You’ve just finished a tour of service and are returning to the civilian world—now you might be thinking to yourself, “what now?” The prospect of finding a new career and a new calling in life can be a daunting one—it might be hard to know where to start.
As a veteran, you have amassed a wide range of skills and abilities over the course of your service to our country that will make you an incredible asset to the workforce. Read on to learn more about just a few of the careers that these attributes you’ve gained and refined in the line of duty can take you far in.
Automotive/aviation/vehicle technicians
If you’ve gained a lot of experience in heavy equipment and vehicle repair and maintenance, working as an automotive technician or aviation technician may suit you. You can bring your experience in vehicle support roles into the private sector through diagnosing, repairing, and troubleshooting automotive technology.
If you have experience from your military service working with aviation equipment, such as performing routine safety checks and diagnosing faults in aircraft engines and assemblies and ensuring that aircraft are up to federal and state code, you can make a good living as an aviation technician.
Personal trainer
During your time in the military, you gained skills in keeping yourself physically fit and maintaining discipline. As a personal trainer, either as a freelancer or working for a gym, you can take what you’ve learned and use it to help others meet their own fitness goals and stay on the right path to keeping themselves in shape and healthy.
Electrician
If you’ve gained or honed any electrical skills during your time in the military—such as troubleshooting, diagnosing faults, maintaining and repairing electrical systems or components—you have a good start on a career as an electrician.
Police officer
For many veterans, mission-driven occupations are attractive options for a new civilian career. One such example is a career in your local police department. Police duties make use of a wide range of skills and abilities you have likely developed during your time serving in the military, including situational awareness, public relations skills, firearms training, and the ability to make tough decisions under pressure.
Construction technician
Construction technicians are tasked with managing a cross-functional team, handling project scheduling, and organizing inspection of construction sites and projects. Being a construction technician makes use of project and personnel management skills you may have gained or further developed during your time in the military.
Technical writer
As a technical writer, you can parlay any experience you have in military policy, procedure, and regulations into writing procedural documents, instruction manuals, how-to guides, and other informational materials and transforming complex technical information into user-friendly content.
Mechanical engineer
Any experience you have in equipment and component maintenance and familiarity with electrical or wiring diagrams, technical blueprints, and equipment specifications in the military can give you a leg up in completing an engineering degree and certifications and starting a new career as a mechanical engineer.
Information security analyst
Gained IT skills and cyber security knowhow while serving? You can transfer that knowledge into a career as an information security analyst and help companies protect their networks, data and computer systems against attacks by cybercriminals.
Network security engineer
If you’ve gained working IT and cyber security knowledge from your military career, you can transition to playing a role in IT to protect network systems, including securing physical hardware, software and cloud services, and personnel from cyber threats. Your military training can give you a leg up on IT career training and provide you with many beneficial skills, such as investigative and troubleshooting skills, communication and needs assessment abilities, and meticulous attention to details and regulations.
Healthcare provider
Active duty prepares you for long hours and selfless work. With an aging population, nurses are in high demand and make good money.
Manufacturing technician
Modern manufacturing techs work with complex systems, especially robotics and electronics, to ensure smooth production operations in a wide range industry.
Business administrator and manager
Being accustomed to discipline and structure gives you an advantage in management and leadership, and companies are eager to hire administers, managers, and directors with the leadership acumen to lead teams to success.
CDL Driver/Trucker
Military veterans make for great fits for the trucking industry because as a veteran you are disciplined and dependable, as well as having ample experience operating heavy machinery. Long-haul trucking relies heavily on dependable people with heavy machinery skills and provides excellent job security due to truckers being in such high demand. As a veteran, you can also bring a welcome focus on safety and an attention to detail to trucking.
Trucking requires specialized training, but as a veteran, you can take advantage of government programs to help pay for the schooling needed to obtain a trucking license.
Government careers
25% of veterans end up going into government service after military service, and it’s not hard to see why. When it comes to administrative positions in government, veterans have an edge in the hiring process, as you’ve gotten ample experience already when it comes to many in-demand skills in the public sector.
Government work is often very stable, comes with great benefits, and provides opportunities for upward mobility or easy transitions into more lucrative private sector careers.
What are the best careers for disabled veterans?
