The popular career development strategies and career planning books don't address situations where you have limited control over the frequency and destination of relocations. They fail to address the concept of "portability," one of the buzzwords with which military spouse/professionals and Family Readiness Center employment program personnel are well acquainted. If you're newly starting out and anticipate a long military career ahead for your partner, you'll want to do your best to maximize the portability of your career. If you're considering "re-careering" to improve your alternatives, you'll find the following recommendations useful, too.

Some strategies for selecting career options that will serve you well include:

Select a Career Field that is in Wide Demand
What jobs are most likely to be plentiful, regardless of where you go? One of the best sources of such information is the Occupational Outlook Handbook. Those career fields that are identified as "fastest growing" will be most likely to provide opportunities into the future. Growth translates to new positions, and a demand for experienced personnel which exceeds the supply of qualified applicants. That is the ideal job market in which to find yourself.

Research the Locations You are Most Apt to be Living, Based on your Partner's Branch of Service and Military Occupational Specialty (MOS)
Geographical variations will impact the opportunities available, in all but the most widespread fields. Such geographical factors will vary among the branches of the service. For example, an Army spouse who is a marine biologist, oceanographer, or stevedore may have great difficulty finding work in that field. A Navy, Coast Guard, or Marine Corps spouse might be more successful, simply because his/her partner is more likely to be stationed near an ocean port, where such opportunities are commonly found. Yet even those career fields may be limited in the opportunities available, if there is not acceptable growth (see above). Your partner (and his/her military career advisor) can be an excellent source of specific information. Find out to which installations large numbers of billets in your partner's MOS are assigned, as the odds are good that your partner will eventually be stationed there. Then find out which industries predominate in those local economies. For example, almost every Navy Seabee will be stationed at NCBC Gulfport, MS and/or NCBC Port Hueneme, CA, as these are the high-concentration areas for Seabee billets. Spouses of Seabees will do well to ensure that their selected career field offers at least some opportunities in these locations. The local Chambers of Commerce are excellent resources in that regard. (With the BRAC situation winding down, this strategy is even more practical to pursue, as major manpower re-allocations will likely become less common.)

Maintain Flexibility in How You Define Your Career Field
The more broadly you define your "career field," the more options you will have, no matter where you go. For example, if you consider yourself a surgical nurse, you may be disappointed if there are no positions available when you PCS. But if you'd consider a position in ER nursing, providing post-discharge follow-up through a home healthcare agency, or reviewing care plans for an HMO or claims for an insurance company, you are very likely to find challenging, career-appropriate opportunities. In addition, such well-rounded experience may eventually pay off if you opt to move into nursing administration or other higher-level career positions. This strategy works in ALL fields... and the Career Coach's resume shows even hers is no exception. This is very similar to the concept of "multipreneuring," using a variety of skills and a series of careers to succeed. The term was coined by Tom Gorman, who wrote a book by that name (1996, Simon & Schuster). See also Strategies for Increasing Your Career Options

Join a Large Corporation or Franchiser
Large corporations or franchisers may give you the option of transferring to a location near your next duty station. Especially if you are a stellar employee, the receiving organization may be eager to capitalize upon your existing knowledge and sensitivity to the corporate culture. This provides no guarantees, but it is an excellent way to minimize the disjointed, "job hopper" appearance typical of most military spouses' resumes. In the past, military spouses took advantage of federal civil service employment as a means for implementing this strategy. However, severe downsizing, which is expected to continue into the next decade, makes civil service employment a dwindling prospect for everyone, even military spouses. Nonetheless, major private sector employers can provide the same benefits of single-employer longevity previously reaped by military spouse/civil servants, including vested retirement benefits, stability for one's resume, greater intra-organizational promotion opportunities, etc.

