To support personnel transitioning from the military to the civilian workforce, the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) in 2011 instituted the SkillBridge internship program, which provides service members with valuable civilian work experience through unpaid internships during their last 180 days of service, while the military continues to pay their wages and full benefits. For service members, SkillBridge affords an opportunity to obtain civilian work experience and new skills that will improve their marketability and job prospects when searching for post-service civilian employment. For employers, the primary advantage of SkillBridge is access to free talent with few strings attached. Perhaps most notably, the program is not subject to wage and hour laws and employer participation does not create any federal contracting obligations.

The increasingly popular SkillBridge program has seen several changes of late. In mid-2023, the DOD issued a temporary pause on new applications after a spike in interest from employers. Since 2023, the Navy and Marines have both established rank-based limits on participation that are stricter than the 180-day period set by the DOD. In announcing these restrictions, the Navy and Marines both explained that the program affects unit readiness and that manpower needs must remain paramount. Given the military’s current challenges with recruiting and retention, it is conceivable the other branches could follow suit or that the DOD could impose such restrictions across the organization.

The newest change to the program came in August, when the DOD imposed noteworthy new mandates on participating employers. The DOD now requires SkillBridge employers to accept a minimum number of candidates annually based on the size of the business and to show a “high probability” that their SkillBridge interns will receive a job offer upon the completion of their internship. The memorandum of understanding that sets forth these requirements defines “high probability of employment” as “75% or higher of [s]ervice members who successfully complete the program receive a qualifying offer of immediate post-service employment,” with a goal of 85% or higher.

Ultimately, employers may want to consider establishing a SkillBridge military internship program to help meet their workforce needs. SkillBridge advantages employers not only by providing free labor but also a pipeline of potential long-term talent generally respected for their dependability, discipline, and leadership and teamwork skills.  The program also provides significant benefits to transitioning service members, which may appeal to veteran-friendly employers. Although some members develop readily transferable hard skills during their service, like a cargo pilot who can be trained to operate a commercial jetliner, many have niche skill sets without civilian counterparts. SkillBridge internships thus may assist service members in acquiring marketable hard skills. And because military cultural norms differ from those in many civilian workplaces, SkillBridge also helps ease separating personnel into what many experience as a different world, especially those who joined the service out of high school and never held a civilian job. Furthermore, by pairing service members with potential post-service employers, the program facilitates opportunities that could directly lead to a job offer.