Carol Fishman Cohen will present Strategic Volunteering and Relaunching at the NMSN Employment Summit Friday, November 4, 2011. In this special presentation, Carol will examine the cases of three military spouses who have returned to work after career breaks in very different ways.

Career continuity is one of the biggest challenges of life as a military spouse.  Obviously, frequent moves are the culprit; it is difficult to build a career when changing locations every two to three years. What follows are two examples of military spouses who were able to maintain career continuity over numerous moves, albeit with occasional volunteer work as part of the mix.  Take a look at their stories and note the creative ways they were able to keep working.

Jennifer Cropper

Jennifer served in the Army for three years and then completed her college degree on the GI Bill. Following her graduation, she found immediate employment at a Colorado bank call center, was promoted within ten months to supervising a team of fifteen sales representatives, and was then promoted again to Branch Retail Sales Manager. Married to an Air Force officer, they were moved to Virginia. With her call center experience, Jennifer was able to get a job fairly quickly, planning the design and operations of a new call center for a resort company. She also was responsible for running training and staffing for that call center. 

However, the company decided to outsource the call center overseas and Jennifer lost the job. Jennifer began volunteering with the Langley Officers' Spouses' Club as the Historian, Membership Chairperson, and President. After four years, she and her husband moved to Alabama for only 10 months.  Then they were transferred to Osan Air Base, Korea where she worked on base as a substitute teacher, and also tutored students on the side. (Note to non-military readers:  spouses cannot work in "the economy" overseas or risk losing their VISA/SOFA status).  

After two years, her husband was transferred to Germany.  Jennifer continued to volunteer in leadership positions at the Officers' Spouses' Club.  She developed a marketing campaign that resulted in over 100 international spouses joining the Club, raised over $200,000 in scholarship funds, and $10,000 for community improvements. Her presentations focusing on challenges faced by military families and the need for more local support resulted in over 30 business owners agreeing to partner with the spouses clubs.  Between the public speaking, the fundraising, event organization, and marketing, Jennifer was keeping her general business skills current. 

Then Jennifer made a decision. She knew her husband's military service was going to end within the next two years. After 11 months in Germany, Jennifer decided to move back to the Washington, D.C. area ahead of her husband, to look for permanent employment.  Knowing her five years of call center management for the bank in Colorado was her strongest work experience, she focused on working for the same bank but in a new location. She also knew she wanted to get back into Human Resources.  She was able to connect with some of her old colleagues from the bank in Colorado, but had a hard time finding the right position in Human Resources. She ended up with two offers, a sales position with the bank, and a U.S. Army Civilian position. She decided on the sales job.

Jennifer spoke frankly about the process "It's a foot back in the door and I can work my way back to HR.  I'm planning on going back for my masters in HR and get my PHR certification....

During my interview process, I found it very difficult to overcome being a military spouse..... I really had to explain myself to the point where I told one hiring manager that when it came to moving, I was the project manager in my household.  There are numerous logistics that need to be dealt with and as a spouse, 90% of the responsibilities fell on my lap.  I even told him how difficult it is being a spouse of a deployed military member. At the end of our interview, he still didn't get it. " 

Christina Crawford

Right after graduating from Kings College in New York, military spouse Christina Crawford spent an entire year volunteering for Army Emergency Relief and Army Community Service at Fort Lewis where her husband was stationed.  Army Emergency Relief ultimately employed her as a budget counselor, helping families figure out how to pay their bills, and assisting with credit counseling and bankruptcy filings. At the same time, she took an H&R Block tax course and did tax preparation work for six months before moving to Fort Benning, where she worked as a retails sales associate for five months. Moving to Germany, Christina became certified as an aerobics instructor and took over an aerobics class on the base from another instructor who was moving away. 

Christina was successful in finding paid work every time she moved, finding her tax preparation skills and her aerobics instructor certification were particularly marketable.  She was able to get work in one of these two areas whenever she moved, both on base and off.  Ultimately, she became a demonstrator for Stampin' Up, selling rubber stamps at home parties used for handmade greeting cards, scrap booking, and craft projects.  She became one of their top producers and kept that position as she moved from base to base over a 15 year period.  Now that her husband's military service is over and she has settled in Northern Virginia, she runs the Chic Envy consignment center with her daughter; a successful venture that also allows her to give back to the community.

Jennifer and Christina engaged primarily in paid work, with some periods of volunteer work in between.   Christina relied on her transferable skills of tax preparation and aerobics instructing to find jobs, and Jennifer focused on call center operations in different industries.  Both women chose substantive volunteer work when paid work was not an option - whether it was Jennifer working with the Officers' Spouses' Club or Christina working for Army Emergency Relief.  Jennifer and Christina demonstrated they could maintain career continuity by using a combination of strategic volunteer work, entrepreneurial ventures, and part time work to augment conventional, full time jobs.