There were only a few wrinkles in his plan.

“When he retired, he had never interviewed for a job,” said Elswick, the vice president of transition programs for the USO. “He didn’t have a resume. He never wore a suit. It’s things that those of us that have lived in the civilian world all of our lives take for granted. It’s just part of the process.”

“What’s next?” and “How should I proceed?” are common feelings shared by many veterans, regardless of their age and experience while in the military. Service members spend their time in the military following orders, having many decisions made for them. When that comes to an end, veterans must make an important decision: what they want in a civilian career, if they don’t intend to go to school.

Many veterans will pursue a career that highlights their military experience, like medics pursuing an occupation in healthcare, or pilots working for an airline.

“But if you’re an infantryman, what are you going to do?” Elswick said.

Veterans should consider the answer before separating from the military, and develop a plan to pursue that goal. Organizations like the USO and Hire Heroes are ready to help service members with that transition. Another group, Veterans Transition Support, offers free career-training programs that help veterans with coaching to search for jobs, writing resumes and cover letters and how to prepare for interviews.

VTS volunteers like veteran Merlyn Cruz-Feliciano, who have gone through the same change, can relate to the struggles others can experience when in the job market.

“I loved my job as a logistician when I was in the military,” she said. “I was very good at it, but I just knew in my heart that was not what I wanted to do. Unfortunately, a lot of veterans kind of stick with what they know.”

Cruz-Feliciano eventually decided to pursue a masters degree in mental health therapy.

For veterans who want to enter the workforce, getting the guidance needed to help find the right career is critical. The next — and maybe most important — step is showing a veteran how to market their skills by building an impressive resume tailored to the job they want.

“Translating military skills to a civilian resume is a major, major struggle,” Elswick said. The USO also offers interview preparation, including a website that uses artificial intelligence to give real-time feedback.

For veterans unsure of what career they want, Elswick said trending jobs include government contracting, cybersecurity, health care and law enforcement.

“Federal resumes are very different from civilian resumes, and you need a very specialized skill set to get it through their applicant tracking system,” Elswick said.

In addition to constructing a solid resume, veterans should set up a LinkedIn account to connect with peers and companies that are looking to hire. Indeed is another popular site for seeking out available jobs. Another resource for veterans is Military Friendly Employers, which lists more than 1,500 organizations that are designated as military-friendly businesses.

Veterans may consider pursuing certifications that could help their military skills transfer to the civilian world as well. Participating in a Skillbridge program, a fellowship that can act as an off-ramp between military and civilian employment, is another option as well. And seeking out mentors who can offer advice for navigating the job hunt and interview processes, plus daily life in the civilian workforce, can be invaluable.

“There are actually jobs everywhere,” Elswick said. “But how do we prepare our veterans to enter the civilian workforce?”

Born in Mexico and raised in California, Cruz-Feliciano served in the Army as a logistician supply sergeant from 2002 to 2016. But much like in civilian life, when an organization decides it has too many resources, it lets people go. The Army no longer needed her services, so her transition out of the military happened sooner than expected.

“For 14 years, this was all I knew, right? And I was very into the military life, very structured, very by the book, according to regulations, so (separating) was very daunting for me,” she said. “I didn’t even know where to start. It was very panic driven.”

Eight years later and things are looking up for Cruz-Feliciano. She just turned 40, settled down as a homeowner with her daughter and family in California, and she’s working toward her masters degree in mental health therapy. She also volunteers with the nonprofit organization Veterans Transitions Support to help veterans with many aspects of separating from the military.

If the decision to separate was hers, Cruz-Feliciano would have started the process at least a year before leaving to lay out her plan.

“The military really does not prepare you to get out,” she said. “Their sole purpose is to prepare you to be in the military, which is understandable. But we’re going to be in the civilian life a whole lot longer than we are in the military.”

There are organizations that can help. For example, the USO serves as a resource for active and veteran military members and their families through all the stages of the process.

“We have such unique access to the service members because we have on-base access and we can get to them earlier in their career and get them focused on whether (the military) is going to be a lifelong career,” said Lisa Elswick, USO’s vice president of transition programs. “At some point everyone is going to separate. How can we actually start preparing for that situation?”

Organizations like the USO will sit down with the military members to help them sort out what their vision of civilian life looks like.

