How many of you Veterans ended up working a civilian job significantly different from your MOS ?

It has been my experience that if you are looking for civilian employment in the same type as your MOS, then you have severely limited yourself.  Maybe an aircraft mechanic will find themselves in the same job, but for the vast majority of the rest of us.... we need to expand our base.  What I do now-a-days in my subsequent career is almost entirely different in location, type work, structure, and skills required.  In my view, one needs to take a good hard look at the civilian job market well in advance of end of service, and make preparations toward being employable.

When I returned from Viet Nam I was a fully trained meteorological observer and was job ready to go to work for the National Weather Service or any airline that had meteorological sections.  I applied for a position with every NWS office in the US including Alaska, Hawaii, and Guam without success.  I even had the regional manager for the midsouth tryting to help me gain employment.  He finally admitted that if I were a minority without any job knowledge or experience he could hire me on the spot, but I was the wrong ethnicity.  As a result, I ended up going to work with my dad in his trucking  company and did that until I got married.  A long haul trucker is no job for a newly wed, at least for this newly wed.  Eventually, I ended up as a cop and later an investigator for the state social services department where I ended up retiring.  No complaints for the way things worked out, but initially I was very discouraged for not being hired to do a job I was well trained to perform.

In my second career following my release from active duty, I became a consulting computer systems and applications architect (which was related to one of the occupational specialties which the Army introduced me to). Once while visiting the computer room of a client, I was struck by the precision with which all cabling was laid and commented that the system administrator must have had military experience. He had, in the Navy, as an electronics specialist. It showed. It really showed.

No, not everybody follows a career path laid out for them by the military. Indeed, few will remain on the same career path for an entire lifetime, not in these times of rapidly shifting technologies.

The most important things that the military teaches (or imbues in people, especially young people) is discipline and willingness to work hard, to be good team members and good leaders. These are attributes that will stand them in good stead regardless of their career path.