Developing a Career as a Military Spouse: How to utilize your skills for a successful career in the workforce

Military spouses can find it challenging to start or sustain a career in their chosen field because of the various challenges that come with being the husband or wife of a soldier. Though it may be challenging, having a career while being a military spouse is entirely possible with the knowledge of a few tips and helpful advice for how to find the right career field and consistently translate your abilities into skill sets attractive to employers.

Employers are Looking for Your Talents

Translate Your Household Management Skills into Job Skills

Often times, military spouses want to start their own careers but are apprehensive about the process either because they have never been in the traditional workforce or have been out of it for a longer period of time. These individuals have, in addition to the concerns and perceived barriers mentioned above, the added challenge of building a resume and articulating a skill set they acquired primarily from household management.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise, though it often does, that organizations look for exactly these types of skills. A spouse with a background in household management already has great planning and organizational skills. Military spouses should know that if you can run a household, you’re flexible and possess logistic skills that are necessary to many private sector positions. Articulating your skills so that the potential employer can easily envision utilizing your skills in the workplace will be a focus for you as you write your resume and cover letter, among other things.

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Transitioning out of a long career of service in the military is a life-changing event

This is an excerpt from one of our FREE whitepapers available in the Career Transition Toolbox.

White Paper
Common Fears and Challenges for Spouses of Transitioning Veterans. Many of the transitioning veterans we have worked with over time come to us still having a few years before retirement. This is a great point to first start talking about the transition. Why? Because these folks can take the time that’s necessary to make informed decisions and really follow a process of transition to make it easier to step out. Click here to access the Career Transition Toolbox.

Fact: Transitioning out of a long career of service in the military is a life-changing event.

For many military personnel, their military branch is not only their place of employment, it’s truly a part of their identity. As spouses often know, it’s their work, their social structure and where they have their friends. Often it’s where they and their family shop, go to church and attend school. Even off-time, their recreation, still takes place within a military-related setting. So, when nearly everything in their life is centered around the military, it’s understandable that they experience apprehension when facing the transition process. Military personnel often experience fear of losing their sense of belonging and sense of self. Trying to get past that is a big challenge.

Of course, not everyone’s experience is the same. Among other things, there does seem to be some variation in the transition experience between those who have served for somewhat less than or equal to 15 years and those who have served 15 or more years

For those in the 15 years or less category, their transition experience may be marked more by the fear of losing their friends and the sense of belonging. In particular they, more than anybody, have probably seen time on the battlefield and face other issues that we can’t even begin to understand not having experienced that ourselves. For this reason we, as career transition experts,

Their spouses really need assistance and suggestions to help their loved one receive any support and services that they might need to better facilitate their transition out of the military and into the workforce. Some helpful resources include:

• family support services
• The Department of Veterans Affairs
• Wounded Warrior Project

Of course these services are for things he or she might need beyond just the, “how to write a resume,” or “how to do an interview,” the career path things. For more on career transition resources, explore our white paper library and blog, or simply contact us directly through our website.

Jumpstart Your Career Transition! The Jumpstart Session is designed to give you the feedback, advice, guidance and confidence that you need to succeed in your career transition. What’s more, the Jumpstart Session is priced at an affordable $149. A limited number of Jumpstart Sessions are available. BOOK YOUR SESSION TODAY!

Military Career Transition: News Round-Up

Happy Friday everyone! There have been so many announcements, press releases and articles lately about new resources and programs available to military veterans that we've decided to use today's post as a chance to put together a news wrap-up for you all. Let us know if we've missed anything!

• Union Pacific Railroad Earns Hiring Our Heroes Award
• Obama Said to Plan 'Gold Card' to Help Veterans Find Employment 
• Battlefield to Boardroom -- Combating Veteran Unemployment 
• Help for vets looking to find new careers
• First Lady Announces Pledge to Hire 100K Veterans and Military Spouses by 2014
• Leaving the military? Job prospects are better than you think
• Monster and Military.com Kick-off a Series of Initiatives Designed to Better Match Employers with Transitioning Veterans
• 100,000 New Jobs for Veterans and Military Families

Understanding Your Military Spouse’s Career Transition

To help make sense of their career transition, we teach individuals to think of their process as planting a garden. Tending a garden is no easy task, but can reap great rewards and personal satisfaction. But before the would-be gardener can think about the harvest, he or she has to decide. “Am I going to do this, or am I not?” A “yes” answer to this question means that the person has taken the first step in the transition process, and begun to change his or her mindset. In many ways the earlier a person answers this question, the better. That’s because when people come to us early, they have more of an opportunity to really take the whole process in small steps. Taking small, purposeful steps enables them to wrap their heads around each little piece of the process to make the transition a smooth one.

It’s also important to note that just because your spouse has only recently decided to begin his or her transition process doesn’t mean that he or she can’t make a successful transition. It simply means that, because they will leave the military in a short period of time, they may have a few more stumbles along the way because they haven’t been able to really think through and get their heads wrapped around each little piece of his or her transition.

What to Expect in the Beginning
Now, returning to our garden metaphor, if your spouse has decided to transition out of the military you have to start making the next decisions: where to put the garden and what to plant. In other words, “Where do I want to put down my roots?” The answers to these questions - and the ones that follow - will help your spouse move forward comfortably and confidently by breaking the process into manageable steps.

Making it Through the Sometimes-Difficult Middle
Of course, choosing where to put down roots, and knowing skills and talents that your spouse can utilize are essential to the start of a successful transition, but now your spouse will have to “turn up the dirt.” What we mean by that is the networking and the informational interviewing part of the process. Next, comes the “planting of the seeds.” Essentially, this means your spouse will need to get out there and talk to people - network. Any good garden needs water and fertilizer, so your spouse should expect to talk to a lot of people, often. This is the part that can become discouraging. Your spouse will have some doors closed on him or her. It’s nearly unavoidable. But over time, as he or she talks to more potential employers and continues to network - more water for the garden – he or she will suddenly start to get feedback. And feedback is exactly what you want.

Key Take-Aways

• More time often means greater success for career change transitions
• Break the transition process into smaller pieces and work on them individually
• Network, network, network. You never know how you’ll find the next opportunity
• Be prepared for setbacks, and turn them into useful events by gathering feedback to apply to later interviews or meetings
• Take the time to find the right opportunity, which isn’t always the first one to come your way

Personal and Professional Resources for Military Spouses

In addition to providing coaching and consulting services to members of the military, we also proudly support military spouses in their personal and professional endeavors, as well! For many spouses, the skills they learn and talents that they develop during their time as a military spouse makes them an extremely great "catch" for employers. As such, we've developed whitepapers specifically with the military spouse in mind.

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Understanding Your Military Spouse's Career Transition: A Big-Picture Review of the Military to Civilian Transition Process

When a member of the military – in particular someone who has served for quite some time and has made the military a focal point of their life in so many ways – begins to contemplate a life away from the military, that person goes through a very real change of mindset.

And that change of mindset often means the person is now beginning to make decisions about what he or she wants to do and where they would like to take their life. This whitepaper is designed to help military spouses know what to expect as their partner makes the leap from a military to civilian career.

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In addition to our resources, another FANTASTIC source of information, inspiration and guidance is the Military Spouse Blogging Community. Created by Ann Marie of Household 6 Diva, the community is a fabulous resource and you are guaranteed to find a military spouse blog on a topic of your interest.

Jumpstart Your Career Transition! The Jumpstart Session is designed to give you the feedback, advice, guidance and confidence that you need to succeed in your career transition. What’s more, the Jumpstart Session is priced at an affordable $149. A limited number of Jumpstart Sessions are available. BOOK YOUR SESSION TODAY!