When you leave the military with an infantry MOS and without leadership experience (which is the situation most people who quit after 4yr are in) all you have is a proven ability to work hard and put up with bullshit. You're on roughly equal ground with someone who's been a warehouse laborer or janitor for an equivalent period of time and on lower ground than someone who at least has industry adjacent experience. Being able to show up and work hard confers a much stronger advantage than it used to when applying for entry level jobs but it's not particularly unique. Yes you can apply a your work ethic to learning skills but that requires a kind of self-starting that we both know not everyone in the military develops.
You've learned a variety of skills, probably had to face some challenging missions, been exposed to other cultures, learned to work within an organization, probably have highly conscientious posture.
Anyone in 10 years and never had a leadership position at all you'd have to question a bit (they should for sure be sergeant) but ideally would be prepared to be a regional manager for retail or Wallmart Center Manager. The more easy going and communicative would work in sales. Almost anything operationally oriented.
Contrast that with a sex worker who will unfortunately have a narrow set of options because a lot of companies just won't hire for that reason.
If you do a 4 year stint in the infantry and don't come away with some sort of leadership experience, the problem isn't your lack of experience, it's you didn't take advantage of the opportunities presented to you.
> When you leave the military with an infantry MOS and without leadership experience all you have is a proven ability to work hard and put up with bullshit.
But, from the contact I’ve had with the military (been close to several people who have either enlisted or commossioned experience, did the ROTC basic camp but chose not to contract) that's not particularly likely unless you are either actively avoiding or completely unsuited for leadership.
And even then you’ll probably have some leadership experience.
> You're on roughly equal ground with someone who's been a warehouse laborer or janitor for an equivalent period of time and on lower ground than someone who at least has industry adjacent experience.
Even if you somehow manage to be in that place skill-wise (and I think, leadership skills aside, that's unlikely), you are still better off career-wise, because essentially all public and many, especially large, private employers apply systematic positive preference for veterans in hiring.
