How does a U.S. military air traffic controller become a civilian air traffic controller?
Wasabi's answer is not correct, or at least not fully correct. You actually ask two questions: does a military controller need to take additional tests and training to get hired, and do they need additional training to work as a civilian controller. The answers, respectively, are &quot;no&quot; and &quot;yes.&quot;
The hiring practices change every so often, but here's how it is now:
&quot;Off-the-street&quot; FAA controllers receive training at the FAA Academy in Oklahoma City. This training starts with Air Traffic Basics and continues to Initial Tower Cab (for Terminal-track new hires) or Initial Enroute (for Enroute hires). New hires do not go directly to standalone TRACONs anymore. People who graduated schools in the Collegiate Training Initiative do not have to attend Basics but do attend Initial.
In order to get to Basics, new hires must take the ATSA aptitude test, as well as undergo medical and security investigations.
After graduating the Academy, new trainees are sent to their field facilities and go through classroom and simulator training before eventually progressing to On-The-Job instruction (plugged in working live traffic alongside a trainer who retains ultimate responsibility for the control position). Any controller, even one who has been previously certified at an FAA facility, must go through this facility-specific classroom/sim/OJT progression any time they transfer to a new facility.

Prior-experience new hires (who mostly come from the military) may elect to go through the off-the-street hiring process if there is a bid open at the time they are discharged. But usually they apply though a separate bid that is only open to prior-experience controllers. This bid allows them to be placed directly at a facility that should, in theory, correspond to the type and level of their prior experience; this is almost always a Terminal facility (tower, up/down, or TRACON) but an Enroute facility may be offered very rarely.
If necessary these new hires may be sent to the Academy for training, for example if they only worked radar before but were assigned a tower facility, but for the most part they enter the training process at their new facility immediately. This process is not waived just because they have previous experience. They do benefit by not having to take and pass the ATSA aptitude test, however.

As far as &quot;tests&quot; go, in the FAA, there are annual or biennial &quot;refresher&quot; simulator problems and &quot;skills evaluations&quot; where a supervisor does a limited checkride with the controller to ensure they don't need additional training in any area. But this is based on when the controller certified at their facility and has nothing to do with any tests they might have done in the military.