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For The Heroes Behind The Heroes, Help Arrives

This article is more than 9 years old.

The launch of “Career Spark,” an interactive tool to help military spouses start and build a career, was a doubly emotional moment for Noreen O’Neil. She was involved in its development for the “Hiring Our Heroes” Military Spouses Program, and she knew from personal experience —as the wife of a career Army officer —how important this innovative, online resource could be for the heroes behind the heroes in our Armed Forces.

“As a military spouse, the launch of this resource makes me so happy and fills my heart,” she told me after the March 25 launch event at Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton. “And, as director of this program, it’s a humbling experience. I still pinch myself. It’s a great honor to be involved.”

I couldn’t agree more. When I served as a Marine in Vietnam, I saw firsthand the important role that military spouses, like my wife, Cheryl, play in the success of our men and women in uniform by holding down the family fort during deployments. That’s why I agreed to serve as co-chair of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Veteran Employment Advisory Council and why I actively support the Hiring Our Heroes program that seeks to help veterans, transitioning service members, and military spouses find meaningful employment.

Addressing the alarmingly high unemployment rate of over 20% among our 1.5 million military spouses – double the rate for post-9/11 veterans and triple the overall civilian rate – is vital to our commitment to those who sacrifice so much in our defense.

Career Spark recognizes the contributions and sacrifices to our nation’s defense made by military spouses, as well as the employment challenges they face and the skills they bring to the civilian workplace.

Noreen’s personal story is a perfect illustration of this situation. She was pursuing a career in criminal justice when she met a West Point cadet. “You can’t tell who you’re going to fall in love with and marry,” she said. Since then, she has moved 12 times in 19 years, hop scotching across the country from one Army posting to the next while raising a family.

At one point, she had four children under the age of 6½, so pursuing a career outside the home was not always an option. Instead, she “jumped into the military spouse community with both feet,” taking volunteer positions to demonstrate her leadership.

During a posting at the U.S. Military Academy, she became a fund-raiser for the West Point Women’s Club, which involved a Las Vegas-style event with entertainment.  “I chaired the event,” she said. “I spent a year planning and coordinating, managing 18 volunteers and hundreds more on the day of the event.” It was a success, doubling revenues and showcasing skills she could later market to employers.

Later, as president of the Fort Leavenworth Women’s Club, she ran 16 committees, managed the budget, and supervised a gift shop. All the money raised was distributed as grants to the post’s organizations and schools in a process she also managed.

It was this extensive experience in fund-raising and event planning that gave her the managerial and organizational skills that helped her land her current position. In March 2011, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation launched Hiring Our Heroes to help veterans, transitioning service members, and military spouses find employment.  Hiring Our Heroes and Toyota then partnered to develop the Personal Branding Resume Engine to enable veterans to input information about their military experience and have that information automatically translated into civilian skills in a professional résumé they can post on the site for prospective employers to view.

When Hiring Our Heroes saw that military spouses weren’t attending its job fairs, they stood up a military spouses program to specifically focus on their unique needs. Noreen was hired in December 2011 to recruit employers interested in hiring military spouses. Now the program’s director, Noreen coordinates more than a dozen hiring fairs and networking receptions exclusively for spouses each year on military installations. The events have been attended by thousands of spouses and hundreds of employers. Now she’s a driving force behind the first online resume building tool designed for spouses.

(To learn more about Career Spark and join the more than 3,000 companies now signed up to be able to search the resume database, employers can visit http://www.hiringourheroes.org/hiringourheroes/employer-roadmap.)

By helping military spouses understand the value of the skills they acquire through their volunteer work and translate them into terms civilian employers value, Career Spark seeks to help military spouses close the employment gaps created by frequent moves.

“Military spouses continually take leadership positions in their communities, manage multiple moves and deployments with little advance notice, and persist in earning degrees and starting businesses in spite of their mobile lifestyles,” Noreen said. “Resilience, flexibility, dedication and a desire to serve are just some of the qualities that spouses bring to any company.”

“Our biggest hope,” she said, “is that military spouses will see Career Spark and change the way they think about their future, leading them to find a career they love and can maintain.”

Career Spark also seeks to change employers’ minds by easing the fear of not knowing when the spouse will get orders to move. Noreen said a recent study found that civilian employees tend to change jobs an average of every three to four years, not that different than military spouses. However, military spouses tend to have stronger networks than civilians and they are often able to help the employer fill their position before they leave.

Career Spark was modeled after the Personal Branding Resume Engine but with refinements based on experience with that site, making it even more user-friendly.

Through Noreen, I’ve also learned about Ashleigh Wehmeyer, a West Pointer married to a West Pointer. She left the Army as a first lieutenant and  then worked as a systems analyst for a system engineering company before starting a family. While raising two children and moving 10 times in 18 years, she volunteered, wrote blogs, edited newsletters and did some substitute teaching. She also co-wrote and self-published two cookbooks, and started her own business using songwriting techniques to teach writing workshops in schools.

As both a veteran and a military spouse, Ashleigh has used both the Resume Engine and Career Spark in preparing to re-enter the job market. She said the Resume Engine is “great” for veterans, but Career Spark provides more practical advice for military spouses. It also has lists of volunteer positions and how those experiences relate to civilian jobs. “It validates the volunteer service I’ve done,” she said, “and helps me deal with the gaps by focusing on skills.”

“Using Career Spark boosted my confidence by helping me get my résumé ready much more quickly than I could have done without it,” she said. “It’s a powerful tool in my arsenal. Not only did it help me get ready to attend job fairs and apply for jobs, it also lit a ‘spark’ to get me going on my job search with the knowledge that I had great skills to bring to the workplace.”

Military spouses are the backbone of our nation’s defense. They deserve our respect. They also deserve our support. That’s why Career Spark was created. I urge military spouses to tap into this powerful resource and I challenge employers to tap into the valuable skills of military spouses.

Career Spark: A First-of-its-Kind Tool for Military Spouses