Your transit agency runs on people. Drivers who show up at 4 a.m. for the first pull-out. Mechanics who keep the fleet rolling. Dispatchers who reroute around a crash without missing a beat. Right now those seats are hard to fill. Operator shortages strand routes. Maintenance bays fall behind. And the people you do hire often leave inside the first year.

Veterans solve a lot of that. The military runs the largest transportation and maintenance operation on earth. It produces people who already drive heavy vehicles, fix diesel engines, run dispatch, and treat safety like the job depends on it. Because it does.

This guide is for transit agency HR and operations leaders at midsize systems. Not the giant metros with a full veteran-hiring office. The bus, rail, and paratransit agencies that need good people now and do not have a dedicated military-sourcing team. You will learn which military backgrounds map to which transit roles, how the CDL military skills test waiver actually works, and where to find these candidates before someone else does.

Why Do Veterans Fit Transit Work So Well?

Transit is a safety-first, schedule-driven, equipment-heavy operation. So is the military. The overlap is not a marketing line. It is the actual work.

A bus operator runs a fixed route on a tight schedule, manages a vehicle full of people, and follows strict safety rules. A soldier in a transportation unit ran convoys on a timeline, hauled cargo and people, and answered for every mile. The job changed. The discipline did not.

Veterans also tend to stick. They are used to shift work, early reports, and chains of command. None of that scares them off. A new operator from a civilian background may quit when they learn the spread shift means a 5 a.m. start and a 7 p.m. finish. A veteran shrugs at it. They have done worse for less.

The talent is there and it is looking for work. The Bureau of Labor Statistics put the 2025 veteran unemployment rate at 3.5%. These are people leaving structured, accountable jobs who want another one. A transit agency offers exactly that. Steady hours, a clear chain, a public mission, and benefits that hold up.

Which Military Backgrounds Map to Transit Roles?

The trick is reading past the job title on the resume. A military job code means nothing on its own. The work behind it is what matters. Here is how the four main transit job families line up with military experience.

Bus and Rail Operators

Look for anyone who drove for the military. Army motor transport operators (88M) ran trucks and buses on schedules under real pressure. Marine motor vehicle operators (3531) did the same. Many already hold a military CDL or operated vehicles that qualify them for one fast. They know pre-trip inspections, route discipline, and hauling passengers safely.

Rail operators are a smaller pool but they exist. The Army runs railway units. So does deployment and movement support. These people understand signals, scheduling, and moving heavy loads on fixed lines.

Maintenance Technicians

This is the deepest match of all. Military mechanics keep complex vehicles running in worse conditions than any bus garage. Army wheeled vehicle mechanics (91B) work on the same diesel systems your buses use. Marine and Air Force vehicle maintenance fields produce techs who diagnose, repair, and document by the book. Navy and Coast Guard machinist and engineman ratings handle large engines and electrical systems daily.

These candidates already read schematics, run preventive maintenance schedules, and order parts. The bus is new. The skill is not.

Dispatchers and Operations Controllers

Military movement control and operations specialists track vehicles, manage radio traffic, and solve problems in real time. Army transportation management coordinators (88N) and movement control specialists do this every day. So do air traffic controllers and tactical operations center staff. They stay calm when three things break at once. That is the dispatch desk.

Safety and Operations Supervisors

Every military unit has someone who owns safety. Risk assessments, incident investigations, training records, compliance audits. Senior NCOs run these programs across whole organizations. They also supervise. A staff sergeant managed people, schedules, equipment, and accountability long before they ever saw your job posting. That is a transit safety officer or a road supervisor in waiting.

For the maintenance side, the path is close enough that a veteran auto and diesel tech often needs only a short bridge to your shop. Our guide on hiring veterans for fleet maintenance management goes deeper on reading those mechanic resumes.

How Does the CDL Military Skills Test Waiver Work?

This is the single biggest reason transit hiring and veterans fit together. Most operator roles need a Commercial Driver's License. Getting one normally takes weeks of training and two separate tests. Many veterans can skip part of that.

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration runs the Military Skills Test Waiver Program. It lets qualifying service members skip the CDL driving skills test. They still prove their driving record. They just do not have to take the road test again.

Here is who qualifies, in plain terms. The applicant must have operated a military vehicle much like a commercial vehicle. They need at least two years of that experience right before leaving the role. And they have to apply within one year of leaving that military driving job. The program runs in every state.

