How the DoD Skillbridge Program Works

Did you ever hear of some guy in your unit who went off to work at a civilian job during his last few months on active duty?

Yes, that is totally a real thing. That wasn’t a rumor. Unless it was the guy from my basic infantry course who secretly went to go work at Home Depot for 6 months while everyone thought he was at Ranger School. That, my friends, was not this.

The DoD Skillbridge program is definitely a real thing and is open to all branches of the military. Designed to help ease your transition to civilian life, the DoD Skillbridge program is a truly awesome opportunity. For up to your last 180 days on active duty, you can work at a civilian job while still getting paid by and receiving benefits from the military. The program is also available for the Nation Guard and Reserves, but the regulations are different per each service. To know the specifics, you will have to contact your career service office to find out more for those cases.

Quick note: Don’t be discouraged or off-put if you decide to search for DoD Skillbridge and come across their website. It’s pretty bad, even by government website standards. But their FAQ section is pretty useful.

Photo courtesy of Unsplash

Frankly, it’s one of the best and most underused programs the military has to offer. It’s unbelievable. I’ve met people who participated in this program and:

worked at a tech startup (yours truly among them)
went to go work for their family’s company
got to be a fly-fishing guide in Colorado (seriously)

If you’re not hooked by now, go back and read that last one again (pun intended).

The DoD Skillbridge program is an incredible opportunity. Speaking from experience, the ability to go work at a civilian job for a few months before getting out helped me out in so many ways. It helped me start to shed my identity as a soldier and feel comfortable working in the civilian workplace and feel better about my decision to leave the military. Through the process, I also got the chance to showcase my abilities to the CEO/founder I worked for and he and I subsequently launched our own company.

So what’s the process to get started?

Plan

First, figure out the dates you want for your internship. By regulation, you can only take advantage of this in your last 180 days. You will also need to plan 1–2 weeks after the internship to clear your installation and do all the things you need to do to actually sign out on terminal leave. While you may choose to continue working at your company during terminal leave, know that you will still be charged for your leave.

Next, talk to your chain of command and let them know your intention to participate in this opportunity. I would recommend doing this at least 6 months out from the date you intend to start your DoD Skillbridge internship. You will need command approval to participate and you will want to give your chain of command the appropriate time to digest this and plan for it.

Important note: The DoD Skillbridge program is a privilege, not a right. While under Congressional mandate your command has to let you go to transition classes, they do not have to let you participate in DoD Skillbridge. This is why I encourage you to have this conversation sooner rather than later with your chain of command. The prospect of letting you go from the team 6+ months from now is easier to digest than 1 month from now.

Find your internship.

Once you’ve gotten a verbal OK from the appropriate level of approval, now you can go find a company for your internship. There are two ways you can do this:

Through an established program or company
Choose your own adventure

For the first option, there are three main organizations I’ve found that work specifically with placing transitioning veterans into DoD Skillbridge internships:

Hiring our Heroes

Run through the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Hiring Our Heroes has a very formal and structured fellowship program for DoD Skillbridge. As part of the program, you can receive career planning, resume and interview assistance, and access to relevant credentials, certifications, and licenses. They list major companies like Boeing, Amazon, and Carmax as partners and I also know of friends who worked with Facebook and Starbucks through this program. If you think you want to go work for a big corporation, Hiring Our Heroes is a great opportunity.

The one major constraint of the program is that you have to participate in one of their locations. If you are not based near one of these spots, this can create extra work for you to get approval and figuring out a place to live (more on that later).

Shift

Shift is a San Francisco-based private company that works to match veteran talent with companies seeking new hires. Their CEO is a former Marine and the company is staffed by a number of veterans, and they believe in the potential for veterans to bring meaningful impact to companies (especially startups). Shift works to bring veteran talent to companies via the DoD Skillbridge program a well as traditional hiring. Their network is mostly based in the Bay Area, but are growing to other markets as well.

