If you just separated or you are getting close to your ETS date, you have probably typed "does Indeed help veterans" into Google at least once. Fair question. Indeed is the biggest job board on the planet, and the military transition space is full of people telling you to "just apply on Indeed" without explaining what that actually looks like for someone with a DD-214 and zero civilian work history.

I spent 1.5 years after separating from the Navy applying to jobs online and getting zero callbacks. A big chunk of those applications went through Indeed. The platform has some real veteran-specific features that are worth knowing about, but it also has gaps that will cost you time if you do not understand them going in. This article breaks down exactly what Indeed offers veterans, where it falls short, and how to use it without wasting months the way I did.

The short answer: Indeed does help veterans find jobs, but only if you know which features to use and what the platform cannot do for you. If you treat it like a magic search engine that understands your MOS or rating, you are going to have a bad time.

Does Indeed Have a Veteran Job Search Feature?

Yes. Indeed has a veteran job filter that lets you search specifically for positions posted by employers who have flagged themselves as veteran-friendly. You can find it by going to Indeed's advanced search page and checking the "veteran" option under the employer commitment filters.

When an employer posts a job on Indeed, they can opt into a "veteran commitment" badge. This signals that the company has stated they actively recruit or support veterans. The filter narrows your results to only those employers.

There are a few things to know about how this actually works in practice. The filter is employer-initiated, meaning the company chooses to check that box when posting. There is no third-party verification. A company with 50 veteran hires per year and a company that checked a box during onboarding look identical in search results. You cannot tell the difference from the listing alone.

That said, the filter still saves time. If you are scanning hundreds of postings, narrowing to employers who at least claim to prioritize veterans cuts noise. Just do not treat the badge as a guarantee. Cross-reference with the company's actual veteran hiring page, their presence at veteran career fairs, or whether they participate in programs like Hiring Our Heroes.

For a deeper walkthrough on setting up the filter itself, check out our guide to Indeed's veteran job filter.

Does Indeed Show Companies That Prioritize Hiring Veterans?

Sort of. Indeed surfaces employers who have opted into the veteran commitment badge, which is the closest thing the platform offers to a "military-friendly employer" list. But there is no ranking system. A defense contractor like Lockheed Martin who hires thousands of veterans per year gets the same badge as a regional staffing agency that checked a box.

If you want to find companies that genuinely prioritize veteran hiring, Indeed alone is not enough. Here is what actually works better for identifying those employers:

• Company career pages -- look for dedicated veteran hiring programs, military skills translators on their site, or SkillBridge partnerships
• VETS 4212 reports -- federal contractors with 100+ employees must report veteran hiring data to the DOL annually. These reports are filed with the Department of Labor and give you real numbers
• Hiring Our Heroes corporate fellowship lists -- companies in this program have committed resources, not just a checkbox
• Military-specific recruiters -- firms like Lucas Group, Bradley-Morris, and Orion Talent have actual relationships with veteran-friendly employers. Our guide to veteran-friendly recruiters covers who is worth talking to

Indeed can be one input into your company research, but do not rely on it as the sole signal that a company walks the walk on veteran hiring.

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Can Indeed Translate Military Experience to Civilian Job Titles?

This is where Indeed falls short for veterans. The platform does have a basic military skills tool, but it is limited. You enter your MOS, rating, or AFSC and it returns a list of suggested civilian job titles. The problem is that the suggestions are broad and often miss the nuance of what you actually did.

An 11B (Infantryman) might get suggestions like "security guard" or "law enforcement." Those are options, sure. But an 11B who ran a 40-person platoon, managed a $2M equipment account, and coordinated multi-element operations has skills that translate to project management, operations management, and logistics coordination. Indeed's tool does not capture that depth.

BMR's military-to-civilian career crosswalk tool pulls from O*NET data and maps your military code to civilian roles, salary ranges, and federal GS positions. It gives you a much wider view of where your experience actually fits in the civilian market.

