You got an Article 15. Or you lost a stripe. Now you are building a civilian resume, and your gut says everyone will see it. So you freeze up. You start wondering if you have to write it down somewhere. You do not.

I am a Navy Diver. I have seen good people take a hit on their record for one bad night or one bad call. It happens. The military has a long memory and a paper trail. The civilian world does not work the same way at all.

Here is what most veterans get wrong. They think a resume is a confession. It is not. A resume is a sales document. It shows your best work for the job you want. It does not list your rank history, your evals, or your discipline file. This guide walks through what you must say, what you can leave off, and how to keep it all honest.

Does a Resume Require You to List Your Rank History?

No. A resume does not ask for your rank history. It never has.

Think about how a civilian job seeker writes a resume. They list job titles and dates. They show what they did and what came of it. A person who got passed over for a promotion does not write that down. A person who got demoted at a past job does not write that either.

You get the same freedom. Your resume shows your roles and your wins. It does not need to show that you made E-5, then dropped to E-4, then climbed back. That is your service record. It is not a resume field.

So skip the rank ladder. Instead, lead with what you did. Led a team of 8. Ran a $2M equipment program. Trained 40 junior sailors. Those lines win interviews. Your pay grade on a given day does not.

What If a Job Asks for Rank?

Some applications have a box for military rank. A few federal and defense jobs do too. If a form asks, give your final rank at separation. That is the honest answer. You do not need to explain how you got there.

Your final rank is one data point. It is not a story you owe anyone. List it, move on, and let the rest of your resume do the talking.

Is an Article 15 a Criminal Record?

This is the fear that keeps people up at night. Let me be clear about the facts.

An Article 15 is non-judicial punishment, or NJP. It is handled by your commander. It is not a court-martial. Under 10 U.S. Code § 815, you even have the right to turn it down and demand a court-martial instead, except aboard a vessel.

Here is the part that matters most for your job search. An Article 15 is not a federal criminal conviction. The Army states this plainly in its Article 15 fact sheet. A guilty finding at NJP does not give you a criminal record. The Navy says the same thing about non-judicial punishment.

A court-martial conviction is different. That one can be a federal conviction. So the line is sharp. NJP is not a conviction. A court-martial guilty verdict can be. Know which one you had.

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Does an Article 15 Show Up on Your DD-214?

For most people, no. An Article 15 is filed in your military personnel records. It does not get printed on your DD-214, which is your discharge document.

The DD-214 shows your service dates, your rank at separation, your awards, and your discharge type. It does not list each Article 15 you may have received. For junior enlisted, those NJP files are often kept locally and destroyed after a set time or at transfer.

Why does this matter? Most civilian employers never see your DD-214 at all. They ask for a resume and an interview. The few who do ask for a DD-214 are checking your service dates and discharge status. They are not hunting for a stripe you lost in 2019.

A quick caution. A serious offense that went to court-martial can affect your discharge type. That can show on the DD-214. So the demotion itself is not the issue. The discharge characterization is the thing employers can sometimes see.

What If My Demotion Affected My Discharge Type?

Most demotions do not change your discharge type. You can take an Article 15, lose rank, finish your time, and still get an honorable discharge. That is common.

But sometimes a pattern of trouble leads to a less-than-honorable discharge. If that is your case, the demotion is the smaller worry. The discharge characterization is the bigger one.

That is a different topic with its own playbook. If your discharge type is the real concern, read our guide on what discharge papers actually tell employers. This article stays focused on the demotion and the Article 15.

How Do I Write My Resume After a Demotion?

You write it like anyone else. You focus on results, not rank.

A demotion does not erase your skills. You still led people. You still ran gear. You still hit deadlines under pressure. Those are the things a hiring manager wants. So put them front and center.

Use your job duties, not your pay grade, as the unit of value. A squad leader who dropped a rank still led a squad. Write the leadership. Write the scope. Write the outcome. Skip the grade timeline entirely.

Use One Title If You Held a Role More Than Once

Say you held a leadership job, lost it after an Article 15, then earned it back. Do not write three entries. Write one. List the role and the full span of time you did it.

This is normal resume practice. Civilians who change titles within one company often list the highest role they held. You can do the same. Pick the title that best fits the job you want and is true to your work.

BMR's Military Resume Builder turns your duties into clean civilian bullets for you. It focuses on the work and the results, which is exactly where your resume should point.

What Do I Say If an Interviewer Asks About It?

First, know that most interviewers will not ask. They are not reading your service record. They are reading your resume and asking about the job.

But it can come up. Maybe a veteran on the panel asks why your career took a turn. Maybe a question about a setback opens the door. If it does, you want a short, calm answer ready.

Keep it brief. Own it. Show what you learned. Then pivot to what you do now. You do not need the full story. You need to show you grew and moved on.

This same approach works for any tough question. We cover it in depth in our guide on how to explain being fired in an interview. The pattern is the same. Own it, learn from it, move forward.

Do I Ever Have to Disclose a Demotion?

For a normal civilian job, almost never. A resume does not ask. An interview rarely does. A standard background check looks at criminal records and past employers, not your military rank ladder.

There are a few cases where more comes up. A security clearance is the big one. The clearance process digs deep into your background, and you must be truthful on those forms. Lying on a clearance form is its own serious problem.

Some federal jobs and some background investigations ask broader questions too. When a form asks a direct question, answer it honestly. The rule is simple. You never volunteer a demotion. But you never lie when asked a direct, lawful question.

What About a Security Clearance and the SF-86?

A clearance is the one place this topic gets real teeth. The background investigation goes deep. The form you fill out is the SF-86, and it is signed under penalty of law.

The SF-86 asks direct questions about your background. Some sections ask about military discipline and court actions. You can read the actual form on the OPM standard forms page. When a question on that form applies to you, answer it straight.

The investigators care less about the mistake than the cover-up. A single Article 15 from years ago rarely sinks a clearance on its own. A lie on the form is what gets people denied. So if a clearance question covers your situation, tell the truth and let your record speak.

This is the clean rule for your whole job search. Resumes ask for nothing about discipline, so you skip it. Legal forms ask direct questions, so you answer them honestly. Two documents, two jobs, one standard of honesty.

Why Does the Military Track This but Civilians Do Not?

The two worlds measure people in different ways. The military runs on rank and a permanent record. Your file follows you to every command. A demotion is a formal event in that system, so it gets logged and remembered.

Civilian work runs on output. A company cares what you produced last year and what you can produce next year. There is no central rank file that travels with you. There is no shared eval system across employers.

That gap is good news for you. When you cross over, you leave the rank file behind. You bring your skills, your results, and your stories. The hiring manager builds their view of you from the resume in front of them, not from a record they cannot see.

So stop carrying the military scoreboard into civilian rooms. Different game, different rules. The new scoreboard only counts what you can do for the job. Build your resume to win on that scoreboard, not the old one.

How Should I Think About All This?

A demotion or an Article 15 feels huge inside the military. It follows you through every check-in and every eval. So it makes sense that it feels like a brand on your forehead.

The civilian side does not run that way. Your new boss wants to know if you can do the job. Can you lead. Can you solve problems. Can you show up and deliver. Your resume answers those questions, and a lost stripe does not.

So build the resume around your best work. Leave the rank timeline in your service record where it lives. Keep an honest, short answer ready in case it ever comes up. That is the whole plan.

You served. You took your hit. You kept going. That last part is what hiring managers actually respect. Now go build a resume that shows it.

Want help turning your service into civilian-ready bullets? Start free with the Military Resume Builder. It was built by veterans who have sat on both sides of the hiring desk, and it keeps your resume pointed at results, not rank.