Highlight Your Milspouse Skills in the Job Market
Signing up for life as a military spouse comes with more than the traditional highs and lows of marriage. We also dive headfirst into the highest calling of support, ensuring our families carry forward through training, relocations, deployments and other curveballs thrown our way. Navigating this journey fosters a myriad of essential skills, but they have a secondary application: the job market. As a military spouse, you can highlight your unique qualities as a candidate in comparison to civilian counterparts. Let’s dive in to review specific examples and how they can best serve you as an applicant.
Adaptability
From last-minute changes in duty stations to emergency deployments, the list of 11th-hour adjustments in military life is endless, and we pivot each time. We ensure that our spouses and families have everything they need to maintain their sense of normalcy and continue pressing on.
As a job applicant, there is no larger or more last-minute change an employer can throw at you that you haven’t already handled at scale. Changes to a presentation before tomorrow? Done. Shifting the project focus based on market analysis? Easy. Knowing that you can keep pace with business needs and continue a smooth operational workflow is a major highlight for a potential employer.
Project Management
Moving cross-country, or even internationally, every two years while maintaining medical and educational records, providing emotional support, and overseeing all operational logistics is no small feat. Military spouses have extensive experience prioritizing competing tasks, organizing vendors and communicating effectively with individuals of diverse personalities and backgrounds. These skills are highly transferable into the job market. Marketing yourself as the person who “makes things happen” can help land you in a new position.
Organization
Losing military documents, medical records or IDs is simply not an option; keeping detailed records is an unwritten requirement when managing life as a military family. When your family’s well-being depends on your meticulous organization, that translates easily into nearly any position where the stakes are much lower. Cite specific examples of the level of detail, deadlines and volume of documents you’ve handled administratively to emphasize your skillset.
Community Engagement
Volunteering is a pillar of life for many military spouses, and if that is your personal experience, shout your contributions from the rooftop. Not only can this be added as professional experience on your resume, but many companies have specific philanthropic initiatives that provide opportunities for you to be a stand-out contributor. Showing your commitment to a philanthropic cause can be an attractive quality for companies seeking someone with a servant-leader mindset for their team.
Resource Allocation
Stretching a dollar is a familiar concept when dealing with military pay. (I know I’m not the only one who holds onto curtains of every size in case they fit a house in the future.) Making the most of what you have and limiting waste is a major highlight for your potential employer when they are seeking a candidate who knows how to be savvy with a budget, resources and personnel. We can leverage this innate problem-solving, forecasting and budget-focused mentality into the workplace as well.
Even if you weren’t earning a paycheck for the many skills you’ve acquired managing life as a military spouse, they still have a direct marketplace value and can be used to demonstrate how you will thrive in your future career. As long as you can provide specific examples, quantifiable metrics, or other tangible ways to digest what you have accomplished, then you can confidently highlight the skills learned from military life.
Happy hunting!
Sidney is a Transition Specialist with the Serving Spouses Team at Hire Heroes USA where she has supported more than 400 military spouses and veterans in finding meaningful employment… so far. She is a military spouse herself, married to a USMC veteran and has personal experience navigating the balance between career, family, and military life. She has a diverse professional background across the social work field including child welfare, domestic violence victim support, and homeless employment support. Since joining Hire Heroes USA in 2018, Sidney has engaged with clients individually as their personal Transition Specialist and in groups by facilitating multiple Virtual Workshops. While she has always helped with behind-the-scenes projects, her passion is social advocacy through building unique relationships with each client to make sure they have all the tools and support to achieve their career goals.
I know many spouses struggle with how to “translate” this real-world milspouse experience into job/career language. These tips are great– volunteering can certainly be a game changer. I’ve been volunteering since I became a milspouse 11+ years ago, and now I’m looking to re-enter the job market. Using those skills really showcases what I can do, even without a regular paycheck. Appreciate your insight, Sidney!