“You might want to get in the military for 20 years, but when you get out, do you want to do something completely different?” Elswick said. “Do you have the education that will help you in that career? Do you have the time, or the resources if you’re going to go back to school?”

Elswick said younger veterans who leave the military at an early age after enlisting after high school often have the toughest time dealing with the transition to civilian life.

“We work very closely with them, because they are at the highest risk when they separate,” she said. “They are usually the most at-risk for unemployment, and end up sleeping on somebody’s couch for three years and then they come ask for help.”

When the time came for her separation, Cruz-Feliciano focused on making sure her financial situation was stable, as expenses such as housing allowances are suddenly gone, not to mention the salary from the military.

“In the outside world, you have that transition period where you might not be getting any money,” she said. “I definitely was looking at my finances, and being able to save enough money to keep me afloat.”

Elswick said the best two steps separating veterans can take when returning to civilian life are to, “find a mentor and find a nonprofit connection because all of those resources are going to be for free,” she said. “They’re free for all veterans, and they will connect you for what your needs are, because everyone’s needs are all very, very unique.”

This story was updated April 29 at 3:24 p.m. to correct Lisa Elswick’s job title. She is the USO’s vice president of transition programs.

One popular option for veterans is a career in healthcare, nursing in particular. Job search platform Indeed ranks the career of registered nurse at No. 15 on its list of 25 career options for former military members, citing veterans’ “experience making decisions under pressure, communicating in high-stress situations, diagnosis and root cause analysis” as military experiences that translate well into the medical field. The listed national average salary of more than $88,000 annually is also an appealing aspect of the nursing field.

Potential nursing candidates can earn plenty of field experience through the military before enrolling in nursing programs after their service time. And as the demand for nurses grows, the desire to find qualified candidates can be felt all over the country.

IntelyCare is a nurse-staffing company based in Quincy, Massachusetts, that operates in 31 states and assists veterans pursue openings in the nursing profession. The firm helps candidates with onboarding, credentialing and training for their careers.

One veteran who found her way to a nursing career is Kelsi Speight, a Registered Nurse based in Ohio, who started her military career in the Air Force. She did not plan on becoming a medic, but wound up treating servicemen and women who were returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.

She was a travel nurse when the COVID-19 pandemic started, and she worked on over-capacity hospital floors with help from FEMA and National Guard officials to help care for patients. She credited her experience with the Air Force to get her through the troubling time. Speight is also proud to serve as a role model for fellow African-American women to follow her path.

“I don’t see it as my duty,” she says. “I see it as some people need help, and some people are capable of helping. If I can help someone, I’m going to help them. The discipline and teamwork I’ve learned, I’ve applied to nursing, and everywhere I go, I try to display it.”

Renee Petell and Nicole Cernek both had family backgrounds in healthcare, but took a little while longer and time serving the country before finding their way into the nursing profession.

Petell’s father and aunt both had long careers in healthcare, which Renee took a liking to in the 10th grade, taking a shop course that led to her earning her certified nursing assistant’s certificate before turning 18. After graduation, she enlisted in the Army and eventually joined the Army Reserves as a medical supply specialist and was part of a unit responsible for training combat units to create in-field medical facilities. That service required her spending one weekend a month and two weeks a year traveling the U.S. and simulating scenarios helping set up fully functional hospital units inside tents. While serving she also obtained her Licensed Practical Nursing degree and started her career. She currently resides in Massachusetts.

Petell says her career provides her the same bonding experiences she had during the military with fellow servicemembers.

“You’re making the person happy for the day,” Petell says of her patients. “I still find a lot of happiness in nursing because of that. Those are the days that remind me of how much I love my job.”

Cernek, a Certified Nursing Assistant in Pennsylvania, started a career in nursing in 2009 before enlisting in the Navy almost a decade later, in 2018. She served with the Seabees unit during a deployment to Bahrain where she played a vital role constructing infrastructure like roads, buildings and plumbing systems.

She’s currently training at Fort Dix in New Jersey as part of the Navy Reserves while returning to her civilian role as a caregiver.

“I want to help everyone I can,” Cemek says. “It is my purpose, it’s why I’m here – to care for everyone and everything that I can. I am proud to serve my country and proud to be a CNA.”