Choosing a Military Friendly Career

According to the Department of Defense, 85% of military spouses either want or need work, which isn’t that surprising when you consider the unique career challenges they face. Frequent moves make it hard to gain experience at a single company, and there’s never a guarantee that your new area will have opportunities in your field—not to mention the challenges of suddenly being both a working parent and a solo parent if your service member gets deployed.

While, unfortunately, there’s no magic button that makes being a military spouse and having a successful career any easier, here are a few things you can keep in mind when choosing a career that may help later on:

Nationwide opportunities.

Military assignments certainly don’t take a spouse’s career opportunities into account, so you’re best line of defense is choosing a career that has positions nationally (or even internationally). A good way to do this is to consider careers in industries that meet widespread needs—like health care or business—and may offer opportunities overseas if you’re working on base.

Strong job growth.

Choosing a field that’s experiencing a lot of job growth is another good way to improve your prospects. A good place to check for information on job growth is the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics, which usually has information such as total number of new jobs expected, industry growth rate, job description, and more.

Quick training.

This one isn’t as crucial as the other two, but if you’re a military spouse who is training for a new career it helps to choose training that is relatively quick or mobile (meaning you can take it with you if you move). It’s no fun having to transfer to another school halfway through.

To help you see what careers like this look like, here are a few of our most popular programs with military spouses:

• Pharmacy technician. By far our most popular program with military spouses, our pharmacy technician program can have you career-ready in as little as three months and prepares you for a field that’s expected to add more than 100,000 new jobs nationwide by 2020.
• Medical office assistant. This is the third fastest growing occupation in the country. The U.S. Department of Labor expects healthcare to need 210,000 new medical office assistants in the next few years, and the training prepares you to work with electronic health records and can be completed in less than three months.
• Medical coding or medical transcription. These two are about tied in popularity. There are shortages of well-trained professionals in both of these fields—about 30% more coders are needed nationwide—and medical transcriptionists work from their homes, so your career can go with you when you move.

There are, of course, many other careers that are also great options for military spouses. No matter what career you’re considering, choosing something that boasts opportunities nationwide, strong career growth, and quick training timelines can help you have a successful career despite the added challenges of being a military spouse.