I separated from the Navy in 2015 and spent the next year and a half applying for government jobs with zero callbacks. One of the biggest reasons? I treated transition like a last-minute sprint. I had a generic resume, no real plan, and I assumed the TAP classes would prepare me. They gave me a foundation, but I walked out the door without the tools I actually needed to compete.

If you are in the Army right now and you know your ETS date, you have something I did not have: a concrete timeline to work with. SFL-TAP (Soldier for Life - Transition Assistance Program) has a structured sequence of mandatory and optional steps. But the official program only covers part of what you need. This article maps out the full timeline — what SFL-TAP requires, when you should actually start each piece, and what you need to do beyond the program to land a job before your last day in uniform.

This is not a general overview of SFL-TAP. If you want to understand how SFL-TAP compares to the old TAPS program, read the TAPS vs SFL-TAP breakdown. This article is the calendar — every month from 24 months out to your last week in the Army.

When Can You Actually Start SFL-TAP?

AR 600-81 says you can begin pre-separation counseling up to 24 months before your separation date. That is not a typo — two full years. But here is the catch: almost nobody starts that early. Some commands push soldiers to wait until 12 months out. Others do not mention SFL-TAP until 6 months before ETS. The regulation gives you 24 months. Use every day of it.

The mandatory components include pre-separation counseling (your DD Form 2648), the Transition Overview (formerly known as the pre-separation brief), the Department of Labor Employment Workshop, and VA Benefits briefings. The optional career tracks include the Higher Education track, Career Technical Training track, and the Entrepreneurship track. You can attend more than one.

The first step is always the same: walk into your installation's SFL-TAP center (or go to the virtual portal if your installation does not have one on-site) and complete your DD Form 2648 Transition Goals Worksheet. That form kicks off the whole process. Everything else flows from there.

24 to 18 Months Out: Early Planning Phase

This window is where you set the foundation for everything that comes later. Nobody else in your unit is thinking about transition at this point, and that is exactly why you should be.

During these months, your main tasks are:

• Complete pre-separation counseling and your DD Form 2648. This is the gateway document. Your transition counselor will review your goals, identify which career track fits, and start building your Individual Transition Plan (ITP).
• Start researching civilian career paths. Do not just think about what you want to do. Look at what your MOS actually translates to in the civilian and federal job markets. Use BMR's military-to-civilian career crosswalk to see real job titles, salary ranges, and federal GS series that match your experience.
• Identify SkillBridge opportunities. If you want to participate in SkillBridge, the planning starts now. You need command approval, an approved SkillBridge provider, and a timeline that works within your last 180 days of service. Read the full SkillBridge program guide to understand how it works.
• Start saving money. Even if you land a job on terminal leave, your first civilian paycheck might not hit for 6-8 weeks after your last LES. Plan for a gap.

At this stage, SFL-TAP itself is mostly paperwork and planning. The real value is the time you are buying yourself. Two years of knowing your direction beats two months of scrambling.

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18 to 12 Months Out: Build Your Job Search Foundation

This is where the work starts shifting from planning to preparation. You are still in uniform, still doing your job, but now you should be spending at least a few hours a week on your transition.

SFL-TAP will help you with a baseline resume during the DOL Employment Workshop. That resume is a starting point — it covers the basics. But one generic resume will not compete against 200 other applicants who tailored theirs to the specific job posting. The workshop gives you a draft. What you do with it after is what determines whether you get callbacks.

12 to 6 Months Out: Complete Mandatory Requirements

This is the window where most soldiers actually engage with SFL-TAP. If you started at 24 or 18 months, you are already ahead. If you are reading this at 12 months out, you still have enough time — but you need to move now.

