How Do Different Generations of Mil Spouses Define a Successful Career?

BY JANET FARLEY, ED.M.

Career success.

We all want it, but what exactly does that look like? Does the answer vary between generations in the workforce?

What are the pain points felt by spouses as they reach for it?

Four military spouses belonging to three different generations share their workforce experiences with us as we seek the answers.

Millennials

Rhea Gayle Lewis , 27, has a clear idea of what career success means to her.

“For me, it means financial security,” said Lewis, a young millennial, very nearly in Gen-Z and Army spouse since she was 20 years old. Throughout her family’s relocations, Lewis has worked where she could, when she could, while working on her college degree.

“In Korea, I was hired to work as a Child and Youth Services (CYS) program assistant, but then the pandemic happened right after I was hired, and my hours were cut,” said Lewis. “When I did work, I didn’t get to be with the age group I had been hired to work with.”

Like other millennials, Lewis seeks meaning in her career and she tends to be results-oriented, having crafted a definite plan for her future but not before reevaluating her career choices against the military lifestyle.

“I originally wanted to be an interior designer, but I didn’t think I could easily find employment through all our military moves in that career field,” said Lewis. Like many military spouses before her, she proactively sought a more flexible career path. “I know I can make a good salary and hopefully find steady work as an accountant.”

“After my husband transitions out of the military, in another 10-12 years or so, I want to open my own accounting business back home in Hawaii,” she said. “We’re going to need to have enough money to really do that by then. Hawaii is an expensive place to live.”

Lewis is well on her way to realizing her goals. She expects to graduate from the University of Colorado in Colorado Springs with a bachelor’s degree in accounting in May of 2023 and become a certified public accountant (CPA) within the next year. But it wasn’t easy to get to this point. She had to transfer college credits from Kansas to Korea and then to Colorado. It was long and challenging. And some credits didn’t transfer along the way, costing her family time and money.

“I need to complete two more classes before I am eligible to take the CPA exam and I’m not sure when I can take them,” said Lewis. “We’re moving again this summer.”

“Elder” Millennials

Aerielle Ludwig , 39 is an Army spouse, wellestablished in her education and career development profession, and has two young children. She jokingly refers to herself as an elder millennial, in a nod to comedian lliza Shlesinger, who famously coined the term.

She doesn’t hesitate to explain her vision of career success.

“It means being in a role I am happy in and being compensated to a degree where I could fully support myself if I had to,” said Ludwig. Ludwig recently re-entered the federal workforce as an Education Services Specialist, GS-11, at Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington after working from home as a job coach and resume writer for the past six years.

“Working from home was just what I had to do with two younger children, the high cost of child care and my husband’s work schedule,” said Ludwig. “Ironically, I’ve been hired into the exact same position I was forced out of ten years ago because we had to PCS to Germany. When I think of how much retirement savings I have lost over these past ten years, it makes me physically sick.”

Loss of long-term income isn’t the only thing Ludwig has issues with, either.

“I see the support that civilian spouses have the ability to give each other and I wish I had that as a military spouse,” said Ludwig. “In the mornings, one parent will drop the kids off, and in the afternoon, the other one will pick them up. I know that because I am there both times. I do it all because my spouse is either deployed or working.”

One thing both millennials have in common is their desire to find “meaningful” work. They each place great value on their work performance. One difference is that “elder” millennials have had to learn and evolve with emerging technology while younger millennials did not. On that note, their experiences are quite different despite being from the same generation.

Gen-X

Angela O’Hanlon , 46, is a Gen X’er and has been an Army spouse for 25 years, getting married at 21. Like many military spouses, her career is an eclectic one. Like many Gen Xers, she has high personal standards for her professional life.

“I want to enjoy what I do. I want to wake up and want to go to work,” said O’Hanlon. “When I was younger it was all about the money. I could put up with the B.S. then. At this point in my life, my energy is spent differently,” she said.

For 13 years, she was a stay-at-home mom (SAHM) and volunteered extensively within the military community. She credits volunteerism with keeping her skills and resume up-to-date.

When she decided to return to full-time paid work, networking paid off and she was easily hired as a federal investigator. She kept that job for four years, throughout three PCS moves. O’Hanlon also worked as a substitute teacher. Now, she is a nurse recruiter for a small employment agency and her views on career success have evolved over time.