Keep Abreast of Trends Affecting Both Your Field and Your Partner's Branch of Service
It has been said that Information is Power. Knowing what is happening in your field will enable you to plan, prepare, and ensure that you remain among the most highly-trained and well-qualified practitioners within it. That translates to your ability to compete favorably against other job candidates for available positions. Membership in your field's professional or trade association(s) is likely to be a worthwhile investment, as are subscriptions to professional or trade publications. Similarly, it is helpful to be aware of the factors that affect your military partner's career, likelihood for deployment, long-term career prospects, and other aspects that may impact both your short-term and long-term career goals. If your military partner (like most) is not a prolific source of information in this regard, a subscription to the Army Times, Air Force Times, or (for Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard) Navy Times, may help you stay aware of events that ultimately impact you. (You might even be able to share some information with your partner that he/she will find valuable-- what a way to show mutual support for each other's career!) In some instances, this information may prove really beneficial. For example, as noted above, the federal government is undergoing extensive downsizing among its civilian employees. This is being accomplished through various means, including "outsourcing" to private-sector firms. As a result, defense contractors are hiring in many areas; if your skills are in demand among such firms, you'll want to be aware of such opportunities. As long as your military partner is not a procurement official associated with the outsourced function (creating a conflict of interest), such positions may represent increased employment opportunities for you. Certain career fields, such as environmental engineering, are also showing increases in opportunities as a result of increased federal emphasis on military installations. The above publications, as well as the Federal Times, frequently contain information about outsourcing and other trends that impact employment near military installations. Similarly, the FedWeek offer a free, weekly e-newsletter that highlights information of interest to military and government workers.

Self-Employment
Another option, one that proves ideal for some, but is not the solution for everyone. See On Self-Employment.

Deciding to pursue your career while your partner is on active duty is not about lowering your standards-- not at all. Military spouses can and do achieve comparable levels of professional success and satisfaction as their peers who marry civilians. What military spouses who are successful realize is that their career progression is rarely linear; it doesn't follow the "traditional" career track in their field (if there even is one). But they progress-- the tempo may be uneven and there will undoubtedly be periods when things seem hopeless. But over the course of their military partner's career, they continue to grow professionally, to strengthen and expand their skills, to become better, stronger, and more capable both personally and professionally. Military family life involves successive changes, constant challenges, and unlimited opportunities for spouses' careers-- if they dare to see the possibilities. Given the frequent relocations, it is virtually impossible for military spouses to get "stuck in a rut," as frequently happens to those who are fearful of change; those who can't take the risk of leaving a job that is no longer challenging (because, "At least it's stable.") One key is not to look at what you're leaving behind, but to approach each set of PCS orders as an opportunity to move forward, to take on new challenges. Take a look at your military partner's career, and use some of the same strategies that he/she uses for career advancement, to guide your own.

The principle behind military reassignments is training. By the time our military partners are nearing their projected rotation date (PRD), they've usually mastered the position they've been assigned. To continually develop and refine their knowledge and skills, they need to move on to a new set of challenges. Over the years, their assignments will include a combination of formal training and operational assignments where on-the-job-training is expected. There is an element of "doing the job," but ultimately, they are always in training-- for advancement, to take on greater leadership responsibilities-- training in their service's mission.

When military spouses learn to think of their career development in similar terms, they will quickly discover that their rate of professional growth and advancement accelerates. Setting goals, both short- and long-term, will give them a sense of direction as well as serve to motivate their accomplishment. Military spouses may develop a sense of urgency that other employees don't. When they set short-term goals that necessarily must be accomplished with that employer, the knowledge that they will eventually be transferring provides the impetus to aggressively pursue the goal, ensuring its completion before transferring. Pending transfers become career milestones, where military spouses reassess their accomplishments, compare them against their long-term goals, and seek out opportunities at the new location that will help keep them moving forward. Rigidly scripted career plans are obviously incompatible with the mobile military family lifestyle; nonetheless, goal-setting remains viable, if not essential, for ensuring continued career development.

When setting goals, it helps to start with the long-term, and work back from there. If your military partner intends to remain on active duty until he/she is eligible to retire, use that time frame as your basis. How many years from now? What do the two of you plan to do at that time-- and where will you need to be in your career to make that practical? For example, your partner may be hoping to begin a second career; but, his/her military occupational specialty may offer few corresponding opportunities in the civilian sector. As such, a period of unemployment or the need to enroll in college or trade courses to increase his/her own employability could mean that your income will be depended upon. Perhaps you both hope to retire together, buy an RV, and spend your remaining years in MAC terminals catching hops around the globe. If so, your short-term goals will be quite different (probably emphasizing investing in retirement funds) than someone who wants to be in a managerial or executive-level position in their field (who may emphasize gaining leadership experience or obtaining an MBA), versus someone who dreams of owning their own business.

Once you know where you want to be, you can identify the things you'll need to do to get there. Rarely will those things need to be accomplished in a prescribed order-- but the mere fact that you've identified what you need to do helps you identify those options that will help you advance as you begin your job search at each new location. Once you've identified that point on the horizon, it becomes much easier to chart a steady course for getting there. You'll need to get your bearings and adjust your course as the current changes, but if you've plotted your destination you can always chart a way to get there. Without long-term and short-term goals, however, you're apt to find yourself sailing in circles.