Here is the solution to your unemployment prayers: Military Spouse Employment Partnership. Military OneSource. Military Spouse Career Center. But what these programs don’t seem to understand is that in reality, many military bases are in small towns away from metropolitan cities. When I last looked at those sites, no company that is listed as a spouse employers is located within a hundred miles of my husband’s Coast Guard base.
The intentions of these companies are good, but the truth is that we need someone local who knows the area and is connected to employers who are actually hiring. And I do not mean just hiring for any job a high school student could get. I did not spend four years at the University of Colorado at Boulder studying Psychology and Linguistics so that I could flip burgers at the local diner.
The frustration comes when you find a potential job. My resume is a dead giveaway that I am a military spouse. The employers wonder how I ended up in this small town of Elizabeth City, North Carolina, 3,000 miles away from my last job in San Francisco, California. The only reason any of us are put here, of course, is the military. Employers aren’t stupid Without even having to ask the illegal questions of marital status, age, and military affiliation, the potential employer writes me off because they know we can get PCS orders to a new station at any time. Am I destined to have a life of unemployment for something that is completely up to the Coast Guard?
After many failed attempts in my job search in my minimal experience as a military wife, I have chosen to take charge of my destiny in the only way that is under my control at the moment that will keep me on my career path. I am getting another degree! Yet, there is another dilemma in this all its own. Since I have lived in three states in the past year alone, how do I go to school? I decided to go online at the University of California at Berkeley Extension! It’s the only way I don’t have to constantly transfer classes, along with transferring my home!
The family unit of a military member makes all the difference to the one who is serving our country. We support them when they are here and we comfort them when they are deployed. We pay the bills and keep life running while they serve our country. We are the last thing they think about when they go to sleep at night when they are hundreds or thousands of miles away. We keep them going and remind them what they are fighting for. If I can help my husband in his effort to help America, I think I am doing my job. If this is what I’m meant to do to right now, then I will excel at my job by supporting him until he meets his goals. After all, I can only benefit from this experience and strive to make the check mark in the box of being the “easily adaptable” job candidate! The answer to their question on my employment history: Being a military spouse IS my most recent job experience!
Kate Garrison is a Coast Guard Wife living in Elizabeth City, North Carolina. Kate’s dream job is to be in marketing for Scholastic Children’s Book Publishing and Distribution. Or to be a dolphin trainer.
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whooo Hoooo! Love the article Kate! Great job! You keep going girl!
Great article! Really opens my eyes to the employment challenges faced by military spouses around the world.
Wait, I'm confused….it's obvious that Kate Garrison wrote the article. And Jacey is a Navy wife….so why does it have Jacey's byline?
Thanks for the heads up! Kate Garrison did indeed write this fine post. Sometimes our program ignores the "guest blogger" tag and includes the person who uploaded the article (????!) Which in this case would be me. Sigh.
As soon as I got to "Coast Guard" I knew it wasn't yours. Good article though.
Here's one to heat up the Internet. Let me give you the flip-side to hiring spouses. In the middle of Missouri, jobs are scarce, but the flow of military families coming in for Captain Career Course classes is not. If you hire a military spouse, there is a high probability that they will be here six month or less. Then you have to refill the job. Only problem is that it takes three to four months to get approval to hire, recruit, select and start the individual. In the past 3 years, I have experienced this in our office four times.
Robert — Interesting perspective. It brings up the question of just how long you should be at a duty station before deciding to find work. Since those who go to a CCC know it'll be about 6 months … should you only find work if you're somewhere longer than that? What's the cut-off?
I was the hiring manager at my last job and I usually tried to hire spouses because I am a spouse myself. Granted, they were part time jobs but still. A lot of times spouses used their husbands schedule, their kids, the deployment, etc… to get out of work or change schedules and such. It was NOT everyone, don't get me wrong a lot of them were great employees. As the hiring manager I just wanted them to be honest during the interviewing process. Don't hide that you will have a crazy schedule. Don't hide that you're a spouse. Don't tell me you have open availability and can work 40 hours a week if need be if you can't. I can help you only if you're honest with what you can actually commit to the job. If you're leaving in 4 months I don't care, but tell me. Don't drop the bomb a week before the PCS!
I really enjoyed this post a lot. Its extremely difficult to find work when your resume is so chopped up. I have done all that is recommended in regards to major volunteering, keeping resume current, staying on top of CE's, etc so it still LOOKS good, but if you look at it closely you'll see all those moves! Then, as the author states, its more difficult to get work because they think you are going to leave again soon.
