The military teaches you how to build a team, how to lead and how to construct and execute a plan. These intangibles represent your most valuable job skills because they’re the most difficult and expensive to teach. Like most service members, you take such intangibles for granted. You discount their value. You just naturally complete tasks asked of you, assume that everybody shows up for work on time, and think nothing of sacrificing self for the team. After you’ve spent 24 months or 24 years living those guiding principles, you internalize them. They define you.
From a corporate perspective, finding employees with leadership, teamwork and loyalty skills is difficult because people without a common military experience come from such varied backgrounds. Some learned similar skills from their parents. Some learned them in school or college. Some learned them playing team sports. Some never learned them at all. Ultimately, few possess the depth, experience of the ingrained intangibles that the military teaches you every day.
Cintas can teach you how to sell uniforms. GE can train you in the finer points of Black Belt. Companies can teach you the specifics of their jobs. But it’s very expensive to teach intangibles. Those intangible skills alone make you incredibly attractive to civilian employers. Those intangible skills, combined with the appropriate education, make you irresistible to civilian employers.