Getting out of SOF and into contract work

Where people go

There’s no one path out. Contracting is the big one: government or corporate, at home or overseas, usually a set term and a lot of the time back to back. Plenty of people teach what they know (weapons, medicine, driving, small-team tactics) to military, law enforcement or private clients.

And then there’s security and protection work. Executive protection, protective details, site and event security, risk work. That one has its own guide: executive protection and PSD jobs after SOF.

A lot of people bounce between all of it for years.

Every contract starts from zero

In a unit everybody already knows if you’re any good, because they watched you get there. After you get out, every new contract is a new set of strangers and every one of them wants proof.

So you reprove yourself. A résumé that has to translate jobs no civilian has heard of. The same packet of documents, again. The same references, called again, until the people who know you best are tired of picking up. A check you passed for the last contract, passed again for this one.

And the people hiring are still guessing, because the résumé is self-reported and you picked the references. On paper the best guy and the worst guy can look the same.

Inside the community the question has always been simple: would you pick them first for your team? The people who can answer it worked next to you. Contract work already runs on that answer, passed around on the phone and in group chats. It just never gets written down anywhere a stranger can check.

Taking the answer with you

OPtrust turns that answer into something you can carry. You build one profile with your units, deployments and skills, and your DD214 gets read once. People you served with vouch for you on character and on specific skills, one word each: First pick, Solid or Pass. A First pick is attributed, so you know who gave it. The other two stay anonymous so nobody has to soften one.

The network turns those vouches into two things that follow you:

• A trust tier. Four levels, gated on your score, how many vouches you have and how many separate units they come from. You can’t buy it and you can’t type it in.
• A signed card. One link with your tier, your vouched skills and how many separate units vouched. It carries a cryptographic signature, so nobody can edit it and anyone can check it. Your name shows on it, and you can leave it off. See a sample.

Build it once and send it to the next contract and the one after that. The people who know you vouch one time instead of fielding a call from every recruiter you ever talk to. How the score is computed is in how SOF contractors get vetted.

Inside, members post contracts with the point of contact and the rate up front, the way they already go out on Signal. Approved employers can search the network but see no names until you say yes to them.

Before you get out

1. Get copies of your service records and keep them somewhere safe. You’ll be asked for them more than once.
2. Write down your units, deployments, courses and dates while you still remember them. They get harder to pin down every year.
3. Note which certifications expire and when.
4. Ask the people you trust to vouch for you while you’re still in touch. In three years half those numbers won’t pick up.
5. Know what the people hiring will check. If you’re the one hiring, this page is for you.