There are a few topics in the military transition world that I know (without a shadow of a doubt) will piss people off the minute I bring them up.

This is one of them.

And before you even warm up your typing fingers to tell me I’m wrong, let me make something clear: I don’t have a dog in the hunt other than helping you transition successfully. I’m not in your rating chain. I’m not competing with you for a job. I’m not one of those people online who corrects you just to flex. I’m the guy who’s walked the road, screwed many things up, did my best to fix them, and is now trying to keep you from face-planting the same way I did.

So with that spirit in mind, let’s rip the bandaid off: Stop trying to map your military rank to civilian “equivalent” positions on LinkedIn, resumes, and social media.

Stop it. Stop it today. Stop it before you accidentally kneecap your civilian career before it starts.

I know what you’re trying to do. I know what you think you’re communicating. But what you are in fact doing is showing every civilian hiring manager, recruiter, and business leader how ignorant of their world you still are.

And that’s a fixable problem, if you’re willing to be honest about it.

Let’s call this what it is: a well-intentioned self-sabotage. Here’s the usual storyline: A transitioning service member fires up LinkedIn, a resume template, or talks to the separated E-4 at the transition center for advice, and starts trying to explain their experience in terms civilians will “get.”

They look at their rank. They look at civilian org charts. And they start drawing lines that feel logical: “Sergeant Major = COO.” “Company Commander = CEO.” “Platoon Leader = Senior Manager.” “Squad Leader = Team Lead/Shift Supervisor.” “XO = Deputy Director.”

The intentions are good. You’re trying to translate. You’re trying to communicate scope. You’re trying to make your experience legible.

But here’s the problem: You’re translating in the wrong direction.

You’re translating FROM the military OUTWARD (instead of translating INTO what the civilian market actually recognizes, values, and pays for).

And when you make up civilian titles that sound right but are dead wrong, you don’t come across as accomplished. You come across as utterly ignorant of the terrain you’re now operating in.

That’s like showing up to a Joint Task Force and insisting the local police chief is the equivalent of a Brigadier General because the town is big and the chief has a lot of patrol officers. Everyone gets what you meant, but the comparison doesn’t land. The ecosystem is different.

Different ecosystem = different hierarchy. Understanding that is not an insult to your service, it’s an acknowledgment that you’re entering a new operating environment.

Hard truth: civilian titles are tied to authority, budgets, and P&L (not rank). In the military, rank is the default measure of authority. In the civilian world? Budgets. Headcount. Revenue impact. Risk ownership. Decision rights. P&L responsibility. CY vs FY outcomes. Governance. Regulatory exposure.

Civilians do not care that you were a Sergeant Major. They care about: How many people you led and the results you produced. The complexity of the environment and the scale of the problems you solved. The financial or operational impact and your ability to communicate, collaborate, and influence. Whether you can perform in their system.

You might have had enormous influence as a Sergeant Major. But unless you owned budgets, policies, hiring, firing, strategy, or P&L, you were not a COO.

You were a senior enlisted leader with tremendous responsibility, leadership, and experience, but in a different organizational structure. Those two things can be equally impressive without being equivalent. The problem is that pretending they are equivalent makes it harder (not easier) for civilians to understand your value.

It reads like résumé inflation. And résumé inflation is a kiss of death in the civilian hiring world.

The rank-to-role conversion myth is born from insecurity, not truth. Let’s be honest for a moment. The reason so many veterans cling to civilian title equivalencies is simple: We’re afraid civilians won’t “get” our level.

We’re afraid that if we simply say “Sergeant,” “Captain,” or “Lieutenant Colonel,” civilians will assume smallness. But here’s the kicker: Civilians don’t care about your rank, they care about your relevance.

A Senior Chief in the Navy may have more real leadership experience than a majority of civilian executives. A Battalion XO may have managed more chaos than half the middle managers in the Fortune 500. A Platoon Sergeant may have been responsible for equipment worth more than many business units ever touch.

But when you try to map rank to title, you’re not building a bridge. You’re building a distortion, and then asking civilians to trust the distortion.

The insecurity is understandable. The habit is harmful.

You’re not a CEO. You’re not a COO. You’re not a CIO, CFO, or CRO (unless you actually did those roles for real).

And the funny thing? You don’t need to be. Your real experience is compelling enough on its own (if you describe it honestly, clearly, and in the language of the civilian market).

Let’s break down some classic examples (and why they don’t translate)

“Sergeant Major = COO” Respectfully, no.

A COO owns: Full organizational operations. Policies. Budgets. Hiring & firing authority. Profitability. Strategy execution. Compliance. Risk & governance. Multi-department oversight.

A Sergeant Major owns: People. Training. Standards. Culture. Advising command. Readiness. Discipline. Mentorship. Structure & systems.

Both matter. Both require mastery. Both are senior leadership. But they are not the same organism.

A COO operates under revenue, risk, and regulatory pressure. A Sergeant Major operates under readiness, mission, and personnel pressure.

Both are valid. But stop trying to make them equivalent. They aren’t.

“Company Commander = CEO.” Again, I understand the impulse.

But CEOs: Own strategy. Own budgets. Own staffing. Own market risk. Own legal exposure. Own investors. Own governance. Own hiring/firing of the entire organization. Are accountable to boards and shareholders.

A Company Commander: Executes missions. Manages resources. Leads troops. Ensures standards. Trains personnel. Reports to a Battalion Commander. Operates within established doctrine.

The scope is different. The pressures are different. The definitions of success are different.

Both are hard. Both are honorable. Neither is equivalent.

“Platoon Leader = Senior Manager.” Sometimes true. Often misleading.

In many civilian companies: Senior Managers manage managers. They own budgets. They own processes. They own functions

A Platoon Leader leads Soldiers but usually does not own strategy, hiring, budgets, or long-term operations.

