After leaving the military, do you feel companies truly recognize your worth during their interview process?

Unless it’s a Veteran owned and operated company I would say 9/10 times they don’t have a clue.

Not a chance. This is not because companies don't value the military...it's because they can't correctly understand a military resume. To me...my military resume was gold. Command time, successful staff time, PL time, and grand successes in each that would be an OERs dream. But my first interview looked at it like I had three heads and never called me back.

I looked around and settled on something called the ACP Mentorship Program. ACP is the American Corporate Partners Mentorship Program, in which I was put through a meticulous interview process simply to pair me up with an appropriate mentor in my area. I was eventually paired with a company exec, and I was his third protegee through the program. The first thing he did was ask to look at my resume. I proudly presented my little slip of gold leaf, and he agreed that it sounded amazing...but that he had no idea how to translate it. Even with the mandatory DOL Resume Building class through ACAP, in which my resume had passed with flying colors...it couldn't translate to civspeak.

So we went over it, bit by bit. Instead of focusing on impressive sounding jobs and accomplishments, he had me focus on the skills that I used to succeed in those positions, and he taught me how to feel comfortable verbally articulating the responses so I wouldn't lock up while translating it in my head first.

The next couple of interviews went much better. Ultimately, everyone brings accomplishments to interviews. Work through your military accomplishments to pick out the skills you used, and figure out how civilian employers will benefit from your skills, not your accomplishments (which mean less than nothing to civilians except for an interesting story or two).

Depends on the company, the position applied for and how you "sell" it.

If you're seeking employment with a company that has veterans hiring initiatives, focuses on veteran hires, or expresses such as part of their "core" ethos...it can be very, very valuable. Conversely, if you're applying for a company which promotes largely from within, or has a dedicated "pipeline" for which your military experience is not equivalent, it may be of little real value to the process. Naturally, any company whose culture/values don't trend towards the military is going to be a hard sell.

Interestingly, there's a lot of positions; mostly governmental, where the sheer volume of qualified veteran applicants make it difficult to "stand out". Think federal law enforcement, fire fighting, etc.

Ultimately, you have to master translating what the military taught you into civilian terms they can easily compare and contrast. "Leadership" can be a double -edged sword, as most civilians perceive the authority of an NCO or officer to be "automatic" as opposed to merit based (weird, I know...but there it is). If you've managed programs, have metricized your unit leadership goals, can point to key instances of meeting challenging goals through established protocols...these can all be helpful.

Be prepared to hear some strange questions...there's a perception "we" are all "square pegs" needing help fitting into "round holes".

I don't think that civilians really understand or care when that hire you, most companies feel like if you served less than four years then you don't really have any experience, they don't understand that unlike civilian companies the military is all day everyday training, I have received more training in my 3 1/2 years than people who have been on a job for 10 years. I worked at a construction company as a heavy equipment operator (my job in the military) for awhile after I got out and my supervisor said I did a better job than some of his operators that had 10 plus years of operating experience. Usually after I have been at a job a supervisor can tell that I was in the military just by my demeanor and the way I work but since of that came from my parents. Certain employers look at military experience as a plus, many companies just hire because they need employees and they don't care about your military service.