Veteran Capital

Veteran Capital is a small team based in Durham, NC. They offer very similar services as Shift, working both to bring veteran talent in via the DoD Skillbridge program, but also traditional hiring. Veteran Capital offers a few distinct advantages including their relationship with Google for Startups, location in the Raleigh/Durham market (a growing startup area), and proximity to a number of large military bases with great veteran talent.

The benefit of working with one of these programs is that they are already approved as intermediaries for DoD Skillbridge. To be an approved internship, there has to be the potential for employment on the back-end. These organizations already built the necessary trust with the DoD and going through them makes the administrative process super easy. I only needed a two-page memo signed by battalion commander — it was that simple.

If none of these look like your cup of tea, you can also make your own luck (insert guy was who was a fly-fishing guide). This way does have a few extra challenges:

Administrative approval through the base career office may take some extra work on your part.
You will have to work to find a company and explain to them yourself how the DoD Skillbridge program works.
Without the proper diligence on your part, you could end up just getting coffee and copying papers. From what I’ve seen, the three above organizations do a great job of getting you a real position that challenges you and encourages growth.

But with that extra work, you may be able to find a truly awesome experience that works better for you. You can even go work overseas if you want. If you can decide on this early enough and have the flexibility to do so, choosing your own pathway for your DoD Skillbridge internship can be an awesomely unique experience.

Logistics.

There are some really important things you should know here.

If you are receiving BAH, you will continue to receive BAH for your base of assignment — not where your internship is. Meaning if you are an E-6 without dependents based in Fort Hood, your BAH is $1,056/month. If you then decide to go to an internship in New York City, where the average rent for a 1-bedroom apartment is $2,912/month, you will have to cover the difference between your Fort Hood BAH and the rent in NYC.

This can create some constraints, but there are options. If you move out of your residence near your base, you then have that housing money to apply toward wherever your internship is. You may also have friends or family near the internship where you could stay for free. Whatever you decide, remember that you will eventually have to go back to your duty station to out-process the military.

While you only need the first O-4 commander or above to approve your internship, if the location falls outside of 50 miles there could be extra approval needed. Every service has different rules, so talk to your base career office about it.

Before you start your internship, I recommend getting as much of your out-processing done as you can. I was able to complete all my transition classes before my internship started, so that when I was done all I had to do was clear the installation.

Photo courtesy of Unsplash

You should also have a serious talk with your chain of command prior to the start. The intent of the program is a full immersion into your internship. If your chain of command is calling you back to the office for something, that will create serious headaches for you and be a challenge for your organization. Working with your unit prior to the internship to establish boundaries and set expectations will help everyone out in the long run. This may sound counter to military work culture, but at this point in the process you need to start putting your transition to the forefront of priorities.

Crush it.

There can be a lot to decide in the above process. Finding a meaningful internship, working with your chain of command, and figuring out the logistics can all be a lot of work on your part. But once you get to your internship, you will have an awesome opportunity to grow and help your transition process out of the military.

To put it all into perspective, here’s my story:

December 2018: Told my Company Commander and Battalion Commander that I intended to do a DoD Skillbridge internship starting in early fall 2019. My ETS date was set for January 2020.

June 2019: Reached out to Veteran Capital (listed above) to start looking for an internship.

September 15, 2019: Started my internship at a tech startup in Durham, NC. I kept the townhouse I rented near Fort Bragg because I had a roommate to help with the rent and knew that I would eventually have to return to base. Durham is about 1.5 hours from where I lived, so I rented a small room in someone’s house during my internship. So for a few months, I was paying rent at two places, but because I had roommates the total was still less than my BAH.

November 22, 2019: Last day at the internship

November 23-December 10, 2019: Out-processing the Army and clearing the installation

December 10, 2019: Signed out on terminal leave.

Not enough transitioning service members take advantage of this opportunity. Leaving the military and entering the civilian world is challenging — make no mistake. Programs like DoD Skillbridge are there to help provide you an easy transition out of uniform and successfully enter the civilian workforce. Taking advantage of this opportunity during your transition process can truly help you in the next phase of your life after the military.

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