You found a DoD job on USAJOBS. The pay line does not say GS-12. It says NH-III. No grade. No step. Just a band with a wide pay range.

Most veterans freeze right there. The resume habits you built for GS jobs still work. But the screening and the pay math are different. You need to know how that band gets read and how your starting number gets set.

This is the resume and get-hired side of AcqDemo. If you want the full pay tables and how raises work each year, I wrote a separate guide for that. Read the AcqDemo pay scale breakdown for the bands and the dollar ranges. This article covers something else. How acquisition roles get screened, how your pay is set within a band at hire, and how to build a resume that wins the band you want.

I spent years on the government side of federal contracts. I oversaw contractor staff and sat on source-selection work. I wrote the PWS and SOW language that defined the jobs in the first place. So I have watched how the acquisition workforce gets staffed up close. The resume that wins an NH band is not a mystery. It is a few specific things done right.

What Is the AcqDemo NH Band, in Plain Terms?

AcqDemo is a personnel system for the DoD acquisition workforce. It runs under a demonstration authority in law, 10 U.S.C. § 1762. The DoD office of Human Capital Initiatives manages it. It covers a large slice of the people who buy, build, and field defense systems.

Here is the part that matters for your search. AcqDemo does not use GS grades or steps. It uses three career paths and four broadband levels. The job posting will show a path letter and a level number, like NH-III.

The three career paths are:

• NH: Business Management and Technical Management Professional. This is the big one. Program managers, contracting officers, engineers, cost estimators, logisticians, IT leads.
• NJ: Technical Management Support. The technical and support roles that keep the work moving.
• NK: Administrative Support. The admin and clerical roles.

NH and NJ each have four broadband levels, written I through IV. The NK administrative path has three. So an NH-III posting is the third level of the four in that path. A band combines several old GS grades into one pay range. So NH-III is not a single GS-12. It covers the kind of work a GS-12 or GS-13 used to do, in one band with no steps. There are no within-grade step raises. Pay moves through a contribution system instead. The pay companion post walks through that math.

Which Career Fields Live Inside AcqDemo?

The acquisition workforce is broad. When you read a posting, the path letter tells you the lane. The career field tells you the actual job. The DoD Human Capital Initiatives office lists the fields the acquisition workforce hires into.

The main ones you will see:

• Contracting: contracting officers, contract specialists, the people who run the buy.
• Program management: the leads who run cost, schedule, and performance on a program.
• Engineering: systems, test, and technical engineering roles.
• Business and financial management: budget, finance, and cost estimating.
• Logistics: life-cycle logistics and product support.
• IT and other technical fields: test and evaluation, quality, production.

This matters for veterans because a lot of military jobs map straight into these fields. If you ran contracts in uniform, contracting is your lane. Air Force 6C0X1 Contracting and Marine Corps 3044 Contracting Specialist both line up with AcqDemo contracting roles. If you ran programs, managed budgets, or led technical teams, you have a field too. Not sure which one? Start by learning to find your military job series equivalent on USAJobs and work backward to the acquisition field that fits.

Bradley Landed a GS Management & Program Analyst Role.

"BMR assisted me with the federal resume and made the translations from military jargon to civilian language so easy."
— Bradley, E-8, Army

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How Does an AcqDemo Resume Get Screened?

The screening looks a lot like any other federal job. The announcement runs through USA Staffing. An HR specialist reads your resume against the qualification standard. Then a cert list builds, and a selecting official picks from it.

So your resume has two jobs. First, hit the keywords and duties from the announcement so the HR screen ranks you high. Second, read like someone who already does the work at the level posted. The cert list is a rack-and-stack. Weak matches sink to the bottom. Strong matches rise to the top.

Here is the trap with AcqDemo. Because there is no grade and no step, people assume the level is fuzzy. It is not. The band has a clear expectation built into it. An NH-III contracting role expects a certain scope of work. Dollar value of contracts. Independence. Decisions you owned. If your resume reads like NH-II work, you get screened to the bottom of the NH-III cert. Or you get qualified for the band but offered the low end of the pay range.

The fix is to write to the scope of the band, not just the keywords. Show the size of what you handled. Show what you decided alone. Show the dollars, the people, and the timelines you were responsible for.

How Is AcqDemo Pay Set When You Get Hired?

This is the part veterans miss most. In a GS job, your starting step is set by rules. In AcqDemo, the band is a wide range and the agency has room to set where you land in it.

