Having a front row seat to my husband's life of service has been the greatest honor of my life. 🇺🇸 Having a front row seat to my husbands life of service has been the greatest professional challenge of my life. 🇺🇸👀 When we made our PCS move from Colorado to Massachusetts I discontinued meaningful work as a Court Appointed Special Advocate for children in foster care locally. I left work that I loved for Pete to take an opportunity he was excited about at MIT. When we left Massachusetts, I left an incredible job with a company I adored but required availability that would not support the inevitable craziness that serving at the Pentagon requires. Again, I left work that I loved for Pete to take an opportunity he was excited about. When we arrived in DC, I accepted a role within a start up, outside of my industry, because it would accommodate everyone else's schedule. I worked 50+ hours around what my family needed. Within a few months, Pete was promoted and I was part of a budget cut. Time and time again you will hear where an active duty spouse succeeds, their partner suffers professionally. Let me be clear, this is not a complaint. I am the happiest and most satisfied Army wife. But these things are worth talking about. There are many companies working to mitigate the disparities in employment opportunities and advancement for military spouses: RecruitMilitary | Hiring Our Heroes Military Family Advisory Network | Department of Labor Veterans’ Employment and Training Service To my connections that are military spouses, I want to hear your experience below. What organizations have you found helpful that you would add to the above list? If you are a Military spouse looking for employment, send me a dm and I will help. If you work for a company actively hiring veterans and military spouses, tag them so we can support your efforts! #militaryspouseemployment #hiringourheroes #opportunities
Thank you for sharing your story. It’s so Inspiring to read other’s experiences. I became a mom young (20) just starting my educational path and shortly after we decided to throw in the Army life into our journey. We continued to grow our family and I watched as my husband continued to grow in his career. Of course I was proud of him but I felt myself losing me! I found myself questioning what was my passion , who was I outside of motherhood and an army wife? I started taking online classes and volunteering. I finally finished my first goal of an associate degree which I am very proud of. (Being the first to graduate out of my mothers 6 children!) I am currently in my second semester at SUNY Empire State College for my bachelors degree . Reading all these comments and seeing that there are so many opportunities is great! Thank you again for sharing and bringing light on this life!
We actively recruit both Veterans AND their spouses, military spouses, first responders and their spouses, and those in undeserved communities. It's what we call our BSM (Bold Second Mission)! In fact, we track and measure all of these categories. Today, we actually have more military spouses in our company than all the other categories. As you become a Veteran Spouse, help me raise the need to hire Veteran spouses as well since often, the spouse may be the only one able to maintain full-time employment due to disabling conditions of the Veteran. Let's also support the current bipartisan legislation that gives tax breaks to those who hire military spouses (and add Veteran spouses!!) P.S. As an Army Brat I saw this happen to my mom all the time. All In Solutions, LLC Military Spouse Jobs Military Spouse Employment Partnership--MSEP Hiring Our Heroes Department of Labor Veterans’ Employment and Training Service Michelle Rowe Rhonda Sutton, CRP, CTC
Retirement planning….what’s that?!?!🫣🥴😆🤷🏽♀️🤔 We don’t vest time in grade at jobs we hold during PCS moves to keep a good amount circling in our own retirement accounts. When our SMs retire, we may have, if we’re lucky, a few thousand dollars. We CANNOT depend on our servicemember’s retirement. We need more resources to educate us on retirement planning. I finally got on the phone with USAA to talk about what I need to do. Their financial planning reps(I think that’s what they are called🫣) walked me through various scenarios and helped me understand what I need to do. We don’t talk about this enough. 🙂
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Dallas, as an “Army brat” and Army veteran, it was interesting reading your short story as a proud Army wife. You and your husband are very special people - America’s best! Coming out of a proud Army family and serving with the military’s elite forces were the most important and memorable times of my life. My hat’s off to you and to your husband, I say, “this brew’s for you, my warrior brother, with more on ice. Drink up, my brother!” De Oppresso Liber. 🇺🇸 👍🏼 👏🏼 Ron Captain USA.
Dallas…I get it and have been active in supporting my fellow veterans and fellow military spouses to find and maintain active employment. There are many great companies out there who also answer the call with a focus on military spouse hire. My current company, HCLTech has a focus on this effort. My division alone has a goal to hire 100 veterans and military spouses in the next 6 months. If you know anyone with IT experience looking, send them my way! Best part…they get to keep their jobs through PCS/ETS activities!
Reading your post here made me reflect on the sacrifices my wife has made. She gave up a lot to be with me. I hope and pray she is proud of me. Now that I’m retired, I feel it’s important to sacrifice my ambitions to support her. It’s a huge adjustment in thinking for me. The employment system needs to be more supportive of military spouses. It be if it’s businesses too because there is such a huge opportunity to recruit very talented people. If I owned a business, I’d try my best to hire from the military spouse community.
There are so many avenues for a transitioning military member to get support when looking for employment, but any support for spouses is at best not well represented. As someone who leads a veteran employee resource group for my company, and who is looking to develop strategy for us to hire more veterans AND spouses, do you have suggestions for us to make meaningful change on the other side? We have remote positions, but I'm not sure where to look for active military spouse looking for work.
My employer could be an option. As an article published last Veteran’s Day starts: “Windstream, a privately held communications and software company, has again been recognized by the U.S. Department of Labor, the Military Friendly® program, and the Military Times’ Best for Vets program for its initiatives to recruit, employ and retain military veterans.” This comes from the top, Tony Thomas, CEO, and Mary Michaels, CHRO. We even have a support organization internally for veterans and military spouses called WINVets to support employees with mentors by current employees. With many positions offering remote work, this could present resilience to a spouse’s PCS while maintaining a role from a different location. I saw a teammate move from one state to another to support his wife’s career move. Being remote, he continued to manage his team with no impact to the business or his career. https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20221110006097/en/Windstream-recognized-for-its-focus-on-hiring-military-veterans https://careers.windstream.com
Team Builder | Facilitator | Certified Strengths Coach | Instructional Designer | Military Spouse Transition Advocate | Writer & Speaker
1yDallas A.Thank you for this post. For the many spouses who struggle to feel seen and heard in their journey, these posts are important. Building a meaningful career alongside your service member nearly always presents challenges we just can't fully appreciate until we're in the thick of them. But having others share their stories provides the kind of support we didn't even know we needed. In addition to the organizations you mentioned, I believe mentorship orgs like Military Spouse Advocacy Network, Veterati, and American Corporate Partners (ACP) are important allies. Sometimes, with so many identity reinventions spouses can feel lost. Working with a mentor, coach, and advocate can help you see opportunities you might miss. I'm biased but I also believe that for our audience, seasoned spouses, Pride & Grit is provided needed programming for the pivot - the identity and personal development journey that spouses face.