It’s the thing every spouse dreads whether it’s come about due to a relocation or for any multitude of reasons – finding meaningful employment as a military spouse is hard! It’s not always the case, some spouses are able to transfer their qualifications state to state and that is fantastic! However, so often we as spouses put our career on hold to support our serving member and ultimately end up employed in a range of positions that may not be relevant to our career goals but necessary to bring money into the household – if we can find the employment at all!
A typical problem spouses face is transferring their skills and potential into a standard resume. This then leads to time-poor recruiters failing to identify a spouse’s ‘career thread’ and ultimately the spouse missing out on the position in favour of someone who clearly displayed their strengths. There are a few ways around this, and one is engaging a career coach to assist you in identifying suitable solutions, such as connecting you with defence friendly employers and writing a resume designed to effectively engage with the recruiter to get your foot in the door. But without the right network of support in employment services and options, spouses can become disillusioned about finding suitable employment that values their informal skills and experience and become resentful about the military lifestyle.
I stumbled across WithYouWithMe while researching spouse friendly positions. We had recently posted interstate and were struggling financially on one income. I had applied for job after job after job, writing a new cover letter for each position but repeatedly missing out on the job offer. Something that surprised me about the WYWM process was not needing to submit my resume at all. By investing heavily in aptitude and psychological testing, WYWM are able to match candidates with positions based off their skills and potential to excel in the role. Finally – a fair chance to show what I’m capable of! I did my aptitude assessments and the results told me I’d be a good fit for a Pega role. I had no idea what Pega was but I thought “why not?”. Within three business days I had two interviews and a job offer. I couldn’t believe it! I never saw myself as a technologist and quite simply, I didn’t think I was smart enough for it – especially without a tech degree! WYWM scooped me up, trained me up, and tech-ed me up and I’m now a Certified System and Business Architect in Pega software, working with Accenture to kick goals and solve business problems.
I’m so grateful to WYWM for having the faith in me that I didn’t have in myself and showing me it’s possible to work in a role that’s just as important and meaningful as my husband’s. As a Squad Leader, I have learned to take ownership and lead by example in delivering value to the client as well as the team. I have learned to be the customer and be transparent but most of all, my time at WYWM has taught me the value of being fierce. Be curious enough to find that new challenge but be fierce enough to take it on and crush it. I know I can do it, and I know you can too.