The mandatory SFL-TAP components that must be completed before you can clear the installation:

• Pre-separation counseling and ITP review — your counselor reviews your DD Form 2648 and Individual Transition Plan. If your goals have changed since you first filled it out, update them now.
• Transition Overview — the initial briefing that covers timelines, benefits, and available resources. Usually a half-day session.
• DOL Employment Workshop — a multi-day workshop covering resume writing, interview techniques, and job search strategies. This is where you get your TAP resume reviewed.
• VA Benefits Briefings — two separate briefings covering disability claims, education benefits (GI Bill), healthcare enrollment, and other VA services. File your VA disability claim at least 180 days before separation — do not wait.
• Financial Planning seminar — covers budgeting, TSP decisions, and financial planning for civilian life.

All mandatory components must show as complete in your ITP before your installation will clear you. Your unit S1 or transition counselor tracks this. Do not assume someone is keeping tabs on your progress — check yourself.

What About the Optional Career Tracks?

SFL-TAP offers three optional career tracks beyond the mandatory requirements. You can attend more than one, and I recommend it if your schedule allows. Each one runs as a separate multi-day workshop:

Higher Education Track — covers GI Bill benefits, college admissions, degree planning, and how to evaluate schools. Good if you are planning to use your education benefits immediately after separation. Be aware: some for-profit schools aggressively recruit veterans. This track helps you ask the right questions before committing your GI Bill to a program.

Career Technical Training Track — focuses on certifications, apprenticeships, and vocational training paths. If your MOS does not directly translate to a civilian credential, this track helps you identify which certifications will open doors. Think CompTIA for signal soldiers, PMP for logistics NCOs, or CDL for 88Ms.

Entrepreneurship Track — run by the Small Business Administration. Covers business planning, funding sources, and the basics of starting a business. If you are seriously considering starting something after the Army, this is worth your time. If you are just curious, the time might be better spent on your resume and job search.

The optional tracks are genuinely useful. Where SFL-TAP falls short is not in the information — it is in the customization. The tracks teach general principles. They cannot tell a 35F Intelligence Analyst which specific certifications defense contractors want to see on their resume, or help a 68W Combat Medic figure out which civilian EMT-to-RN bridge programs are worth the investment. That part is on you.

6 to 3 Months Out: Active Job Search Phase

At six months out, you should already have a solid resume draft, a LinkedIn profile, and a target list of companies. Now it is time to start applying — and applying means tailoring every single resume to every single job posting.

This is where I see soldiers make the same mistake I made. You take the one resume you built in the DOL workshop and blast it out to 50 job postings. Then you wait. And wait. And nothing happens. The resume from the workshop was a starting point. Every job posting uses different keywords, emphasizes different qualifications, and targets different experience levels. One resume will not rank well across all of them.

If you are applying to federal jobs through USAJOBS, the tailoring requirement is even higher. Federal resumes need specific formatting — hours per week, supervisor contact information, detailed duty descriptions — and they must be tailored to every single announcement. A federal resume that worked for a GS-9 Logistics Management Specialist will not work for a GS-11 Contract Specialist without significant rewriting. The veteran resume walkthrough breaks down exactly what goes in each section.

BMR's Resume Builder handles the translation and tailoring automatically — paste in a job posting, and it builds a resume matched to that specific role. Free tier includes two tailored resumes, which is enough to test the approach and see the difference tailoring makes.

During this window, you should also be:

• Filing your VA disability claim if you have not already (180+ days before separation is ideal)
• Attending job fairs and hiring events — your installation SFL-TAP office posts these regularly
• Requesting letters of recommendation from supervisors and commanders
• Registering with your state employment office

3 Months to ETS: Final Push

Three months out, the clock is real. If you have not started applying, you are behind. If you have been applying and getting callbacks, you are in good shape. If you have been applying with no response, something in your resume is not working and you need to fix it now.

Here is what should be happening in this final window:

Installation clearing. Your S1 will start your clearing papers. Every mandatory SFL-TAP requirement must show complete. If you skipped a briefing or never completed the financial planning seminar, you will get stuck at the clearing station until you do. Some installations let you attend a make-up session; others will make you wait for the next scheduled class. Do not put yourself in that position.

