Military-to-Civilian Occupational Matching: Using the O*NET to Provide Match Recommendations for the U.S. Navy, Marine Corps, and Air Force

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Wenger, Jeffrey B.

Contributor:

Roer, Elizabeth Hastings

Wong, Jonathan P.

Language:

English

Other Title:

Military-to-Civilian Occupational Matching

Place of Publication:

RAND Corporation 2023

Summary:

Each year, about 200,000 U.S. service members leave active duty and transition to civilian employment. Many of these service members find this transition difficult because some military occupations have no direct parallel in the civilian economy. In a previous study, researchers at the RAND Corporation developed a method of matching occupational characteristics from the civilian economy to occupations in the U.S. Army. In this report, the authors extend that method to the U.S. Navy, Marine Corps, and Air Force. The authors collected data from more than 5,100 active component enlisted personnel across the three service branches using the U.S. Department of Labor's (DoL's) Occupational Information Network (O*NET) survey. For each military occupation surveyed, the authors identified the most-similar civilian occupations by comparing service members' responses to the O*NET survey items with the responses that DoL obtained on those same survey items for almost 1,000 civilian occupations. This approach contrasts with existing methods for generating military-to-civilian occupation crosswalks, which rely on analyses of high-level job descriptions by occupational analysts. The authors were able to algorithmically match a military occupation to every civilian occupation and determine the best fit. The job-matching algorithm provides both high-quality occupational recommendations for each military occupation and the reasons that those matches are high quality. These results will be useful for service members who are leaving the military in search of civilian employment, job counselors, and employers in search of workers with specific skill sets.