The reality of life for military spouses is that you most likely won’t move in a straight line upward in your career as you move with the military … and that can be a good thing.

Army spouse Lynn Edwards is one example. She pursued a career in the hospitality industry throughout 20 years of moving with the military. With each move she had a different kind of job within the industry. “Be open to that,” she advises, “it deepens your experience and value.” She’s done unpaid internships in hotel sales. She’s held jobs in recreation planning for MWR Korea, marketing for Sheraton Savannah Resort, sales for a historic inn, management for Yakima Valley Visitor’s & Convention Bureau, convention sales for Ocean Shores Visitor’s & Convention Bureau, and now does contract meeting planning, coordinating large events for clients like Microsoft and the NEC Invitational World Golf Championships.

• Be willing to take a pay cut for new experience (or just to continue in your field in a smaller community) In Savannah, Lynn accepted a pay cut to work in sales at a high-end facility. Six months later she was promoted to Director of Sales. It may feel like “one step forward and two steps back” at times, but continuing to work in your chosen career path, continuing to make contacts and connections might just be worth it in the long run.
• Be prepared to make changes in the kind of work you do
  Some jobs in the hospitality industry, for example, do not allow family flexibility. But some do. When Lynn had her second child, she chose Convention & Visitors Bureau work that was 8-5 and negotiated three days a week of work instead of five. Later, wanting even more flexibility, she started her own consulting firm.
• See opportunities in a forced move to learn and try new techniques/methods
  As Peggy Frede, Air Force spouse and long-time educator says, “Accept jobs that stretch you professionally. Take the opportunity of a forced move to learn and try new techniques and methods.” Peggy kept her mind open about opportunities in her career field. “I am an educator,” she says. “Notice I didn’t say teacher.” It’s a mindset that opened her to opportunities outside traditional schools when jobs weren’t available there. Peggy has done traditional teaching in schools, managed a retraining program at a computer-learning center and taught technology at a law firm.

Clare Morris, an Army spouse, applied the same open mind to use her writing and public relations skills in a variety of positions as she moved. She’s worked in the West Point public affairs office, writing freelance for magazines and newspapers, doing copywriting for corporate clients, as a Press Secretary and Media Relations Director for a congressman both in DC and later commuting from Florida, and as a technical writer/editor for a company in Germany.

As Janet Farley, military spouse and author of "Jobs and the Military Spouse" adds, “If you can’t find the job of your dreams at your next duty station, use the opportunity for what it is…an opportunity to try something new. You never know, you just might latch onto your true calling, compliments of a set of orders you weren’t too thrilled with in the first place.”

Lynn says, “I doubt that I’d have had the guts or the wide range of skills necessary to start my own consulting business if I’d stayed in one place.”

Army spouse Berkeley McHugh has had some fabulous opportunities because of moving around and teaching at different schools. “I went back to Texas 10 years after I first taught there,” she says, “and many of my former co-workers were still there, teaching the same subject in the same room. I feel that I had additional opportunities to grow and be challenged because of my new environments.”

Peggy says, “I have a variety of great experiences that I wouldn’t trade for a 30-year career in any school district!” We hope you end up saying the same, whatever career you pursue.

Watch for the entire series of the 12 key strategies:
1. Complete the assessment/interest inventories and pay attention to them .
2. Do informational interviews of more than one individual already working in the field you want to work in.
3. Know that you probably won’t move in a straight line in your career as long as you are moving with the military. Be open to that and adopt a mindset that opens opportunities for a richer career experience in the long run.
4. Join and stay active in your professional association.
5. Get professional certification and/or be proactive about continuing education.
6. Look for mentors, negotiate career-building opportunities and be proactive in getting cross-training.
7. Start early in your job search before you move to the next assignment, while you are still employed.
8. Learn to sell yourself and the unique set of skills and experiences you bring to an employer.
9. Build networking skills to make and keep great connections. As Army spouse Lynne Edwards says, “It’s who you know who knows how well you work.”
10. Create your own visibility — learn the art of personal PR and marketing yourself.
11. If no job in your career field exists in a particular location, figure out what skills you need to gain or improve on that you can work on at that location — either in a volunteer or paid position or by telecommuting.
12. Above all adopt the mindset that opens possibilities.

Excerpted with permission from Help! I’m a Military Spouse — I Want a Life Too! How to Craft a Life for You as You Move with the Military by Kathie Hightower & Holly Scherer.