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Improving Military-Civilian Occupation Crosswalks

• The civilian occupation surveys generated a rich database of the knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSAs) needed by Army soldiers to perform ten of the largest Army military occupational specialties (MOSs).
• Using these data, the authors were able to identify both a broader range of civilian occupations that utilize KSAs developed in the Army and higher-quality matches than existing military-civilian occupation crosswalks, such as My Next Move for Veterans.
• The best-matching civilian occupations included some that made use of common soldier KSAs that were shared by multiple MOSs, as well as others that utilized MOS-specific KSAs.
• Some occupations recommended by existing crosswalks do not match very well with the KSAs of the MOSs analyzed in this study. In part, these low-quality recommendations occurred because occupations from these crosswalks do not make use of soft skills developed in the Army, such as teamwork, leadership, and training, coaching, and mentoring others.

As the Army reduces its end strength, the number of soldiers leaving the Regular Army has increased, raising concerns about unemployment and other transition problems for these veterans. To help improve the Army's transition assistance process, the authors of this report administered civilian occupation surveys to soldiers in selected Army military occupational specialties (MOSs) to assess the level and importance of the knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSAs) needed in these MOSs and to develop better crosswalks between military and civilian occupations. The authors also identified and separately analyzed survey questions associated with soft skills, such as leadership, teamwork, and attention to detail, to assist soldiers with translating their Army experience for civilian employers.

The occupation surveys generated a rich database that was used to characterize the KSAs needed by Army soldiers to perform their MOSs, as well as other occupation attributes, such as work activities, work context, and work style. Furthermore, the crosswalks generated from the survey responses identified both a broader range of military-civilian occupation matches and higher-quality matches than existing crosswalks. Based on these results, we recommend that the Army communicate information about these job matches to both soldiers and potential employers and that it expand use of the occupation surveys to develop crosswalks for additional MOSs.

• Chapter One

  Introduction

• Chapter Two

  A Methodology for Comparing Military and Civilian Occupations

• Chapter Three

  Improving Military-Civilian Occupation Crosswalks

• Chapter Four

  General Matches with Soldier Skills

• Chapter Five

  Findings and Recommendations

• Appendix A

  Soft Skills in Army Occupations

• Appendix B

  Introduction to Task Lists for Army MOSs

• Appendix C

  Additional Information on Occupation Surveys

• Appendix D

  Additional Military-Civilian Occupation Matches