Free tools · Military transition
Don’t just use ours
There are a lot of tools that translate a military job code, most of them are free, and several are genuinely good. Use more than one. Here is the field as of July 2026, with links, and an honest note at the bottom about where ours fits.
Descriptions come from each tool’s own pages. None of these links pay us anything.
The official sources
- DoD/O*NET Military Crosswalk ↗
US Department of Defense, published through O*NET by the Department of Labor
The federal source itself. Code in, civilian occupation out, for every active code. This is the mapping everything on this page, including our tool, is built on. If you only check one thing, check this one, because it is the ground truth.
- My Next Move for Veterans ↗
US Department of Labor
The crosswalk with a friendlier front end: job descriptions, salary data, outlook, and apprenticeship links for each matched occupation. Good for reading around a match once you have one.
Free tools built on top of it
- Military.com Skills Translator ↗
Military.com
Matches your code to live job listings on their board, so the output is postings you can apply to today rather than occupation names.
- TAOnline Skills Translator ↗
Transition Assistance Online
A straightforward code-to-occupation lookup that has been running for years. Fast and no-frills.
- LockLeed MOS Translator ↗
LockLeed, a veteran staffing agency
Civilian titles, transferable skills, certifications worth pursuing, ATS keywords, and resume bullets, on the page, instantly. Free to candidates; they are paid by employers.
- Best Military Resume ↗
Best Military Resume
An AI translator that takes your duties in your own words and builds two free resumes, one federal and one private sector, as the front door to their paid resume services.
- Operation MOS ↗
Operation MOS
A free AI resume builder for veterans, aimed at getting you an ATS-ready resume fast.
- GetVetsHired ↗
GetVetsHired
A free bundle: MOS translator, ATS resume checker, and a military-to-civilian salary guide. No signup.
Same and different, side by side
| Capability | Lookup translators | AI resume builders | Job Scout read |
|---|---|---|---|
| Code lookup (MOS, rating, AFSC) | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Built on the official DoD/O*NET crosswalk | Yes | Varies | Yes, all 8,206 active codes |
| Instant on-page answer | Yes | Yes | The lookup, yes. The full read arrives by email, usually within the hour |
| Writes your resume | No | Yes, that is the product | No. Resume work is our paid service, not this tool |
| Rank sets the level of the titles | No, an E-4 and an E-9 get the same list | Some ask for rank | Yes, this is the core of the read |
| Reads your PME (what your leadership education qualifies you to run) | No | No | Yes |
| Search terms you can type into LinkedIn or Indeed | No, occupation names only | Keywords for your resume | Yes, searchable titles at your level |
| Same inputs, same answer | Yes, a static table never varies | No, AI output drifts run to run | Yes, engineered so two people with the same record get the same read |
| Free | Yes | Free tier, paid services behind it | Yes. The paid work is separate and clearly marked |
We ran the same soldier through all of them
Everything above is what each tool says about itself. On 1 August 2026 we sat down and typed the same thing into every one of them: 11B, Staff Sergeant, E-6, ten to nineteen years in. An infantry squad leader is the fairest hard case there is, because there is no civilian job called infantryman, and 11B is one of the most common codes in the Army.
Recorded as returned. Where a tool did well we say so, and one of them beat us on output depth.
31 occupations
The full federal list, and it is genuinely comprehensive. It is also flat: Emergency Management Director sits in the same undifferentiated list as Septic Tank Servicer, Mobile Home Installer, and Ship Engineer. An E-4 and an E-8 get these same 31.
29 careers
The crosswalk with a better front end, and the extra context on each occupation is genuinely useful. It displays a pay-grade range of E1 to E7 against the matches but never asks which one you are, so the list does not change.
1 occupation: "Infantry"
Verified twice. Entering 11B returns a single row, SOC 55-3016.00, titled Infantry, which is the military occupation itself. You ask what your job is called on the outside and it tells you the name you already had.