The translation gap matters because it affects what jobs you even search for. If Indeed tells you that your rating maps to two job titles, you might spend weeks applying to only those roles and miss entire career fields where you are competitive. I went through exactly this after separating as a Navy Diver -- I had no idea my skills translated to environmental management, logistics, or contracting until I figured out the translation piece on my own.

How Does Indeed Compare to USAJOBS for Veterans?

Indeed and USAJOBS serve different purposes, and many veterans make the mistake of using only one. Here is how they actually stack up for someone with military experience.

Indeed is a private-sector job aggregator. It pulls listings from company career pages, staffing agencies, and direct postings. The volume is massive -- millions of jobs. But the listings are private sector and contract roles almost exclusively. Federal jobs sometimes appear on Indeed, but they are often scraped from USAJOBS and may be outdated or missing application details.

USAJOBS is the federal government's hiring platform. Every competitive federal position gets posted here. Veterans get real, measurable advantages on USAJOBS through veterans preference (5 or 10 points added to your score depending on disability status and service era). That preference does not exist on Indeed.

The bottom line: use both. Indeed for private-sector roles and to research companies. USAJOBS for federal positions where your veteran status actually gives you a scoring advantage. We wrote a full breakdown of Indeed vs USAJOBS for veterans that covers the application process differences in detail.

One thing I learned after getting hired into six different federal career fields: USAJOBS rewards specificity. Your federal resume needs hours per week, supervisor contact info, and detailed duties written in the language of the job announcement. Indeed applications use a shorter civilian-format resume. You cannot use the same document for both platforms and expect results from either one.

What Are the Biggest Gaps in Indeed's Veteran Features?

Indeed has made real effort to add veteran features, but several gaps remain that directly affect transitioning service members. Knowing these gaps upfront saves you from building a job search strategy around a platform that cannot support all of it.

No military-to-civilian resume builder. Indeed has a generic resume builder, but it does not account for military experience formatting. You will end up with a resume that lists your rank and unit but does not translate duties into civilian terms. When that resume hits an employer's ATS, it ranks lower because the keywords do not match the job posting. The hiring manager never sees it.

No federal job application support. Federal resumes have a completely different format from private-sector resumes -- they include hours per week, supervisor names and phone numbers, and detailed duty descriptions. Indeed's resume tool does not support any of that. If you apply to a federal job you found through Indeed using Indeed's resume format, your application will be incomplete.

Limited networking features. Indeed is a job board, not a networking platform. For veterans, networking often matters more than applications. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, referrals and direct contacts remain one of the most effective job search methods across industries. Indeed does not help you build those connections. LinkedIn is better for that piece, and our guide to getting hired through LinkedIn walks through how to set that up.

No clearance-specific search. If you hold an active security clearance, that is one of your most valuable assets in the civilian job market. Indeed does not have a clearance filter. Platforms like ClearanceJobs and cleared job boards exist specifically for this.

How Should Veterans Actually Use Indeed?

Knowing what Indeed can and cannot do, here is how to use it without spinning your wheels. This is the approach I recommend to veterans who come through BMR, and it works whether you are six months out from ETS or already separated.

Search in civilian terms, not military terms. Do not type "squad leader" or "fire team leader" into Indeed's search bar. Employers post jobs using civilian language. Search for "operations supervisor," "team lead," "project coordinator," or whatever the civilian equivalent of your role is. If you are not sure what that is, run your MOS through BMR's career crosswalk tool first.

Use the veteran filter as a starting point, not a ceiling. Turn on the veteran commitment filter for your first pass to see who is actively recruiting veterans. Then turn it off and search again. Many excellent employers do not check that box on Indeed but still hire veterans regularly. You would miss them if you only searched with the filter on.

Set up job alerts with civilian keywords. Indeed's email alerts are actually useful. Set up four or five alerts using different civilian job titles that match your experience. "Logistics coordinator" might hit different results than "supply chain analyst" even though both could be a fit for an Army 92Y.

