A combat arms resume scares off a lot of hiring managers. They see infantry. They see armor. They see artillery. And they assume the candidate can shoot, march, and not much else. So the resume sinks to the bottom of the stack. A strong hire walks out the door.

That read is wrong. Combat arms is where the military puts its leadership, logistics, and training under the hardest conditions it has. The skills are real. The words just do not match a civilian job post. Your job is to read the work, not the war story.

This guide shows you how. We will cover what infantry, armor, artillery, and combat engineers actually signal in civilian terms. We will keep it honest. Combat does not mean aggression, and a long deployment list does not mean job fit. By the end, you will read a combat arms resume and see the manager, the planner, or the technician inside it.

Why do combat arms resumes get misread?

The problem is language, not talent. A combat arms veteran wrote that resume for a world you do not live in. The terms are accurate. They just do not map to your job board.

An infantry squad leader led people, managed risk, and trained a team to a standard. On paper it reads like "led an 11B rifle squad in combat operations." Your hiring manager misses what that line means. It describes a frontline supervisor who owned the safety and output of nine people. So they skip it.

This is a translation gap, and it runs both ways. The veteran does not know your keywords. You do not know theirs. The fix is to learn enough of their language to find the civilian skill underneath. You do not need to become an expert. You need to know what four or five core jobs actually involve.

If you want the broader version of this skill, start with our guide on how to evaluate a veteran's resume. This article is the combat arms deep cut. It narrows in on the roles people most often misjudge.

What does infantry experience actually signal?

Infantry is the job most hiring managers misread the hardest. They see "rifleman" and stop reading. But infantry is built on small-unit leadership. That is the part you want.

An infantry team leader runs three to four people. A squad leader runs nine to thirteen. A platoon sergeant runs thirty to forty. These are direct supervisors. They train their people, account for gear worth six figures, plan missions, and answer for results. That is frontline management with the safety net removed.

Here is what infantry signals in civilian terms:

• Leadership under pressure: They made calls with bad information and short timelines. That transfers to operations, field management, and crisis roles.
• Training and development: They taught new people to a hard standard and kept them there. That is exactly what a shift lead or trainer does.
• Accountability: They tracked weapons, vehicles, and sensitive items down to the serial number. Lose one and there is an investigation. That habit shows up as discipline with assets and inventory.
• Planning: They built and briefed detailed plans, then ran them with a team. That maps to project coordination.

So when you read "infantry squad leader," think "first-line supervisor who led nine people and owned the outcome." That is a candidate for a team lead, a site supervisor, or an operations role. Want to pull leadership scope out of a resume? Our guide on how to read a military job title on a resume walks through the title-to-scope read.

What do armor and cavalry experience signal?

Armor and cavalry crews run tanks and scout vehicles. People hear that and picture combat. The civilian story is about complex machines and the crews that keep them running.

A tank is a multi-million dollar machine with an engine, weapons systems, optics, and a communications suite. A crew of four keeps it mission ready. The crew commander is often an enlisted soldier in their twenties. They are responsible for the vehicle, the crew, and the maintenance schedule. That is fleet and equipment management at a high level.

Armor and cavalry signal three civilian strengths. First, systems and maintenance. These crews run preventive maintenance, troubleshoot faults, and order parts. That transfers to fleet operations, heavy equipment, and field service. Second, coordination. A platoon of vehicles moving together is a logistics and communications problem. Third, asset management. They track fuel, ammunition, and parts across a moving formation.

Read "M1 Armor Crewman" or "Cavalry Scout" this way. The candidate managed complex equipment, led a small crew, and kept expensive machines running on a schedule. That fits maintenance management, fleet roles, and field operations.

What does artillery experience signal?

Artillery is one of the most misread jobs in the whole military. The word sounds loud and blunt. The work is the opposite. Artillery is math, precision, and safety run by a tight crew.

A howitzer crew turns a fire mission into a precise calculation. Wrong by a small amount and people die. So the crew checks data, follows a strict process, and verifies every step. The fire direction control side is pure applied math and data handling. The gun line is process discipline under time pressure.

Artillery signals four civilian strengths:

• Precision and accuracy: Small errors have huge consequences, so they built habits around getting it exactly right.
• Applied math and data: Fire direction work is calculation, plotting, and quality checks. That transfers to technical and analyst-adjacent roles.
• Safety discipline: They worked around dangerous equipment with zero tolerance for shortcuts. That is a safety manager's mindset.
• Crew coordination: A gun crew is a small team running a timed process together, over and over, without errors.