Could not test
The veteran-facing tool URL redirected to a page addressed to employers ("EMPLOYERS - Explore the Military Skills Translator now"), describing a tool that matches veterans to an employer's own openings. We could not reach a version that takes a code from a veteran and returns occupations.
8 titles, plus skills, certifications, industries, ATS keywords
The strongest instant output we tested and it is not close. Every title came back at supervisor or manager level, which is right for an E-6, and the certification list (CPP, PMP, Lean Six Sigma, OSHA 30) is practical advice. One caveat we found by running it three times: the answer is not stable. Same code, same rank, two runs, and Operations Supervisor became Operations Manager while Field Operations Manager became Field Operations Supervisor. The seniority word moved in both directions at once, and that word is the pay band.
3 levelled lanes on the page, then a full read by email
Two steps. The instant answer gives three directions set by rank: E-4 returned Operations Coordinator, Training Coordinator, Safety Coordinator; E-6 returned Operations Supervisor, Training Supervisor, Field Operations Coordinator; E-8 returned Senior Operations Manager, Regional Training Manager, Site Manager. The emailed read then adds resume lines drawn from the record, the credential gate on each lane, PME translated into searchable titles, five named hiring markets, and ten search terms in the order to try them. Same input twice returns a byte-identical read, by design. The whole thing is published, unedited, on the sample page so you can judge it without giving up an address.
What the test actually showed
The official sources are complete, not sorted. Thirty-one occupations is a real answer and you should read it. But a squad leader scanning that list has to work out for himself that Emergency Management Director and Septic Tank Servicer are not the same suggestion, and nothing on the page tells him which end he belongs at.
Asking for rank is not the same as using it. LockLeed asks, and its titles genuinely land at the right level. But running the identical input three times gave us three different lists, and the word that moved was the seniority word. Manager and supervisor are different jobs, different interviews, and different money.
Short is the point. We return three lanes where the crosswalk returns thirty-one. That is not us knowing less. It is the level question already answered, so you are not the one sorting the list.
Judge ours the same way. Every tool above shows its output on its own page, and ours arrives by email, which made it the one entry here nobody could actually check. So we published the read this test produced, in full and unedited: see the real 11B, E-6 read.
In Canada
- MNET (Military Occupation to NOC Equivalency Tool) ↗
Department of National Defence with Employment and Social Development Canada
The Canadian official source: every CAF trade mapped to NOC 2021 civilian occupations, with the duty statement from the CAF job spec. This is the ground truth for Canadian members, the same way the DoD crosswalk is for American ones.
- Job Bank for veterans ↗
Government of Canada
Search by your MOSID and land directly in live civilian postings matched to your trade. The fastest route from trade to jobs you can apply to today.
- MySET (My Skills and Education Translator) ↗
CAF Transition Group
A different translation: which colleges and universities grant credit for your military training and experience. Education recognition rather than job matching, and worth running alongside any of the tools here.
There is no Canadian private-sector translator field the way there is in the US; the programs that exist, like WithYouWithMe (free tech training and placement) and Helmets to Hardhats (unionized construction trades), are employment programs rather than translators, and good ones.
Canadian Armed Forces member or veteran? We built the same read for you, on MNET data: the CAF Trade Translator. Enter your trade or MOSID, and the emailed read levels the answer to your rank and PME, PLQ through SAP, the same way the US read does.
Where ours fits
Every tool above answers the same question: what is my job called on the outside. They answer it instantly, and for that question, instant is right.
Ours answers a different one: what should someone at my rank, with my education and PME, actually aim at. An E-4 and an E-8 in the same MOS get the same answer from a lookup, and they should not, because they are not walking into the same interviews. Our read sets the level from your rank, translates your PME into what it qualifies you to run, and gives you search terms you can type into LinkedIn or Indeed tonight.
That takes longer. The read is built for you, one at a time, and it arrives by email, usually within the hour. If you want an instant answer, the tools above have you covered. When you want the level question answered, this is the only place we know of that does it.
Get your readKnow a good translator we missed? Tell us and we will add it. Job Scout was built by a veteran.