Do not limit your civilian job opportunities to the choices that a military skills translator spits out for you. Here are three main reasons:

1. Intangible skills matter most
The military has taught you how to take and execute orders, how to be efficient with your time, how to work effectively within a team, how to lead, etc. These “intangibles” are the most valuable job skills because they’re the most difficult and expensive to teach.

As veterans, you take such intangibles for granted, so you may discount their value. You just naturally complete a task asked of you, assume that everybody shows up for work on time, and think nothing of sacrificing self for the team. You’ve spent four or 24 years living those guiding principles; it’s become a part of what defines you.

But finding employees with leadership, teamwork and loyalty skills is difficult in the civilian world because people without military experience come from such varied backgrounds. Some learned those 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 and ingrained intangibles that the military has already taught you. Above all, Uncle Sam’s investment in your professional and ethical behavior training is what makes you so attractive to civilian employers.

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. You’ve already proven that you’re a quick learner; the military demands that.

2. You don’t like your military job or you want to do something different
We all know military counterparts who retired on Friday and showed up in the same office on Monday in civilian clothes. They left the service and moved into practically the same job in the private sector. If that works for you, great, but it’s certainly not the norm.
Why? In most cases, we chose our military job, or had one chosen for us, when we were very young. Upon reflection, most of us in our 30s and 40s can look back and say that our career aspirations then differed greatly from our career aspirations now. Most 18-year-olds lack the self-knowledge to figure out what they want to do with the rest of their lives.

Moving out of the military presents an ideal opportunity to reevaluate career aspirations by taking personal desires, family needs and new experiences into account. And the military has given us the breadth of worldly experience to know what we do best and what we’re good at.

3. There’s no civilian demand for war fighter skills
Last time I checked, most civilian companies didn’t have job openings for sharpshooters, tank commanders and infantrymen. Yes, some military jobs have direct civilian correlation (recruiters become salespeople, supply personnel become bean counters, electricians mates become electricians). But most don’t, and that doesn’t matter.

The old rule of thumb applies here: “Determine what you like to do, and figure out how to make someone pay you for it.” Don’t limit your civilian career menu to jobs that are similar to what you did in the military. Do what you want to do and sell yourself to employers based on your entire body of work. You’re not an MOS with a pulse. You’re a professional armed with exceptional intangible skills that can enhance any company wise enough to hire you.