SkillBridge execution. If you were approved for SkillBridge, this is your window. SkillBridge allows you to work with a civilian employer for up to 180 days while still receiving military pay and benefits. Some soldiers start SkillBridge at six months; others use a shorter window. Your command approval memo dictates the dates. For the full SkillBridge eligibility and approval requirements, read our dedicated guide.

Terminal leave planning. Calculate your leave balance and coordinate with your chain of command. Many soldiers take 30-60 days of terminal leave, which means your effective last day on post could be weeks before your actual ETS date. Use this time for interviews, relocation, and onboarding — not sitting on the couch.

Interview preparation. If you are getting callbacks, prepare for behavioral interviews. The military taught you how to brief and debrief. Civilian interviews use a similar structure — STAR format (Situation, Task, Action, Result) — but the language is different. Practice translating your missions and operations into civilian project language.

How Long Does the Whole Job Search Actually Take?

After helping over 15,000 veterans through BMR, the pattern I see most often is this: soldiers who start their job search 6+ months before ETS with a tailored resume strategy land offers before they separate or within the first month after. Soldiers who wait until the last 60 days and use a generic resume typically take 3-6 months after separation to find something — and that is 3-6 months of burning through savings while stress-applying to everything.

The veteran job search timeline article has the detailed data on how long each phase takes. The short version: preparation time directly correlates with how fast you get hired.

Federal jobs take longer than private sector. If you are targeting USAJOBS, add 2-4 months to any timeline because of the federal hiring process. Security clearance positions can take even longer. That means if your ETS is in September and you want a federal job by October, you needed to start applying in May or June.

What SFL-TAP Gets Right (And Where It Falls Short)

The SFL-TAP instructors are doing their jobs with the resources they have. Many of them are veterans themselves who went through their own transitions and are genuinely trying to help. The mandatory workshops give you real information about VA benefits, financial planning, and basic job search mechanics. That foundation matters.

Where the program falls short is customization. SFL-TAP produces one generic resume per soldier. The DOL workshop teaches resume basics — contact info, experience section, education — but basics are the starting line, not the finish. The program cannot tailor your resume to a specific GS-9 Contract Specialist announcement at Fort Liberty or a project manager role at Booz Allen. It cannot tell a 25B IT Specialist which CompTIA certifications to stack for their specific career target. It cannot customize your LinkedIn headline for the industry you are breaking into.

The other gap is consistency. What you learn depends entirely on which installation you are at, which instructor you get, and which contractor is running the program. I have talked to soldiers who had a great SFL-TAP experience with an engaged instructor who went beyond the curriculum. And I have talked to soldiers who sat through four days of PowerPoint slides and walked out with a resume that still had military jargon in every bullet point. There is no standardized quality bar.

SFL-TAP gives you the what. You need to figure out the how — for your specific MOS, your target career field, and the actual job postings you are applying to. Explore the career paths by branch to see what soldiers in your field are moving into.

The Complete SFL-TAP Timeline at a Glance

What to Do Right Now

If you know your ETS date, you already know where you fall on this timeline. Open your calendar and work backwards from your separation date. Figure out which SFL-TAP requirements you have completed and which ones you still need to schedule. Then handle the pieces SFL-TAP does not cover: tailoring your resume, building your network, and applying to specific jobs with specific strategies.

Your SFL-TAP counselor can tell you what boxes to check. For the rest — translating your MOS into civilian terms, tailoring your resume to specific job postings, and building a real job search strategy — BMR's Resume Builder was built for exactly this. It was built by someone who went through the same process, failed at it the first time, and spent years figuring out what actually works.

Start with where you are. Twenty-four months out? You have time to do this right. Six months out? You have enough time if you move now. Three months out? You are behind, but you are not dead in the water — just stop sending the same resume to every job and start tailoring. The soldiers who land offers before ETS are not smarter or more qualified. They just started earlier and tailored harder.