Pay-setting is one of the flexibilities AcqDemo gives managers. They can set your salary anywhere inside the band's range, within their own rules. The official who picks you wants you to take the job. But they also have a budget. So they will not start you high unless your resume gives them a reason.

That reason is your documented value. Your current salary matters. Your scope of work matters. A strong resume that shows top-of-band work gives the selecting official cover to offer you more. A thin resume hands them an easy reason to start you at the floor.

So the resume does two things for your wallet. It gets you on the cert. Then it sets the anchor for your offer. A vague resume can still get you hired into NH-III. But it can also cost you real money on day one, because nothing on the page justified the high end of the band.

How Do You Match the Right Band on the Announcement?

Before you write a word, read the announcement closely. AcqDemo postings tell you the band, the career field, and the specialized experience they want. Miss the specialized experience and you do not qualify, no matter how good the rest reads.

Walk through it like this:

Specialized experience is the gate. If you have never qualified through it before, read how to prove specialized experience on USAJobs first. And if the announcement reads like a wall of acronyms, here is how to decode a USAJOBS announcement line by line.

What Goes in an AcqDemo Federal Resume?

An AcqDemo resume follows federal resume rules. It carries more detail than a civilian resume. Hours per week. Supervisor name and contact. Salary. Detailed duties for each job. But it still targets two pages. The old myth that federal resumes should run four to six pages is dead. Two pages is the modern standard.

For the format basics and what changed recently, see the USAJOBS federal resume requirements for 2026. For AcqDemo specifically, focus on these four things.

Show scope, not tasks

A task says what you did. Scope says how big it was. NH bands are read by scope. So put numbers on everything. Contract dollar value. Program budget. Team size. Schedule you owned. The number is what tells the screener which band you belong in.

Use the career-field language

If you are targeting contracting, use contracting words. SOW. PWS. source selection. award. period of performance. The HR screen and the selecting official both speak that language. If you are staying in your acquisition field, the terms translate straight across. No need to dumb them down.

Name what you decided

Bands reward independence. A higher band means you owned more. So show the calls you made alone. "Recommended" is weaker than "approved." "Supported" is weaker than "led." Write the verb that matches the authority you actually held.

Tie work to acquisition outcomes

Acquisition runs on cost, schedule, and performance. Tie your bullets to those. Money saved. Time cut. Risk closed. A bullet that ends in an outcome beats a bullet that just lists a duty.

Does Veterans Preference Apply to AcqDemo Jobs?

Yes. AcqDemo jobs are federal jobs. Veterans preference applies the same way it does across the government. You still claim it on your application. You still attach your DD-214 to verify it. The DD-214 is your preference document. It is not a place to pull resume content from. Your resume comes from your evals, your training records, and your own knowledge of the work.

AcqDemo also uses streamlined and direct-hire authorities for some roles. Those can move fast. If a posting uses direct hire, the timeline to an offer can be short. So have your resume ready before you apply, not after. For more on which federal lanes veterans can use, the USAJOBS veterans hiring paths page lays them out.

One more point. Acquisition roles often want or lead to certification through the defense acquisition workforce program. You do not always need it on day one. But showing related training or a path toward it helps your resume read like someone serious about the field.

Which Acquisition Field Should a Veteran Target?

Target the field your military work fits best. That is where your specialized experience is strongest. A logistics NCO has a real case for the logistics field. A finance Marine has a case for business and financial management. A contracting airman has a case for contracting.

You do not have to stay in your old lane forever. But your first AcqDemo job is easiest to win where your record already proves the work. If you want to see how a range of military jobs map into federal series, the list of 10 federal job series every veteran should search is a good starting point. Many of those series sit inside the acquisition workforce.

BMR's Federal Resume Builder handles the federal format and the military-to-civilian translation for you. Paste the AcqDemo announcement. It tailors your resume to the specialized experience and the band language. Built by veterans who have sat on the government side of federal hiring and contracts.

Build the Resume That Wins the Band

AcqDemo is not harder than GS hiring. It is just different on two points. The band hides the grade, and the pay is set with room to move. Both of those reward the same thing: a resume that shows top-of-band work with real numbers.

Read the announcement. Pull the specialized experience. Mirror it back with scope, independence, and outcomes. Keep it to two pages. Show the dollars and the decisions. Do that, and you do two things at once. You climb the cert list, and you hand the selecting official a reason to start your pay higher.

Start with the AcqDemo pay scale guide to learn the bands cold. Then build the resume that puts you at the top of one.