You took a chance and brought a SkillBridge intern into your team. Good move. For the last few months, you have watched a transitioning service member do real work. No resume guessing. No 45-minute interview to size them up. You saw how they show up, how they solve problems, and how they treat people. That is the part most hiring is missing.

But here is where a lot of host companies fumble. They host a great intern, the 180 days run out, and the person walks out the door to a competitor. The internship was a tryout. They just never closed.

This is the employer playbook for the close. How to set up the SkillBridge so it actually tests fit, how to run a 30/60/90 evaluation, when to start the offer conversation, how to price the role, and how to time the start date around their separation. We will also cover the rules you cannot break. You do not pay the intern during SkillBridge. The military does. Get that part wrong and you put your spot in the program at risk.

If you are still deciding whether to host at all, start with our guide on how to become a SkillBridge host company. This article picks up after you already have an intern.

Why does converting an intern beat a cold hire?

A cold hire is a bet. You read a resume. You run two or three interviews. Then you guess. Most of what you learn about a person happens in the first 90 days on the job. By then you already signed the offer.

A SkillBridge intern flips that. You get the 90 days first. You see the work before you pay for it. The military covers their salary and benefits the whole time, so your evaluation costs you almost nothing.

The talent itself holds up. Veterans had a 3.0 percent unemployment rate in 2024, lower than the 3.9 percent rate for nonveterans, per the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Good people move fast in this market. The internship is your head start.

Think about what a conversion saves you. No new job post. No sourcing spend. No long screen of strangers. Your time-to-hire drops to near zero because the person already works here. For a deeper look at that math, see how to reduce time-to-hire for veteran candidates.

One thing to keep straight. Getting into SkillBridge is a competitive acceptance. It is not a hire and not a job offer. The person is still on active duty. They owe you nothing at the end, and you owe them nothing either. Your job during those 180 days is to earn the yes.

How do you set up the SkillBridge as a real tryout?

An internship that drifts will not tell you anything. If your intern shadows people and runs errands for four months, you end up with the same guesswork as a cold hire. You wasted the best evaluation tool you will ever get.

Treat the SkillBridge like the first phase of the job. Give them the work the real role demands. Real projects. Real deadlines. Real teammates. The official DoD Instruction 1322.29 that governs the program already points this way. The internship should benefit the intern, run under close supervision, and not displace your regular employees.

So build it like a job they can win.

When the internship mirrors the job, the conversion decision makes itself. You are not asking "would this person be good here." You already watched them be good here.

What does a 30/60/90 evaluation plan look like?

A tryout with no scorecard is just a vibe. You need checkpoints. A simple 30/60/90 plan turns 180 days of work into a clear hire-or-pass call. It also gives the intern fair warning about where they stand.

Keep it light. This is not a performance review system. It is three short conversations with notes you can act on.

The first 30 days: can they do the basics?

Early on you want to see fit and learning speed. Can they pick up your tools? Do they ask good questions? Do they show up ready? At day 30, sit down and tell them what you see. Praise what works. Name one thing to fix. This is also when you flag any concern while there is still time to course-correct.

Day 31 to 60: can they own work?

Now raise the bar. Hand them something with real stakes and step back. You are testing whether they can run a task start to finish without hand-holding. Veterans who led teams or ran missions usually shine here. They are used to owning an outcome. At day 60, you should have a strong read on whether this is a hire.

Day 61 to 90 and beyond: would you bet on them?

By now the answer is mostly clear. The back half of the internship is for confirming it and starting the offer talk. If the read is a yes, do not wait until day 175. We will get to timing next. If the read is a no, be honest and kind. Let them use their remaining days to chase other options.

When should you start the conversion conversation?

Too many hosts wait until the last week. By then the intern has already lined up backups. The good ones field other offers during the internship. If you wait, you lose.

Start the conversation well before the 180 days end. If your 60-day read is a strong yes, open the door right then. You do not have to hand over a signed offer at day 60. You just say the thing out loud: "We like your work. We want you on the team. Let us start talking about what that looks like."

That early signal does two things. It tells a strong performer to stop their job search. And it gives you both time to work out comp, start date, and role details without a deadline crunch.

The official program even nudges hosts this direction. SkillBridge asks employers to set up the internship so there is a high probability of a job at the end. The whole design points toward a hire. You just have to act on it.

How do you price the offer and time the start date?

