What ARE “great” jobs for military spouses?? This week military spouses scorched an article that suggested the “great” jobs available to us included babysitting, preparing taxes (Turbo Tax, anyone?) or baking cupcakes.
Since we actually pay attention to our military spouse readers, we know that there is a large population of spouses either looking for a “great” job right now or they are thinking of going back to work sometime in the future. We know they are willing to make some compromises so that they can have both a career AND a life with the service member they love. So we decided to start a SpouseBuzz List Of Great Jobs For Military Spouses. Can you help?
Take a look at our criteria for a “great” job. We want a mix of jobs that require a degree and those that don’t. Also, we are thinking:
- The work has to bring in thousands a month, not a hundreds.
- The field has to be experiencing notable growth or demand to overcome our lack of local connections.
- The job has to be available outside a major city (so working in IT or as a chemical engineer is probably out).
- Extra points would be awarded for jobs that related to military families because wherever we lived it was likely a bunch of other military folks would live there too.
Here are our first seven suggestions. Can you suggest other jobs (particularly those in business) that might work?
ABA Therapist. Applied behavioral analysis (ABA) therapists work with patients to overcome mental and social disabilities—especially kids on the autism spectrum. The Center for Disease Control indicates that 1 in 88 children in the United States have received a diagnosis on the autism spectrum. That figure applies to military kids, too. As the parent of a child on the spectrum, I know how hard it is to get these professionals– especially in more rural areas. ABA therapists can work full or part-time. The job requires formal education in psychology, behavior analysis or a related field of study.
Early Adopter. As Loretta Lynn said about breaking into country music, “You have to be the first or the best.” Which is easy for her cuz she was both. Same goes with anything you want to sell, manufacture or retail. You have to be the first or the best or there is little money to be made. When it comes to work, an early adopter is the kind of person who recognizes a trend way before anyone else. If you are the kind of person who was first with Angry Birds, iPad, or Viagra, sales might actually work for you as a military spouse. You might be able to identify the next Silpada. And then move on before everyone else climbs on.
Healthcare —Especially Concerning The Elderly. The need for registered nurses and Healthcare employment is expected to grow. According to the Society for Human Resource Management, there is also opportunity in healthcare on the business side of the house. We are thinking that if you specialize in providing services to the growing population of older Americans you will have the kind of skills that are rare in nearly every community. What kind of educational requirements would that take? Suggestions?
Richard Scarry character. Remember those Richard Scarry books from Kindergarten? Those were the books with the cats and pigs and worms dressed up as carpenters and welders and electricians. The Society for Human Resource Management says that skilled trades like these will be experiencing great demand in the next few years. If you are a person who works with their hands, or you were already trained as a welder in, say, the Navy, this looks like opportunity. Shoot, if you can dance, you can learn to weld. See Flashdance for confirmation.
Special Education Teacher or Aide. Your original plan to be a teacher had you imagining yourself in front of a group of charming fourth graders all working on their reports about Jamestown and Williamsburg. According to our readers, getting those jobs often requires that you spend a few years in the school system—which is hard to do when you move every other year. What if you break out of that crayon box and imagine yourself as a Special Ed teacher or a classroom assistant instead? The National Education Association says there is a greater need for special education teachers than for any other type of teacher. This requires some specialized training and the drive to make a difference in the world.
Marriage and Family Therapist. The Bureau of Labor projects that the need for marriage and family therapists will rise 29.8 percent in the coming years. The divorce rate is not climbing that fast; it is just that it is becoming more and more common for people to seek help from a therapist when their marriage gets rocky. This shortage is particularly great when it comes to military families living in less urban settings. A master’s degree is usually necessary for this job.
Pharmacist and Pharmacy technicians. There is a Rite Aid on every corner. A CVS in every strip mall. The opportunity for employment is there. Although it takes about six years to become a pharmacist (salary over $100K), most of the training a pharmacy tech (salary $30K) gets is on the job. Demand for pharmacy techs is expected to increase with the elderly population. Pharmacies are also expected to look to cut costs by shifting responsibilities from pharmacists to pharmacy techs. Can you retool other work/school/volunteer experience to make yourself more attractive to employers?