Is that a knock on Platoon Leaders? Hell no. Platoon Leaders lead people in high-risk environments with asymmetric challenges that most civilians cannot fathom. But translating complexity into correct civilian frameworks matters.

The civilian world already struggles to understand the military, don’t make it harder. Hiring managers are not experts in military organizational structure.

They don’t know: What a First Sergeant really does. What ‘NCOIC’ means. What a Staff Duty Officer is. The difference between S3, XO, and OPS SGM. What a Flight Chief does. How an S-Shop works. What a Command Team actually owns

They do not live in our acronym soup. They do not understand our chain of command nuance. They do not automatically map our leadership experience to civilian structures.

So when we take a confusing system and then layer incorrect civilian equivalents on top of it, they’re more confused than when we started.

Here’s the irony: Your trying to make things clearer, is actually making things fuzzier.

Veterans aren’t failing because they lack skill. They’re failing because they’re poorly translating the skill. That is the tragedy I’m trying to help you avoid.

The correct approach: translate outcomes, not rank. You don’t need to invent titles. You need to translate results.

That means articulating:

Scope: How many people you led. How many teams you coordinated. How many locations you affected.

Scale: Size of equipment. Size of budget. Size of mission. Size of risk.

Impact: Readiness metrics. Operational outputs. Cost reductions. Improvements in efficiency. Mission success rates. Training outcomes

Complexity: Multi-stakeholder environments. Joint/Interagency coordination. High-risk operations. Rapid decision cycles. High ambiguity conditions.

Transferability: Leadership (very often overplayed in my opinion.) Risk management. Project management (very often underplayed.) Operations. Training. Process improvement. Crisis management. Communication. Culture building.

The civilian world understands these concepts. And they respect them (deeply) when they’re articulated clearly.

But when you call yourself a COO because you were a Sergeant Major, you lose credibility before they even reach paragraph two.

Instead of: “Senior Enlisted Leader (COO Equivalent)”

Write: “Senior Enlisted Advisor responsible for leading 650 personnel across 4 departments, ensuring operational readiness, managing training programs, developing leaders, and advising senior command on organizational performance, discipline, and culture.”

Instead of: “Company Commander (CEO Equivalent)”

Write: “Commander responsible for the leadership, training, and operational performance of 140 Soldiers. Managed multimillion-dollar equipment portfolios, executed complex missions, oversaw readiness reporting, and aligned unit operations with battalion and brigade strategy.”

Instead of: “Platoon Sergeant (Senior Manager Equivalent)”

Write: “Senior NCO responsible for coaching and developing a 40-person team, managing equipment valued at $15M, and ensuring all personnel met mission, safety, and training standards in dynamic and high-risk environments.”

Notice something? No rank equivalencies. Just facts. Just outcomes. Just value.

Civilians can assign the right level from there (and they will).

“But Scott, civilians need a translation!” Yes, they need a translation. Not a distortion. There is a difference.

You can say things like: “Equivalent to leading a department-sized team in the civilian sector.” “Comparable to a senior operational leadership role.” “Aligned with mid-level management responsibilities.” “Similar to managing a large operational team in high-risk conditions.”

These are functional comparisons: not title comparisons.

That’s the distinction.

“Equivalent to managing a department” is helpful; “Equivalent to COO” is inflated.

“Equivalent to senior manager responsibilities” is helpful; “Equivalent to CEO” is misleading.

“Equivalent to project management duties” is helpful; “Equivalent to Program Director” is risky (unless true).

See the pattern? Civilians need you to decode the experience, not substitute it with a civilian title you didn’t actually hold.  I get why people do it, but it’s time to stop.

I’m not judging anyone for trying to fill the translation gap. There’s fear. There’s insecurity. There’s the desire to not be underestimated. There’s the emotional complexity of stepping out of a system where rank determined your entire identity.

When that scaffolding falls away, you look for something familiar. So you grab the closest civilian title that sounds similar. I get it. I’ve been there. Most of us have.

But here’s the good news: You don’t need rank equivalencies to succeed in the civilian world.  Think of it this way for a moment: what if… they actually believed you and hired you for that title you put on social media?  Would you be well-served?

The civilian world isn’t looking for rank. They’re looking for competence. They’re looking for initiative. They’re looking for leadership. They’re looking for problem solvers and project managers. They’re looking for clarity. They’re looking for reliability. They’re looking for someone they can trust with outcomes.

Your military experience (honestly translated) provides all of that.

But the equivalency game gets in the way. The real flex isn’t pretending equivalency, it’s demonstrating adaptability Many veterans underestimate how impressive adaptability is to civilian employers.

When you show that you can: Translate your experience without inflating it, and understand the differences between the environments. Respect the norms of the business world and communicate clearly by dropping jargon and instead speaking the company’s language. Convey leadership without leaning on rank. Demonstrate humility and competence…you become a unicorn.

Civilians love hiring former military. They just need to know what they’re actually getting. And when you communicate that well, you rise above the noise of every other transitioning service member copy-pasting “COO equivalent” into their LinkedIn headline.

Your value isn’t tied to your rank. Your value is tied to what you did, how you led, and what you delivered. The military built you into someone with resilience, initiative, discipline, clarity under pressure, and leadership experience that most people never touch.

That’s enough. Hell, that’s more than enough. But only if you articulate it correctly.

So let me leave you with the most direct, brutally honest version of this message: Stop copying civilian titles you didn’t actually hold. Stop pretending your rank maps to their org charts. Stop trying to look “equivalent.” Start showing how capable, proven, and adaptable you really are.

That’s the path. That’s the truth. That’s the flex. And that’s how you win your transition.

Frag Out.