Once the read is a yes, two things decide whether they say yes back: the pay and the start date. Get both right.

Benchmark the comp like a real role

Do not lowball the offer because they came through an internship. They know their market value. Price the role the way you would price it for any outside hire with the same skills. Pull a real salary benchmark for the job in your area. The BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook is a free place to start for median pay by role.

Remember that this person likely brings clearance, leadership reps, or technical skill that took the military years to build. They may also be weighing other offers. A fair number closes the deal. A cheap number sends them shopping.

Time the start date to their separation

This is the part civilian employers miss. A service member cannot start a civilian W-2 job until they are officially separated and off active duty. SkillBridge runs during their final 180 days, but they are still in the military the whole time.

So your offer start date has to land after their separation date. Many service members also have terminal leave, which is unused vacation they take at the end of service. Ask them their real available-to-work date. Build the offer around it. A clean handoff is the internship ends, leave runs out, separation finalizes, then they start as your employee.

What rules can you not break during SkillBridge?

This is the section that protects your spot in the program. Break these and you risk losing your host approval.

You cannot pay the intern a wage

This is the big one. During SkillBridge, the service member is still on active duty. The Department of Defense pays their salary and benefits. They are not eligible for wages or benefits from your company during the internship. You do not run them through payroll. You do not hand them a stipend or a gift to get around it.

The pay only starts after they separate and begin as your W-2 employee. Mixing those two up is the fastest way to a compliance problem.

Follow your MOU

Your company signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Military-Civilian Transition Office to host. That MOU sets your obligations. It covers supervision, the no-wage rule, and the expectation that you run a real training experience. Read it. Keep to it. The program is run under DoD Instruction 1322.29, and the MOU is how those rules apply to you.

The internship is not a hidden job

The intern should not replace one of your regular paid employees. They train under close supervision and do work for their own benefit. If you are using the intern to backfill a job you would otherwise pay someone to do, you are off-side. Keep it a training experience that happens to look a lot like the future role.

Is there a tax credit for hiring the veteran?

There can be. The Work Opportunity Tax Credit (WOTC) gives employers a credit for hiring from certain groups, including some qualified veterans. The credit can be worth a few thousand dollars per eligible hire, based on hours worked and wages paid.

One catch. WOTC has to be authorized by Congress, and the program has faced lapses around its renewal dates. Do not assume it is active. Check the current status on the IRS Work Opportunity Tax Credit page and the Department of Labor WOTC page before you count on it.

If it is active, you must get the new hire certified. That means filing IRS Form 8850 with your state workforce agency, usually within 28 days of the start date. The credit only applies once they are your paid employee, not during the unpaid internship. We cover the full mechanics in our guide to making the internal business case for veteran hiring.

How do you track your conversion rate?

If you host SkillBridge interns and never measure conversions, you are flying blind. A simple number tells you if your program works: how many interns you host versus how many you convert to full-time hires.

Track it per cohort. Three interns hosted, two converted, that is a 67 percent conversion rate. Watch the number over time. A low rate is a signal. Maybe your internships are not structured like real jobs. Maybe your offers come too late or too low. Maybe the wrong people are getting matched to you.

Pair the conversion rate with one more number: how long your converts stay. A high conversion rate means nothing if they all leave in a year. Watch retention too. If both numbers hold up, you have proof you can take to your finance team that the program pays for itself.

Where do you find more veteran talent?

SkillBridge is one channel. It is a strong one, but it runs on the military's calendar and matches you with one person at a time. To build a real veteran pipeline, you want more than one source feeding it.

That is where Best Military Resume comes in. BMR adds over 1,000 new veteran and military spouse profiles every month, and more than 60,000 resumes have been built on the platform. It is a steady, growing pool of transitioning talent you can reach year-round, not just during a SkillBridge window.

If you want to turn one good intern conversion into a repeatable veteran hiring program, map out your transition program sourcing channels and build a veteran recruiting strategy around them.

Hosting a SkillBridge intern is the hard part, and you already did it. You ran the tryout. Now run the close. Structure the internship like the real job, score them on a 30/60/90 plan, start the offer talk early, price it fair, and time the start date to their separation. Follow the no-pay rule and your MOU to the letter. Track your conversion rate so you can prove the program works. Do that, and the best evaluation tool in hiring turns into your best source of full-time talent.

— Brad Tachi, Navy Veteran & BMR Founder