Down Range: A Transitioning Veteran's Career Guide to Life's Next Phase

Chapter 2

Translating the Values You Bring to Business

Some years ago, you heard the call to serve your country, and you answered. However, as you complete your military service, you're answering a new call. America needs your talent in business so our economy can remain as strong as our military, and so our private industry can continue to fund the budgets our nation's freedom requires. Now, you generally won't find recruiting posters for corporate jobs, but companies do want you. They are realizing that the skills that veterans have are the very skills that built the U.S. economy after World War II. Veterans led the post-war boom that made modern America into the world's dominant economy.

With only about 1 percent of modern Americans having ever served in the military, our generation of veterans is much smaller than the World War II generation, of whom there were sixteen million, representing 33 percent of the male population over age fifteen. The valuable skills that military service provides are becoming an increasingly rare commodity for employers, and those skill sets are more valuable than ever before. Among them, one of the most valuable is leadership.

Businesses are beginning to recognize the leadership qualities veterans exhibit. In just the past few years, business magazines such as the Harvard Business Review and Fortune have showcased how the frontline leaders in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have produced the leadership qualities that businesses need to remain ...