Social Worker With Military Credential. The National Association of Social Workers announced this week that they are launching a new credential for established social workers. Although social workers have to be certified and certification does not necessarily translate from state to state, this may be an area of expertise you could capitalize upon. In an interview, Executive Director Betsy Clark said that a social work who is also a military spouse who earns this credential would be ahead of the game and “in a position to be in a supervisory position over other social workers.” Something to think about….
This is just the beginning of our list, please make suggestions especially if you are a military spouse in a job that meets our criteria. At SpouseBuzz we believe that the best information comes from those people who walk the walk. No one knows better than you.
About Jacey Eckhart
Comments
Funny how everyone had a million comments bashing the care.com article, and now nobody has any comments for suggestions….
I will say one thing–the marriage and family therapist profession is tough due to the licensure issue! I actually feel like I would have a job right now if I was licensed, but am NOT licensed due to the fact that I have to keep moving, and I have "lost" my hours in each state. I know there is a lot of push to help military spouses with their licensing issues, but so far have not seen it in my counseling field. Hopefully will see more of that in the future so that I can get my license, as I have the hours now for it twice over!
The MFT licensing issue is definitely something we need to push for–especially since the need for therapists who understand military life is so great. What kind of requirements have you run into?
Agree with Tara, and am in the same boat. Spouses should definitely be encouraged to look into requirements post-degree in order to determine whether its worth getting it. Having a Master's degree in the counseling field, but being unable to become licensed due to moving and each state having different requirements, is being in, "no man's land." You can get jobs doing things such as the ABA Therapist (if they have them in your area, which they don't where we are currently stationed), or as a CPS social worker, but definitely not practicing therapy.
Environmental Technician and/or Environmental Geologist/Engineer, also Civil Engineer. Technicians make about $10-15/hr to start, measuring wells and collecting samples for geologists and engineers.
With a BS Environmental Geologists can make $30-4K/yr to start collecting samples, running pilot studies, consulting for cities and military bases and performing geospatial analysis (GIS). Engineers make slightly more to start (usually). After obtaining Professional Geologist or Professional Engineer certification, salary increases, because PG/PE are Project Managers in most companies and handle high level correspondence with the EPA, Department of Health and/or Environment, City Planning, etc.
MS degrees in these fields start out at higher salaries (depending on location) and are often fast-tracked for certification and management positions.
You wouldn't probably think that there are a lot of openings around military bases, but every branch has an in-house environmental team (like NAVFAC, US Army Corp of Engineers) and they hire external contractors (often women and minority companies who provide great pay, flexible hours, and ridiculously awesome benefits). In addition, almost every city has a group that evaluates planning decisions for environmental compliance and state governments hire people to make sure that all development is in compliance with environmental regulations and oversees environmental clean-up.
When you work either for NAVFAC or the like or as a contractor for the base, you get the extra bonus of knowing that you are making the environment cleaner for your service member and all of the families on the base.
30-40K, not 4K…oops
And here is the stats on geologist jobs: 21% growth over the next decade (all geology positions, including gov't scientists); current median salary for all geologists is $82.5K/yr (as of 5/2010).
Second the GIS field…it's what I do, no post career licensure issues, I work from home now but never had any issues transferring my job post to post since it's so tied in with military and their contractors. And I was making 70k 3 years post college and am significantly higher than that now.
Where and what was your education program?
I'm studying to be a cosmetologist!!! Everyone needs their hair cut and its a high turn over job.
I am a new graduate nurse and the job market is really tight without experience. Plus I am finding that being military is a liability. Hospitals are wanting a two to three year commitment after the training period. I can tell them until I am blue in the face that I will be there at least that long if not longer but….. so far I have not been hired.