What this means for you is speed. A veteran with the right driving background can get licensed faster than a civilian starting from zero. That shrinks your time-to-fill on operator seats. For agencies fighting daily service cuts because of driver shortages, that is real money saved.

One more piece. Even when a veteran does need to finish CDL steps, they often pick it up fast. They drove big vehicles for years. The endorsement is paperwork and a written test, not a skill they lack. If you cover the cost of testing and the P endorsement, you turn a near-miss candidate into a hire.

How Should You Read a Military Resume for Transit?

A veteran's resume can look foreign at first. It is full of codes, ranks, and acronyms. Do not let that bury a strong candidate. Read for the work, not the words.

An applicant tracking system makes this harder, not easier. It racks and stacks resumes by keyword match. A veteran who wrote "motor transport operator" instead of "bus driver" can sink in the ranking even though they are a perfect fit. The resume does not get filtered out. It just lands lower than it should. So if you screen by software, search for the military terms too, not only the civilian ones.

Translate the common terms once and you will read these fast. PMCS means daily vehicle inspection. NCOIC means they were in charge of a function and the people in it. Convoy ops means scheduled, safety-managed driving in a group. A staff sergeant ran a team. A motor sergeant ran a maintenance shop. Once you see the pattern, the codes stop being a wall.

When you compare two strong veteran applicants, weigh their evaluations and awards. Military performance reviews are detailed. They tell you who led, who got promoted early, and who others trusted with hard jobs.

Where Do You Find Veteran Candidates for Transit?

You will not find most of these candidates on a generic job board. The good ones get hired fast or never post publicly. You have to go to where they are leaving the service.

SkillBridge deserves a closer look. The Department of Defense program lets service members work a civilian job during their final months while still drawing military pay. You can read the details at skillbridge.mil. For a transit agency it is close to a paid working interview. The member learns your fleet and your routes. You decide if they are right before you ever extend an offer. Many agencies turn these interns into full hires the day the uniform comes off.

The U.S. Department of Labor also runs free employer resources for hiring veterans. Its Veterans' Employment and Training Service page covers outreach, accommodations, and support programs worth knowing about.

How Does a Midsize Transit Agency Compete for This Talent?

You are not the only one who wants veteran drivers and mechanics. Trucking fleets, logistics firms, and other agencies want them too. The good news is you can win without a huge budget. You win on the things that matter to a veteran leaving the service.

Move fast. Veterans are used to clear timelines. A hiring process that takes two months feels broken to them. Give a firm date for next steps and hit it. The agency that answers first often gets the candidate.

Be plain in your job posts. Drop the buzzwords. Say what the shift is, what it pays, and what the work involves. A veteran respects a straight answer and ignores vague corporate language. The same goes for your hiring managers. Tell them not to read confidence as bragging. A veteran stating what they did is reporting, not boasting.

Cover the gap on credentials. If a candidate needs the passenger endorsement or a short cert, pay for it and walk them through it. That small cost turns a maybe into a hire. It also signals you invest in your people, which is exactly what a veteran is looking for after years of being trained and developed.

It also helps to think across job families. The same veteran who starts as an operator may move into dispatch or supervision in a few years. You are not just filling a seat. You are hiring someone who can grow into the harder roles you struggle to fill from outside. That kind of internal pipeline is gold for a midsize agency that cannot afford constant outside recruiting.

If your needs run heavy on the maintenance or driver side, two related guides go deeper: hiring veterans as CDL drivers and hiring veterans for trucking fleets. For the safety supervisor side, see our guide on hiring veterans for EHS and safety roles.

How Can BMR Help You Hire Veterans for Transit?

Finding these candidates is the hard part. Best Military Resume was built to make it easy. The platform holds a large, growing pool of veteran talent, and it keeps growing every month.

BMR adds over 1,000 new profiles every month. More than 60,000 resumes have been built on the platform. That means a fresh supply of drivers, diesel mechanics, dispatchers, and safety leaders, with their military experience already translated into terms you can read.

You do not have to learn military jargon, chase base offices, or wait for the right resume to land. You search the pool, find the operators and mechanics who fit, and reach out. The translation work is already done.

If your agency is short on drivers, behind on maintenance, or losing service to staffing gaps, veterans are the fastest reliable answer. Reach out to access BMR's veteran talent pool and start filling those seats with people who already know how to show up, drive safe, and stay.