Read "13B Cannon Crewmember" or "Fire Direction Specialist" as a candidate who handled high-stakes precision work and followed a safety process to the letter. That fits manufacturing, quality control, and safety roles. If you hire for safety jobs, our guide on hiring veterans for EHS and safety manager roles goes deeper.

What do combat engineers signal?

Combat engineers sit at the seam of combat and construction. They breach obstacles, build fortifications, clear routes, and handle explosives. The civilian read is project execution and hazard management.

A combat engineer squad gets a task, plans it, gathers the materials, and builds or clears under a deadline. They run heavy equipment. They handle demolitions with strict controls. They manage hazards that can kill the whole team. This is field project work with the safety stakes turned up.

Combat engineers signal project planning and execution, heavy equipment operation, and serious hazard and safety management. They also bring logistics. A build needs the right materials in the right place at the right time. The squad makes that happen.

Read "12B Combat Engineer" as a candidate who planned and executed field projects, ran equipment, and managed dangerous materials safely. That fits construction, facilities, project coordination, and safety roles. Our guides on hiring veterans for construction roles and facilities management roles show how that maps to specific jobs.

How do you actually read the resume?

Knowing the four roles is half the job. The other half is reading the document in front of you without throwing out good people by mistake.

Start by reading for scope, not for the word "combat." Look for how many people they led. Look for how much gear they owned. Look for what they were trusted to decide alone. Those numbers tell you the real level of the job. A squad leader who ran nine people and tracked costly equipment is a supervisor, full stop.

Then watch your software. An applicant tracking system racks and stacks resumes by keyword match. A resume that says "led patrols" will not match "managed team." So the strong candidate sinks low and never surfaces to the top. The fix is to search both languages. Run your civilian terms first. Then run military ones too, like "squad leader," "platoon sergeant," or "crew chief."

If the resume includes performance reviews, read them with care. Our guide on how to read an NCOER, OER, or FITREP as a civilian recruiter shows what those documents say about rank and performance. To keep your read honest, our piece on spotting resume inflation versus real military achievement helps you tell a real claim from a padded one.

Does combat experience mean the person is aggressive?

No. This is the myth that quietly kills good combat arms candidates, and it needs to be said plainly. Combat experience is not a sign of aggression, anger, or a problem in the workplace. Treating it that way is both wrong and, in hiring, a legal risk.

What combat actually builds is calm under stress and tight self-control. The people who do this work well are not the loud ones. They are the steady ones who keep a clear head when things go bad. That is a strength in any high-pressure job.

Read the resume for the same things you would read on any other. Look for leadership, results, accountability, and growth. Do not let assumptions about war fill in gaps the resume does not support. Judge the work record, not your idea of what combat does to a person.

Where do you find combat arms veterans, and are they worth it?

They are worth it. The numbers back it up. Per the Bureau of Labor Statistics, veteran unemployment was 3.5 percent in 2025, lower than the 4.2 percent nonveteran rate. Veterans who served since September 2001 are the Gulf War-era II group. They made up 5.6 million people, or about a third of all veterans. That is a large, employed, ready pool. Combat arms veterans are a big slice of it.

To bring them in, you need to reach them and read them right. The federal government can help. The Department of Labor's guide for employers who hire veterans lists free resources, regional coordinators, and best practices. It covers how to find and keep veteran talent.

For most midsize companies, the faster path is a veteran talent pool you can search directly. That is what we built. Best Military Resume has over 1,000 new profiles added every month and 60,000 resumes built on the platform. The pool runs deep in operations, logistics, maintenance, and safety, which is exactly where combat arms veterans land. You search by the skill you need, and you see candidates who already translated their own experience into civilian terms.

To use that well, two of our guides pair with this one. Read how to search a veteran resume database effectively to find the right people fast. Then run our 10-point veteran sourcing readiness checklist before you post your next role. If you want to skip the searching and get straight to candidates, reach out to access BMR's veteran talent pool.

Stop reading combat arms resumes as war stories. Read them as records of leadership, precision, and project work done under the worst conditions a job can throw at someone. The candidate you keep passing over might be the best supervisor you never hired.