Train Your Way To A Flexible Career
By Kathie Hightower and Holly Scherer
Spring 2007
The more versatile a career field, the more likely it will prove a wise career choice for a mobile military spouse. Certainly, a career field as a trainer is about as versatile as it gets.
Type the word “trainer” into the job search specs at the Military.com spouse job search website and see many alternative terms to consider: “training specialist, training manager, training coordinator, technical trainer, corporate trainer…” Viewing some of the 12,196 training jobs listed recently on the site offers a sense of the variety in training jobs: “automotive sales trainer, software trainer, trainer/safety coordinator…”
Likewise, the job search engine of the American Society for Training and Development (http://jobs.astd.org) lists quite a selection of specific categories to consider in the training career field: human resources, instructional design development, leadership/management development, organization development/change management, performance improvement, training/instruction, training/learning executive, independent consultants, career development, e-learning/distance learning.
Specify Your Search
The more targeted your specific industry and area of training, the more targeted you can make your job search. Some military spouses even manage to stay with the same focus throughout their military moves. Karen Ridley, for example, managed to maintain her career specialist role with an Army contractor – teaching military about the job search process – with each move, continuing without break.
Another approach is to target companies with locations nationwide. Army spouse Emmy Oliva started in human resources with Target while living in
Many military spouses gravitate toward training positions with military family support services, working in the federal government GS system. Training positions cover a wide variety of areas, from new-parent programs to financial readiness to relocation readiness.
Even if you are secure in the GS system, you are not guaranteed a progression with each move. As Army spouse Beth Grant says, “I used to say to military spouses when I taught employment readiness that they should prepare to do the ‘career dance’ – sidesteps, not backsteps.”
Diversify Your Expertise
Jeana Bailley, longtime Air Force spouse and current training manager, suggests, “Focus and diversify your expertise.”
“I know that sounds contradictory,” she adds, “but I have found that I needed to be the ‘expert’ in one broad area and then find as many related issues as possible around which to develop workshops… Choosing just one or two topics is very limiting, and you may run out of audiences.”
Army spouse Tiffany Pratt worked in sales training prior to a move to
Navy spouse Brenda Walker realized she had to think “dual or triple career” in order to continue working with her many military moves. “I had to brainstorm other jobs I could do with the skill sets I had,” she says. She has since worked as a transition assistance manager/facilitator, family employment readiness manager/facilitator and private music instructor, and she shares her expertise with “how-to” freelance writing and public speaking.
Marine spouse Cindy van Dijk, a sales trainer for Bayer/Miles Pharmaceuticals, agrees: “Once you get the basics of training down, it’s totally amortizable to other markets, whether it’s teaching (she taught conversational English to Japanese in
Enhance Your Value
A career in training probably will require much more than platform skills. For example, Air Force spouse Kristin Eleanor Buzun is a group marketing manager with Microsoft, focusing on training, internal consulting and coaching for marketing professionals. Besides training, her job involves staff and budget management, conference coordinating, proposals and creating a website to share best practices and key learning.
If a move takes you to a place where you can’t find a job in your specific training field, you can look for work – or volunteer opportunities – to develop skills to help make you more valuable in your next training position.
As Army spouse Mary Bailey says, “The training and platform skills I gained volunteering with
Air Force spouse Erica Zeiger also used volunteering as a route to employment. “I started as an AFTB volunteer, became a contractor in personal financial management instruction for Army Community Service, and was able to get into the federal civilian system as Outreach, Mobilization and Deployment Manager and to be promoted within that system with consequent moves.”
Be proactive in developing your skills. Marine Corps spouse Angela Freitag advises spouses to “look into public speaking classes and any books on presentation to small and large groups. Classes on identifying different individual personalities and the different ways people learn have been tremendously helpful.”
Grant says, “Early in my training career, Toastmasters was invaluable in helping me overcome platform jitters.”
Check out “how-to” videos from the base/post library and watch the presenter, taking notes on what works and what does not. Attend every possible workshop, seminar or conference, taking notes on the content and delivery. One particularly useful workshop is Creative Training Techniques, sometimes offered to AFTB trainers. Videotape every training you do, and look back to see what worked and what did not in order to constantly improve your skills.
Join the American Society for Training and Development (www.astd.org) for skills development and valuable networking. ASTD has 140 chapters in the
Also consider joining niche professional associations. Army spouse Janice Fields cites the Association of Financial Counseling and Planning Education (www.afcpe.org) as “providing financial certification, more opportunities [for] professional training, and a wider network of people who do what I do.”
Training skills are marketable for almost any profession. The confidence you gain through effective presentation skills serves you well in all aspects of life. A training career allows you the creativity and flexibility to fit into your mobile lifestyle on a full-time or part-time basis.
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Military spouses Kathie Hightower and Holly Scherer are public speakers and co-authors of “Help! I’m a Military Spouse – I Want a Life Too: How to Craft a Life for YOU as You Move with the Military.” For more information or to request a presentation at your community, go to www.militaryspousehelp.com or send a message to kathie@militaryspousehelp.com.
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Additional Training Career Resources
- Family Member Employment Program Specialists (FMEPS are available through your local
- Civilian Personnel Online (www.cpol.army.mil)
- Military Spouse Corporate Career Network (www.msccn.org)
- Military Spouse Job Search (www.militaryspousejobsearch.org)
- USAJobs.com (www.usajobs.com)
