look at what seems like 14 million versions of the next you, then figure out which one of those paths is going to work.

So use the networking skills you honed through years in the military, such as communicating your position. Understanding where other people are. Realizing what they need. Figuring out how to get it to them. Working with teams of odd characters to accomplish greatness. Sensing the source of power and getting to "yes.” Under no circumstances do you network like Groot.

33. Start networking at a military door. Companies that have a history of hiring veterans want to have you in their network. Start with our list of the Top 25 Veteran Employers for 2025 and our 24 Top Military Spouse Employers for 2024.

34. Don't ask, don't sell. Networking has changed in the past couple of years -- especially for senior enlisted. Take a moment to learn the 13 new rules of networking.

35. Get your 4^th-grader to read your LinkedIn profile out loud. You get so much advice about LinkedIn during your job hunt that it is hard to know what is effective. One trick is to make sure what you are saying is clear. If you have a grade-schooler or middle-schooler in your family, ask them to read your LinkedIn profile to you out loud. If they stumble, the recruiter will definitely stumble. And move on without you.

36. Pass the "celery test." Make sure your LinkedIn profile, resume and networking info all pass the celery test with our matrix.

37. SkillBridge is not just a bridge. SkillBridge is your network. The Department of Defense SkillBridge program is a great part of your networking effort. Pursue SkillBridge programs early -- even if you don't think you will use them.

38. Pay it forward. Move heaven and earth to let your soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines, Guardians and chiefs use a SkillBridge program during transition. I know it is not convenient. This is a pay-it-forward moment.

39. Network like a boss. There is a cool way to navigate everything on LinkedIn, from tagging people in a post to requesting a connection. Find out the new rules of LinkedIn for veteran and spouse job seekers.

Interview Like a Champion

40. Interview like an introvert. As an extrovert, I’ve noticed something about military job seekers. Introverts are much more likely to use AI tools to prepare for an interview. They are more likely to write answers to questions. They are more likely to reach out for coaching. So, when I practice interview skills with my introverted clients, I know I can try something different than with extroverted clients.

Instead of putting them in the hot seat as the interviewee, I make them play the part of the hiring manager first. I make them come up with the questions, not the answers, and I try to answer. Then I flip it around so that they are the interviewee. It is amazing how well-prepared they are during the second round.

41. Buy business cards specifically for your job hunt. If you are so far along in the job hunt that you are ready to interview, you are ready to have a business card. To make it easy, I listed all the instructions for how you can get the right kind of card for less than $20.

42. Practice, practice, practice. Get some practice in before you ever see an interviewer with a deck like The Behavioral Interview Flash Card Deck: Your Ultimate Interview Prep Tool. It will allow you to prep and practice in private.

43. Avoid the Kryptonite answer. You know you are an amazing leader. I know you are an amazing leader. The hiring manager knows you are an amazing leader. That said, never use the word "leadership" in an interview. Find out what words to say instead.

44. Give good Zoom interviews. Rearrange your office so that you have a good background for all the Zoom interviews you are going to do. Avoid the jittery Zoom backgrounds.

45. Buy yourself some time for brilliance. Learn the 7 classic stall techniques for interviews so you have a little more time to think up the most compelling answer.

46. Generate interview responses with an AI tool. I like AI to be your little helper on the job hunt. You can find AI tools, such as Prepper, that are designed exclusively for the interview. They help by offering responses specific to certain jobs, certain companies and certain kinds of interviewers. It won't be perfect, but it will provide an excellent start.

47. Ask epic follow-up questions in an interview. You know the interview is ending when the hiring manager says, "Do you have any questions for me?” Yes, you do. Be sure to ask one of our epic follow-up questions that make you sound brilliant, such as: "What kind of skills have we not discussed yet that would be critical for this job?”

48. Give back. Help us bring you better, stronger, more relevant content in 2025 by taking three minutes to answer our veteran job survey. Get a chance to win free coaching.