Separated 14 months ago after 9 years in the Army, logistics and operations officer track. Applied to about 80 jobs before landing a biz ops role at a mid-size tech company in Austin. Here's what I learned the hard way about the resume translation problem.
The biggest mistake I made at the start: keeping military titles and acronyms without translation. Nobody in a Series C tech startup knows what an S4 is, or what it means to be an OIC for a 300-person forward logistics element. I was proud of that work. It didn't read.
What I changed:
Title translation first. "Logistics Operations Officer" instead of whatever my MOS title was. If I was essentially managing a supply chain for 1,200 people across 3 sites, I wrote "Supply Chain Operations Lead, 1,200-person organization, 3 locations."
Budget in dollars. Military budgets are real dollars. If you managed a MTOE worth $4M in equipment, say you managed a $4M equipment portfolio. Tech companies understand that.
Leadership scope in headcount. "Led a team of 22" is universally legible. "Commanded a platoon" is not, even though they mean the same thing.
Strip the acronyms unless they're civilian-legible (PMP, Six Sigma, etc.). Every other acronym goes. JRTC, MDMP, OPORD. Gone.
Honestly the hardest part wasn't the words, it was mentally devaluing things I worked incredibly hard for because they didn't translate. The resume edit felt like erasing the work. It's not. It's just code-switching.
For any veterans in this thread: the work was real. The resume is just a translation layer. Don't conflate the two.