I have gotten a lot of help from the spouse employment center on base and absolutely love the employees down there! I also have used the Military Spouse Networking non-profit which has been great too. However, their is a ceiling on this. SO MANY of the positions that are being touted as the "military spouse" jobs are jobs that are things I was doing ten years ago while I went to school. For many people and spouses, this is a great opportunity….gives them the chance to connect to jobs where their lack of experience or holes in their resume from moving, motherhood, or whatever aren't really an issue. For women that want to make some extra money and have a JOB, this is great. Even myself sometimes I feel like I would not mind a job that has nothing to do with my chosen career path, just so I could go, do it, come home and forget about it! However, a job is a very different thing than a career. In my career, you need licensure, which I may literally never get. Everywhere we move I lose all the hours accumulated. Where I am now I have just found a job (which I actually think I will enjoy a lot) but it only requires a high school diploma. I have a masters. I feel lucky because its in my field (just something I did about eight years ago) so at least I am keeping that consistent, but I also have a level of frustration that I cannot get something that is on my level a bit more. I have attended every single job fair that has been thrown on the base I live on in the past year and have had no success (until now). Now my husband is potentially facing moving orders again in the next six months! The idea of starting this all over again makes me want to crawl under the covers and cry. Or declare bankruptcy on my student loans! Just my two cents.
Thank you all for your comments!
Thanks mom! :D
I guess I'm not sure what youre trying to say…You have a degree so you deserve a job more than others and arent willing to do blue collar or part time work? If you think youre above flipping burgers than don't flip them. Its not just spouses who are having a hard time finding decent work its everyone. It sucks sure but your article struck a whiny tone to me.
I wouldn't go that far. I think when military spouses discuss this issue there is a level of lack of control that impacts things because you are a military spouse. When I graduated with my M.S. I applied for different jobs in three different cities and then took the best one. When I chose to move again, I waited until I had found work before heading out. Now, I moved (with little notice) and cannot find work nor am living somewhere that I would choose to live. THIS is the sacrifice that military spouses make (happy to do it…most of the time) but that's the reality. That makes things different than civilians in this poor economy. Really…the job hunting sucks for EVERYONE right now and I'm not trying to minimize that. But there is that extra layer of things…which is why this is being discussed on a spouse site :)
Thank you for your constructive response to the previous quote.
Meaning thank you Tara
I totally agree! There is little help for Coast Guard spouses in Elizabeth City. This being our second tour here I am finding it very difficult to find work.
My husband is a 100% disabled veteran. I am younger than he is and I still need to work and have insurance. I was laid off from my employer despite the fact I was one of the top ranked supervisors, no attendance issues, no disciplanary issues etc. My last review I was rated commendable and got a BONUS! I am in Pensacola FL. I have no plans of moving and he is retired. What to do????
I LOVE this article!! I totally agree that I did not spend 4 years at one of the world’s top ranked universities to graduate at the top of my class (in a really hot field) to work at Target! We are in a smaller area where most jobs are retail & healthcare, with VERY few IT jobs. After dealing with the extremely frustrating unemployment office & a disheartening job search, I have also decided to go to grad school. I’m finishing my application & can’t wait to further my education!
PART ONE: Why is it ANYONE'S "fault" that you attended a top ranked university, or graduated in the top of your class, or you have a master's degree, or need a license that you can't get because you lose hours, but you can only get work at Starbuck because you just happen to live in the (often small) town next door to an Army post, a Navy base, a Coast Guard base a Marine base or an Air Force base? It is no one's fault that so many of our military posts/bases are located next to (often small) towns with limited employment opportunities. None of us were around when the decisions were made to locate all of these posts/bases in the selected cities and towns, and we certainly cannot control the types of large corporations or potential employers that will also be located in the towns next to these posts/bases. It's no one's fault that many of the businesses in these towns that are built up around posts/bases are geared toward soldiers/sailors/airmen/marines/coasties, and not toward employing spouses. It's not anyone's fault that employers might not want to take a chance on you because it costs money to search for the right candidate, conduct the hiring process, and then train you, only to have you leave in six months or a year or two years? If you've been on the employer side of the house, this can become frustrating, especially if you are an amazing employee that's really tough to lose in the first place. Why are we, as spouses, always looking for someone to blame for our un-employment woes? In the past 10 years, in response to all this whining, the military has rolled out several programs to assist the spouses, and yet it's still not enough? Ten years ago the Military Spouse Employment Partnership, Military OneSource and Military Spouse Career Center didn't even exist! Would you rather they just disappear? Would you rather the military go back to NOT helping spouses find employment? The Pentagon cannot wave a magic wand and declare that all military spouses from here forward will find challenging, rewarding work in the career field of their choice, at every post/base they are relocated to. And not even the First Lady has that kind of power either. Did anyone tell you, when you married your spouse, that he would move you to (often small) towns with no hope of employment for you, or no hope of using your awesome degree in the field that you wanted to work, or no hope of furthering your career? Or course not! Did anyone tell you that you'd be moving a lot? I sure hope so. I think you can do the math. And believe me, I feel the pain of Elizabeth City, NC. I know that city well, as it's my mother's hometown, and it is quite similar to a few of the places I've been over the years.
