Not necessarily.

At the very least an 18 year old who has been forced to fend for themselves is very different to an 18 year-old who still lives at home and has their mum do their washing.

I know who I'd rather employ.

as somebody from Israel, I am talking reality. The only difference is in security related jobs. In other sectors nobody cares.

With regards to "fending for yourself", you should visit Israel some day. It's something that is mastered by age of 8

Fend for themselves? The military is the one place where one doesn't get to do that. Especially conscripts.

Following orders that are barked at them by usually less intelligent people that just happen to have some stripes on their shoulder is not fending for oneself. You get fed, sleep and eat on command, what fending is there to do?

I would say you're conflating freedom with fending for one's self.

A teenager living at home has a high degree of freedom, but they don't have to fend for themselves, that is, they don't have to take responsibility for doing all the things that need doing in life, they will find their dirty shirt left on the floor, magically cleaned, ironed and put back in the wardrobe.

Someone in the army has a low amount of freedom, but they have to take responsibility for all the things that need doing in life. If they don't make sure their shirt is washed, ironed, etc they will be held responsible.

But the military have a laundry service, cooking service etc. Everything is still done for them. Except the things they are ordered to do. Throwing your shirts in the laundry is not really different from home.

Moving into your own place for the first time is much more like fending for yourself. Having to learn to cook, wash, manage your finances.

The only thing the military is really good at teaching is obedience but at the expense of suppressing critical thought and creativity. If I were an employer I'd like my employees to tell me if they disagree and not blindly follow orders.

things in Israel and Israeli army somewhat different from what you describe. If you curious, go to /r/Israel, there were a discussion last week about difference between US and Israeli armies

Last I checked, the aforementioned services you state (cleaning, laundry, cooking, etc) were all handled by conscripts themselves, and not by some sweet outsourced civilian agency (of course, things could be different for US folks in a warzone). In fact, some high level officers are often assigned a bunch of conscripts to do all their boring work for them. This is mostly the case in countries with a conscripted military, or a large enough population.