Military personnel and the transition into civilian employment: A systematic narrative review

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

Background: Service personnel are often of working age when retiring from the military. A sizeable number of military personnel transition into civilian careers every year, but little is known about the impact of this transition. Objective: This systematic narrative review aims to consider the international evidence about military personnel’s experience of transition to civilian employment.Methods: Four bibliographic databases were searched for published research about fulltime regular military veterans in civilian employment. Twenty-three studies were identified that included both qualitative and quantitative research. These studies were graded as moderate to good quality.Results: Four themes emerged from the review: the value of military experience; successful career transition; the difference between military and civilian employment; identity as a veteran.Key points were: veterans might hold a naive view of the value of their military experience;being able to transfer job skills to civilian employment may be an advantage; there were differences between the military and civilian workplace; constructing a civilian workplace identity included adjusting to different workplace values. Conclusion: Further research into the experience of deciding to leave the armed forces may help the armed forces to develop strategies for retaining personnel. No study focussed solely upon midlife career change and research into this area is important because military careers typically finish midlife.