PART TWO: My strategy and belief is this … if you want to work badly enough, you will find a job, whether it's in your career field or not. If you have a master's degree, but can only find work at Starbucks at this particular post/base, and you want to wine about not using your degree or furthering your career, or using the big-time skills that your degree afforded you, then step aside … someone else will happily take your job (but probably won't be as good at it as you could have been). And if you want that awesome job that happens to be in your career field, make the hiring manager look past your multiple moves and look at you. Direct the conversation to how amazing you are, how great your skill-set is, and share things that you've done in past jobs that made your old boss love you. I have moved 10 times in 20 years. I have found work at every single post in my career field, with one exception and that's because I'd just had a baby and I chose not to work for 3 years. I've been paid everything from $6.25 an hour to $58K a year to do the same job in 7 different cities. In one city it took me six months to find a job. In one city it took me 3 days to find a job. But I always found a job because I wasn't willing to give up my search.
The bottom line is this: YOU married a soldier/sailor/marine/airman/coastie. And with that, YOU accepted the challenges (to include figuring out how to pay your student loans) that come along with being married to a service member, whether you like and enjoy those challenges or not. I am not asking you to give up your dreams, your career and your hopes. I'm not asking you to just stay home and have babies either. I am asking you to perhaps adjust your dreams, your career or your hopes for the time being. Yes, we ask much of our military spouses. We ask them to support the very service members who support and defend us. And often supporting our service members means making HUGE sacrifices on our part. And sometimes those sacrifices truly suck, especially when it comes to not using our expensive degrees in a job that we love. But ask any military widow if she'd rather have a fancy job in a career field of her choice making a huge salary, or if she'd rather have her husband back and live in a small town and work at Starbucks, and I think you know what the answer will be. If you want to live in a big city and have a big-time career, and you haven't been able to have that career as a result of moving around with your service member, then perhaps you should have married someone else. But you can't help who you fall in love with, right? YOU can, however, quit trying to blame someone for your unemployment woes and realize that the job market is tough for EVERYONE right now. This isn't anyone's fault. This is life.
Great post! I too, worked my butt off to receive my degree and had my dream job as a recruiter at our last duty station. I specifically applied only to global companies and asked how the transfer processed worked. About a year in to my career, there was some restructuring and positions that were eliminated. One of them was mine. TOTAL BUMMER! I found that the helpful military spouse employment sites/offices were not very helpful for me. I did get a recommendation from a friend, who had worked for Starbucks and suggested that I apply there. 5 years later, I am still with the company, making a higher than average wage, and I can transfer anywhere we could be stationed (seriously, I just transferred one of my partners to Dublin, Ireland). It's worked very well for me, I am at my 5th store and I am on the deck for next level promotion. I have always been taken good care of, especially during the transfer process, while we were moving and I thought I was going in to full PCS meltdown. And it is completely awesome to not have to start at the bottom somewhere!
I have a question about the Military Spouse Employment Partnership. Maybe someone can clear this up for me. I've set up an account and applied to jobs listed in my area. When you find a job on the website and want to apply to it you are sent to the website of the company you are applying to. How do they know you are a spouse? How is using the MSEP website an advantage? I surely don't list Mil spouse on my resume ;) Am I missing something somewhere?
The MilitaryOneStop/SECO program needs to reevaluate, before someone realizes that it is a waste of money. MyCAA is a $4,000 is a quasi marketing tool to help fund the SECO program for military spouses. Why would the DOD want to continue to pay for a SECO program which is costing the DOD $450,000 plus per month, when the counselors and advisors are not even getting spouses jobs. Folks that is over $5,000,000.00 per year. Resume writing which is only a small part of the job hunting process is all SECO really does. SECO program another White House project that is buried in a government contract.
The SECO counselors take 10,000 plus calls a month in Arlington and Chesapeake. Spouses need real jobs making at least $30,000. Yet when you look at the program, spouses are NOT getting jobs. When is the DOD gonna wake up and really help military spouses.?
SECO is a $5,000,000.00 waste of money!
This is a very difficult topic, because military spouses are just like any other American: they want the American Dream! I've come to realize that that dream is different for everyone; for me, it's to have a happy, healthy family with our financial and physical/health needs met, and to have a rewarding career. I agree with many of the posts, and feel proud that I've always had a job everywhere we've moved, though it hasn't always advanced my career. It's also hard, because you marry who you love but you may not understand what you're getting into (by becoming a military spouse), or you may not know how you'll adapt to it. It's been hard for me not having a career-track job for the past two years. I've really struggled with feeling like a failure in that sense, even though I am thankful to have employment. But I would never trade my loving husband for a career-track life, alone. I support him and he supports me in my dreams, career or otherwise, and I hope you have similar situations where at least you're supported at home and know how important you are, though your job may not always make you feel that way!