I'm 18 months into my transition. Took longer than I expected, partly because my first resume was basically a collection of military jargon that meant everything to me and nothing to a civilian recruiter.
Here's what I learned, piece by piece.
Rank and leadership: translate the scope, not the title. Nobody outside the military knows what an E-7 or O-3 means. But 'Led a 14-person team responsible for 24/7 operations and $4M in equipment accountability' means something universal. Translate to team size, operational scope, and stakes.
MOS codes and acronyms: remove all of them. MOS 25U, SIGINT, AFSOC, none of it lands. I know what it means. The hiring manager does not. Write it out in plain language. If your specialty was signals intelligence, just say that.
The 'managed under pressure' framing: A lot of my military experience involved real stakes, time pressure, and cascading consequences. I was cautious about sounding dramatic in a civilian context, but framing like 'coordinated logistics for a 200-person deployment under 72-hour notice' is just descriptive. Don't sanitize it into meaninglessness.
The skills section: I listed 'leadership, discipline, teamwork' and got zero traction. Too generic. I replaced it with the actual technical skills: network administration, COMSEC, crisis communications, security clearance (TS/SCI, which is actually a differentiator for some roles). Be specific about what you can actually do.
The gap if you're transitioning: If you did any TAP classes, any freelance work, any certification courses during transition, list them. The gap looks different when it has content.
I'm now in a systems admin role at a mid-sized tech company. It took 11 months and about 200 applications. Happy to review resumes if you're making the same transition.