Research companies before applying. When you find a company on Indeed that looks promising, do not just hit "apply." Go to their actual career page. Check if they have a military hiring program. Look them up on LinkedIn to see if they have veteran employee resource groups. Check Glassdoor for veteran-specific reviews. The five minutes of research before applying is worth more than sending 50 blind applications.

Do not rely on Easy Apply alone. Indeed's "Easy Apply" button is convenient, but convenience is not your friend during a job search. When you Easy Apply, your Indeed resume goes into the employer's system as-is. If that resume still has military jargon and no tailoring, it ranks lower in the ATS and the hiring manager may never scroll down far enough to see it. For roles you actually care about, go to the company's website and apply directly with a tailored resume.

What Should Your Resume Look Like Before You Apply on Indeed?

Your resume is the variable that determines whether Indeed works for you or wastes your time. The platform is just a delivery mechanism -- it sends your resume to an employer's ATS, which ranks it against every other applicant. If your resume does not speak the language of the job posting, it sinks to the bottom of the stack.

Here is what a veteran's Indeed resume needs to have:

Civilian job titles alongside or replacing military titles. "Platoon Sergeant" means nothing in most ATS keyword scans. "Operations Supervisor" or "Team Lead, 40-person department" immediately tells the system and the hiring manager what you did. You can keep the military context in parentheses -- "Operations Supervisor (Platoon Sergeant, U.S. Army)" -- but lead with the civilian translation.

Quantified accomplishments with dollar amounts, headcounts, and percentages. "Managed property accountability" is vague. "Managed $4.2M equipment inventory across 4 locations with zero loss over 18 months" gives the hiring manager something concrete to evaluate. Every bullet on your resume should have a number in it if possible.

Keywords pulled directly from job postings. Before you apply to any role on Indeed, read the job posting and identify the specific terms they use. If they say "project management," your resume needs to say "project management" -- not "mission planning" or "operational oversight." ATS platforms rank resumes based on how closely your language matches the posting. Your resume needs to be tailored for each application, or at minimum each category of roles you are targeting.

For the full breakdown of how to build a resume that actually performs on job boards, check out our military-to-civilian job search strategies guide. And if you want to skip the manual translation work, BMR's resume builder handles the military-to-civilian translation and keyword matching for you -- paste in a job posting and it builds a tailored resume matched to that specific role.

Where Does Indeed Fit in a Complete Veteran Job Search Strategy?

Indeed is one tool. It is a good tool for what it does -- aggregating private-sector job postings and letting you search by location, salary, and job type. But a job search built entirely on Indeed is like only using one frequency on the radio. You are going to miss a lot.

A complete veteran job search strategy uses multiple platforms, each for what it does best. Our ranking of the best job boards for veterans in 2026 covers where each platform fits. But here is the quick version of how they work together:

• Indeed -- private-sector job discovery, company research, salary data
• USAJOBS -- federal positions where veterans preference gives you a real scoring advantage
• LinkedIn -- networking, recruiter outreach, and company research. See our veteran LinkedIn guide for setup
• ClearanceJobs -- if you hold an active clearance, this is where cleared positions live
• Military-specific recruiters -- firms like Bradley-Morris and Orion Talent who specialize in placing veterans
• Career fairs -- face-to-face time with hiring managers. Check our career fair prep checklist before you go

After helping 17,500+ veterans through BMR, the pattern I see in people who get hired fast is consistent: they use at least two platforms, they tailor their resume for each application, and they network in parallel with applying. The ones who struggle are sending the same untailored resume to 200 Indeed listings and wondering why nothing happens.

What to Do Next

If you are using Indeed as part of your job search, start by making sure your resume is ready for it. A military resume full of jargon and acronyms will rank low in every employer ATS that Indeed feeds into, no matter how many veteran filters you toggle on.

Run your MOS, rating, or AFSC through BMR's military-to-civilian career crosswalk to identify your target civilian job titles. Then build a resume tailored to those roles using the BMR Resume Builder -- it translates your military experience into civilian language and matches keywords to specific job postings. Both tools are free to use.

Indeed is worth using. Just do not use it alone, and do not use it with a resume that was not built for it.