At work, she refers to herself as the grandma in the room. Aerielle Ludwig

“I work with a bunch of 20-year-olds. My boss and the owner of the business are more my age, and we have a very different mindset from the younger ones,” said O’Hanlon. “I keep an open mind, though. I listen and I learn from them and their points of view.”

And like many other Gen-Xers—and military spouses—O’Hanlon is good at adapting to an ever-changing environment and the points of view that come along with it. “There is no judgment around anyone’s age in our office. Everyone brings something new to the table,” said O’Hanlon. For now, O’Hanlon calls her career successful. She loves her job and her colleagues of all ages. “I’m going to cry when I have to leave this job,” she said.

Gen-Z

Jaia Barrett, the youngest of those interviewed, is 25 years old and considered an "elder" member of Gen Z who married her service member spouse when she was 21. She is currently unemployed and lives in Tennessee with her parents while her spouse of four years is deployed.

Gen Zers, 25 years and younger, are the digital natives among us. They are often characterized as being highly adaptive to change, in search of job security and like flexibility, clear directions and transparency.

Barrett’s idea of a successful career aligns with much of that.

“My number one idea of career success is a livable wage. I also want a healthy work culture, someplace where I’m happy to be, and where I’m valued as an employee,” Barrett said.

“Stability would be nice,” she added, almost wistfully. So far in her young mil spouse life, Barrett hasn’t found any of those things.

“I feel like the Army ruined my career. I didn’t Google ‘Will marrying this man make me unemployable?’ I probably should have,” she said.

Before PCSing to Colorado, Barrett attended a college in Texas, studied economics and worked for a large chain grocery store as a service lead manager, earning $60K per year. In anticipation of her first PCS move, she began proactively interviewing for jobs.

“I interviewed with one ‘military-friendly’ global financial services firm and it was going well for a while. The employer, however, started running me around my resume and kept asking me why I wanted to move to Colorado,” she said.

“I finally confessed to being a military spouse and that was it. It was like the interview immediately ended and he changed the topic of the conversation to how beautiful the local zoo was instead. It was demoralizing,” said Barrett.

“I would love to know what being a ‘military spouse-friendly’ employer actually means,” said Barrett who seems to have drawn a proverbial line in the sand. Barrett was eventually hired in a corporate management position in a different company but found the work environment to be toxic and left.

Obstacles to Career Success Across Generations

Not so long ago, resources to assist military spouses in finding meaningful employment were scarce. Today, that just isn’t the case.

In fact, there are so many resources available today from the DoD, private industry and non-profit organizations, that many spouses report being overwhelmed with all the choices and are uncertain of where to seek assistance as a result. But an excess of resources is not the only frequently noted pain point. Others include:

• “military-friendly” hiring efforts do not always translate to “military-friendly” employment

• lack of consistency between the services in the use of federal hiring preferences and authorities

• outdated services or limited job search classes offered by some installation employment readiness programs

• lack of spouse outreach to attend transition assistance workshops

• employer assumptions that spouses have lower education and experience levels

• poor customer service and/or lack of followthrough around assistance

• insufficient study materials to prepare for an industry certification

• unlivable wages in the community

• lack of affordable/available child care

Still, having too many less-than-perfect options is a massive improvement over having none at all.

Spouses, however, would be well advised to carefully research programs and initiatives, particularly those offered outside of the DoD, to ensure they are providing quality, results-focused assistance before using them.

Answered Questions

To revisit and answer the questions we started with….

Career success looks different to everyone. It may even look different to the same person at different stages of their own life. It can also vary between generations in the workforce and even within the same generation.

Pain points felt by military spouses on their journey to achieving career success may also vary. Some of them are way too familiar such as the affordability and availability of child care, low wages and rampant underemployment. New pain points have emerged with newer efforts such as the doubt around the true intentions of some so-called military-friendly employers.

Based on the lived experiences of these four military spouses, career disruptions can be organizationally systemic in nature or they could just be the result of someone having a bad day in the universe.

Success is most often found in the moments that follow these disruptions.

Farley, Ed.M. is an NMSN Employment Expert, a lecturer at the University of Colorado in Colorado Springs and a career coach. Connect with her at www.linkedIn.com/in/ janetfarley

Janet