Deutsche Bank’s corporate and investment bank vice chairman John Eydenberg makes no bones about the fact that he loves hiring veterans.
For one thing, he said, they have the right kind of confidence.
“They take all your confidence away and break you down to your most humble self, and then they help you bring it back,” Eydenberg, who was an officer in the US Navy, told Business Insider.
“Veterans tend to be very grounded with a degree of humility that can be very helpful in client businesses.”
Eydenberg said the kind of person he would prefer to have working for him is a problem-solver who can work through difficult situations, rather than someone who always has the right answer.
Another important point: leadership training is one of the first things new recruits will undergo when they join the military. Leadership, Eydenberg said, is an essential trait in the business world.
"Things that I really have cared about as I've had more and more influence over how we treat our people, develop our people, is choosing leaders, what we expect of our leaders," Eydenberg told Business Insider.
Of course, you can pick up a number of important hard skills in the military too. For example, officer training is fairly mathematically rigorous, Eydenberg said.
"The academic piece is more [about] tools," he said. "The things that are more fundamental are leadership, resilience, teamwork, and confidence."
Deutsche Bank is a member of the organization Veterans on Wall Street, along with Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, and HSBC. It aims to help recent veterans find career and business opportunities in finance through networking, mentoring, and outreach.
Eydenberg said that this year, 18 interns across Deutsche Bank's investment bank and markets businesses - or about 10% of the class - have some military service experience.
"We've been really excited about the vets we've brought on," Eydenberg said. "We've found they do a great job in their day job - but then they commit to culture, make a big impact on culture, too."
Vets tend to participate in volunteering initiatives and company events, he said. For example, when Deutsche Bank sponsored a float in the pride parade last summer, a number of the firms veterans attended.
"A lot of them want to keep serving, they want to have a higher purpose," Eydenberg said.