If you’ve been disabled in the line of duty, such as sustaining a physical injury over the course of your service or developed PTSD, you might find it even harder to start a new career. Veterans with service-connected disabilities are more likely to struggle to find work that can accommodate the nature of their disability and meet their needs, but there are options out there.
What careers might work best for you depends on which accommodations you might need on account of your service-connected disability. For example, you may look for a career that prioritizes office work over work that requires a lot of physical activity, or a career that provides a quiet work environment.
With that in mind, here are a few careers that are often friendly to people with disabilities and make use of the skills you’ve gained over the course of your service:
Medical records technician
Administrative medical positions such as that of a medical records technician require attention to detail while providing work that can be done in quiet offices with a limited number of colleagues.
Dispatcher
As a veteran, you can can make use of experience and training in logistics and communication to serve as dispatchers, relaying communications for delivery drivers, truckers, or emergency personnel.
Administrative assistant
An administrative assistant role, especially for a small business, can provide a quiet and positive work environment that makes use of a veteran’s administrative skills and attention to detail gained during service.
Translator
As a veteran, you may have gained fluent in multiple languages, which positions you well to start a career as a translator for companies, governments, and other organizations which deal with people from all over the world.
Accountant/Auditor
Private sector accountants and auditors can provide lucrative, disability-friendly work if you have gained administrative skills, attention to detail, and a sense for logistics and number-crunching in the military.
Management consultant
With your experience in military chain of command, you can provide insight into the structure and organization of large and small companies. Management consultants offer advice to company leadership on how best to organize their companies in order to improve efficiency and productivity, and can make good money doing so.
Human resource and public relations specialist
If you’ve developed soft skills and a knack for handling people in the military, then human resources or public relations could be a great fit for you, in either the public or private sector. Every organization needs public relations specialists to help create a comfortable work environment, and the office-oriented nature of HR and PR work can be especially accommodating to people with service-related disabilities.
Government careers for disabled veterans
Government positions are often ideally suited to veterans. As a disabled veteran, careers in the government can suit you particularly well, such as:
Accounting and auditing
Many government agencies need people to manage their financial records. Accounting and auditing on behalf of government organizations provides stable work in a quiet office environment. If you have a head for crunching numbers and attention to detail, accounting and auditing could be for you.
Education
Education, like policing, is mission-driven work that’s about more than taking home a paycheck—it’s about serving and giving back to your community. This makes education an attractive career option for veterans.
On top of that, many veterans prefer jobs that provide consistent pay and scheduling in a consistent location in contrast to the work conditions of military service, which also makes a career in education an attractive one.
Many people with disabilities, especially vets, go into teaching or other educational fields and find opportunities to be a positive role model and influence on children and adults with disabilities.
Computer support specialist
If you’ve gained extensive experience with IT support, work as a computer support specialist for government organizations can be especially fulfilling. Some public sector computer support jobs can be done with a flexible hybrid work arrangement or even remotely now, which can be especially beneficial when looking for jobs that can accommodate the nature of your service-related disability.
Defense contracting for veterans
Defense contracting makes for an ideal career for many veterans. As a veteran, you already have ample experience working with defense technology, often alongside other defense contractors. Put that shoe on the other foot and you can draw a great salary while doing something you already have ample experience doing.
Defense contractors provide an excellent line of work if you are done with military service but aren’t done with military service yet. If you’re not done yet putting your unique military experience and your leadership and technical training to work in service of the American global mission and our allies around the world, a career with a military contractor could be for you.
Military contractors perform a wide variety of roles to support the US military and foreign partners, assisting with manpower, equipment and supplies procurement, cybersecurity, communications infrastructure, and more. For example, here at NACS Global, we manage communication security accounts for partner nations, providing domestic and foreign military leaders with the expert guidance needed to ensure complete communications security.
NACS Global – Hiring Our Nation’s Heroes
At NACS Global, we’re committed to hiring veterans and military spouses, and we’re especially committed to helping retired and disabled veterans find exciting new careers with us. Since 2019, we’ve received the HIRE Vets Medallion Award in recognition of our commitment to hiring, retaining, and providing professional development for veterans.
If you have COMSEC experience and a drive to do meaningful work and overcome exciting challenges, check out our careers page and see what opportunities you can find with us:
