You found a strong veteran candidate. The interview went well. Now comes the part that trips up a lot of midsize employers. What do you offer? They have no civilian salary history. There is no "last pay" line on a job application. And asking for one would not help you anyway.

Military pay does not map to civilian pay. A senior enlisted leader might have run a 40-person shop. But base pay plus allowances looks nothing like a market salary for the same work. So you cannot anchor an offer to what they made in uniform.

The good news is you do not need their history. You never did. The right way to set any offer is the same way you should set every offer. You price the role, not the person. This guide walks through how to do that for a veteran hire, step by step, using public data and a simple read of what the job is worth.

Why does a veteran have no civilian salary history?

Most veterans spent their whole career in uniform. Their pay came from a federal table, not a private market. It was set by rank and time in service. It was not set by the job they actually did.

That matters. Two people at the same rank can do very different work. One leads a maintenance crew. One pushes paper. Both get the same base pay. So military pay tells you very little about the value of the role they ran.

Military pay also bundles things civilian pay does not. There is base pay. Then there are housing and food allowances. Some of it is tax-free. A veteran who tries to state a "salary" often adds it all up wrong. They may quote a number that is too high or too low for your market.

This is the same gap candidates run into from the other side. We cover the candidate view in our piece on what most recruiters get wrong about veteran salary expectations. This article is the flip side. It is how you, the employer, set the offer.

Should you ask a veteran what they made in the military?

No. And in a growing number of states, you legally cannot ask any candidate for pay history at all. Salary history bans have spread across many states and cities in recent years. The trend is clear and still growing. Check the current law where you hire before you build any offer process.

Even where it is legal, asking does not help you. A military pay figure is the wrong anchor. It pulls your offer toward a number that has nothing to do with your market. You want to anchor on the role and your pay bands, not on their past.

The cleaner habit is to never ask. Build your offer from market data and the role. Then you treat the veteran like any other strong hire. No special process. No awkward questions.

How do you find the market rate for the role?

Start with public wage data. The federal government publishes free, current numbers. You do not need a pricey salary survey to set a fair offer.

The best free source is the Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) program. It reports wages for about 830 occupations. You can pull national, state, and metro numbers. The Occupational Outlook Handbook adds median pay and job outlook by role.

Use BLS OEWS to find the wage range for the civilian title you are filling. Look at the median. Then look at the spread from the lower quarter to the upper quarter. That spread is your starting band. Always check the current data, since BLS updates it each year.

One more check. Compare the BLS band to what you pay your current team for the same role. Your offer has to be fair inside your own walls too. If the market says one thing and your team is paid another, you have a pay equity issue to solve first. For a deeper look at sourcing the number, see our guide on how to find a market salary.

How do you translate military responsibility into a comp band?

Now you have a market band for the role. The next question is where in that band the offer should land. This is where you read the veteran's actual experience. You are looking for scope, not rank.

Rank alone is a weak signal. A better read is how many people they led. How big a budget they owned. How complex the work was. How much they were trusted to decide on their own. That is the real measure of seniority. Our piece on military rank explained for civilian recruiters breaks down how rank maps to scope.

Read their resume by what they ran, not what their title was. Here is the difference.

Match the scope to where your own team sits. A veteran who led a large team and owned real resources is not entry level. Do not lowball them because the resume looks unfamiliar. Pay for the responsibility they can prove.

The same logic should already shape who you screen in. If you are filtering veterans out on a degree line, you are missing strong people. We cover that in our piece on skills-based hiring for veterans.

What about a veteran who is changing fields?

Some veterans move straight into a civilian version of their old job. A logistics chief becomes a logistics manager. That is an easy read. The scope carries over.

Others change fields. A combat arms leader moves into operations or sales. Here the title does not carry over. But the leadership and the judgment do. So how do you price that?

Anchor the offer to the new role, not the old one. Use the BLS band for the job they are taking. Then place them based on the transferable parts. Did they lead people? Manage risk? Hit hard deadlines? Those skills hold value in any field.

Be honest with yourself about ramp time. A field-changer may need a few months to learn the new lane. That is normal. It does not mean you offer below market. It means you build a clear plan for the first 90 days. Our guide on the 30-60-90 onboarding plan shows how to set that up.

Can hiring incentives offset the cost?

Yes, in some cases. A few programs can lower your real cost without lowering the offer. This helps you stay at market and still protect your budget.

The VA Special Employer Incentive can reimburse part of a veteran's salary during training. It is for veterans in the VR&E program. We break it down in our guide on the VA Special Employer Incentive. The Department of Labor also lists employer resources for hiring veterans at DOL VETS.

There are also tax credits worth knowing. The Work Opportunity Tax Credit (WOTC) has offered credits for hiring certain veterans in the past. WOTC expired at the end of 2025 and is not available for 2026 hires unless Congress renews it. It has been renewed retroactively after past lapses, so 2025 hires may still qualify. Always confirm the current status before you count on it.

The point of these programs is not to pay a veteran less. It is to offset your cost while you pay a fair, market offer. Lead with the market number. Treat incentives as a bonus, not a discount.

Should you put the salary band in the job posting?

Yes. Posting the band does two things. It saves everyone time. And in a growing number of states, pay transparency laws now require it. Listing the range up front means you and the candidate start on the same page.

It also helps with veterans in a specific way. A veteran with no civilian comp anchor cannot guess what to expect. Many will under-ask. Some will over-ask. A posted band removes the guessing. It also signals that you have done your homework and pay fairly.

Our guide on how to write a job description that attracts veterans covers how to frame the band and the rest of the posting. When the band is public, your offer step gets simpler. You are confirming a number, not negotiating from zero.

How do you make the offer and avoid common mistakes?

You have the band. You have read the scope. You know where the candidate lands. Now make a clean offer. A few mistakes still trip up good employers at this stage.

Explaining the total package is the step people skip. A veteran is leaving a world where housing, food, and health care were handled. Your base salary is only one part of the trade. Show the whole package. It makes a fair offer look as strong as it really is.

Where do you find veterans worth this kind of offer?

The method above only matters if you have strong candidates to make offers to. That is the harder part for most midsize employers. You are not a Fortune 500 with a veteran-hiring team. You need a fast way to reach qualified, transition-ready veterans.

That is what Best Military Resume gives you. Our pool grows by over 1,000 new profiles every month. We have helped build more than 60,000 resumes. So you are reaching active, recent talent, with their experience already translated into civilian terms you can read.

That last part matters for setting pay. When a resume already reads in civilian language, the scope is clear. You can see the team size, the budget, and the results. You can price the role and place the candidate without decoding military jargon first.

You do not need a salary history to make a fair offer. You need market data, a clean read of the role, and a pipeline of strong people. The first two are free and public. The third is what we built.

If you want access to that veteran talent pool, reach out through our hire page and we will help you find the right people.