That's awful. I'm very, very worried that I will face the same challenge. I am currently going to school to become a veterinarian (still have a long way to go) but all I can think about is how no one will want to hire someone who can't guarantee how long they can stay. Maybe I could work for the base clinic?? but who knows if they'll have openings… Anyways, that's the challenge with working in medicine: they want people who'll last and military spouses unfortunately get discriminated against because our spouses are likely to get stationed somewhere else… Like I said, I spend hours a day worrying about it!! lol
I have a bachelor’s degree in business administration/health care management and cannot find a job anywhere. We recently moved to SA & the market is tough. I also have 36 out of 39 graduate credits and still can’t find anything. I know health care is a good field only if you have experience as with any job. It is frustrating being a spouse helping support your husband’s career while yours is non-existing. My boys are all teenagers so I’m ready to get back to work. I’ve even started to apply at Target & Walmart. Any ideas?
Hey Tashun
Have you tried USAA? I know it could be broadly view has health care management, but they are a insurance provider who does have specialists over and above call center and other opportunities.
For those who don't know, USAA has a 200 acre 'campus' just outside of San Antonio…with their own child care center. I am not trying to do a commercial, but just want to bring awareness to everyone.
Why is IT not allowed to be on this list? I'm an air force wife and I work for a software company managing projects for a lot of our customers. It's actually perfect since the only criteria needed is to live near an airport, as a majority of the time is spent on site with clients, rather than in the office of my company. I travel about 50% of the year and the other 50% I work out of my house. I think consulting is a very good job for military spouses with degrees, especially since a certain location isn't required for most of these jobs. As long as you don't mind traveling every once in awhile, you can't beat the flexibility!
Hi, I'm thinking of getting a job like yours. How did you start? I have a degree in arts, experience teaching, and also with corporate events and art department work. Where do I begin?
Speech pathologist. Great job with a great salary! There are openings all over the world and you can work with a variety of people in a variety of locations.
I'm going to agree with Amanda that IT can be a great choice, particularly if you can link up with the right company that uses remote employees. I'm a software developer that's been with the same company for the 12 years my wife has been in the Air Force, from Ohio to Montana to Japan to California. I always call my job the perfect military spouse job: work at home, flexible schedule, high 5 to 6-figure income, and in my case, no more than 20% travel and most years, under 10%. Admittedly, it requires a bachelors or masters in most cases and the starting salary is usually lower (but still in the thousands per month), but if you can link up with a company locally for two or three years and then get them to keep you on when you move, it can be a great opportunity.
What major would you guys recommend in order to get that kind of job?
Computer science or some variant that leads into software development as opposed to operations for the type of position I have. For Amanda, she is in project management (and I don't know her background other than that), so you might even be looking at a management degree with a software emphasis.
To be honest, the healthcare field is an awful idea for military spouses, along with teachers, lawyers… really anything needing a professional license. they are trying to help us out with that issue, but the politics of it is slow. That, combined with discrimination against spouses because they don't want to hire someone who moves a lot, really makes it difficult to have a career. And please, when they see that I have been licensed in 3 states in 4 years, I don't have to say or not say my husband is military, my resume pretty much says it for me. Can't decide if that's worse or just leaving stuff off and having holes in my resume. On a side note an at home business over the internet for example is much more portable. please don't get into healthcare and try to be a military spouse- its caused me so many frustrations!
Financial and Healthcare industry! I have been gainfully employed in the financial industry for more than ten years (experiencing 3 PCS's during this time). There are banks in every town, city, district, community we will ever PCS to. Don't be "above" being a teller. (tellers can earn anywhere from 15k -30k/annual plus overtime and other company perks – 401k, profit sharing, PTO). I work with tellers who earn $500-$1000/quarter in incentives on top of their annual wages. Start out as a teller and work your way up. Even if it's not with the same bank, having banking experience sets you worlds apart from the other person who doesn't have bank experience.
Healthcare Industry: Medical Transcription and Encoding! This license can cross state borders allowing you to work from home or in an office environment. Generally takes about 6-12 months to complete but once you're licensed you can be your own boss as a consultant to hospitals/healthcare companies. They hire you via contract or you can work for a company. Often minimum hourly wages are $25 – $30 / hour.
I'd also add that in the financial industry there are many positions within the banking industry that do and don't require degrees. Personal Bankers, Loan Officers, Customer Service and Sales Representatives, Insurance Agents, Tellers, Teller Managers, Fraud & Loss Prevention Specialists, Financial Advisors, Auditors, Operations Consultants.