Workday has announced the launch of its Military Skills Mapper, a new feature within Workday Recruiting designed to help employers more effectively identify, understand, and hire military veterans.
The tool addresses a long-standing recruitment challenge: translating military experience into civilian-relevant skills that hiring managers can easily recognize and act on.
By reframing military experience in language that resonates with private-sector recruiters, Workday’s Military Skills Mapper aims to make veteran talent more visible and accessible to employers.
Translating Military Experience Into Civilian-Ready Skills
Over 200,000 service members transition to civilian life each year, creating an often underutilized talent pool for employers. While veterans bring deep operational knowledge and leadership experience, the challenge has historically been one of interpretation, not capability. Recruiters without military backgrounds may struggle to assess how a candidate’s service history maps onto business needs.
The Military Skills Mapper is designed to solve that problem directly within Workday Recruiting. The feature appears in the “My Experience” section of a candidate’s profile and analyzes a veteran’s service background alongside the specific job description and organizational context. It then generates a tailored list of civilian-equivalent skills that align military experience with the role being applied for.
The tool doesn’t simply automate the translation. Veterans retain control over how their experience is presented, with the ability to review, edit, and refine the recommended skills list. This ensures accuracy while helping candidates describe their background in a way that resonates with civilian hiring teams without losing the substance of their service experience.
For recruiters, the benefit is speed and clarity. By embedding the Military Skills Mapper directly into Workday Recruiting, hiring teams can assess veteran candidates without relying on external tools or manual interpretation.
“Veterans bring hard-earned skills, such as leadership, adaptability, and teamwork, that don’t always show up clearly in traditional hiring processes,”
said Joe Wilson, Global Chief Technology Officer at Workday, who also serves as a Colonel in the US Air Force Reserve. “With the Military Skills Mapper, we’re using Workday innovation to make those capabilities unmistakably visible to the organizations that need them most.”
The Military Skills Mapper is expected to be available to Workday Recruiting customers in fall 2026.
Why Veteran Hiring Makes Business Sense for Employers
The launch of the Military Skills Mapper isn’t just about helping veterans articulate their experience; it also reflects a strong business case for veteran hiring.
Employers in the US have long tapped talent transitioning from the country’s large military. This stems not only from recognition of the value veterans bring—particularly in environments requiring adaptability, teamwork, and quick decision-making—but also from clear financial incentives. The Work Opportunity Tax Credit (WOTC) offers employers federal tax credits ranging from $2,400 to $9,600 for hiring qualified veterans, especially those with service-connected disabilities or extended unemployment.
For large employers hiring at scale, these credits can add up quickly, making veteran-focused hiring pipelines both financially attractive and socially responsible.
Beyond tax incentives, research consistently shows that veterans adapt more quickly to organizational change, are easier to train, and progress faster through new environments than many nonveteran peers. These traits are particularly valuable in today’s enterprise environment, where transformation, automation, and shifting business models are constant.
By making military experience easier to interpret and align with business needs, Workday’s Military Skills Mapper helps employers unlock this value more efficiently.
Turning Intent Into Action With Smarter Hiring Technology
For organizations with public commitments to hire, retain, and advance military veterans, the Military Skills Mapper represents a practical step forward. Rather than relying on good intentions alone, the feature embeds veteran hiring support directly into the systems recruiters already use daily.
By helping recruiters better understand candidate capabilities earlier in the process, organizations can make more informed hiring decisions while creating a more inclusive experience for veterans entering the civilian workforce.
As competition for skilled talent continues and organizations seek ways to build resilient, adaptable teams, tools like the Military Skills Mapper could play a growing role. By turning military experience into clearly articulated, business-relevant skills, Workday is positioning itself and its customers to better connect intent with impact in veteran hiring.
