How Hire Served Helps Military Spouses Get Remote Jobs

Interview by Marysa Stevens Jean South, founder and CEO of Hire Served, is a Marine spouse, former FBI Special Agent and the daughter of two Army veterans. As an FBI agent, she focused on Russian Organized Crime before transitioning out of government service to join McChrystal Group, founded by Gen. Stanley McChrystal, as a consultant and recruiter. Jean serves as a board member for Semper Fido, a nonprofit that pairs veterans with PTSD and TBI with service dogs. She also volunteers with The Weekly Fight, an organization dedicated to bringing attention to the high rate of suicides among veterans. Hire Served gives military-passionate employers the competitive advantage in recruiting, hiring and on-boarding top veteran talent by bridging the military-corporate culture barrier throughout the recruitment cycle. Hire Served also helps place military spouses with companies that offer remote-work positions. Jean’s extraordinary accomplishments at the FBI and at McChrystal Group have inspired her to mentor fellow military spouses in courage, goal setting and with career opportunities. Why are you passionate about helping military spouses find careers? Military spouses bear the brunt of the responsibility for their families. They are regularly forced to single parent while living in fear that this will become a permanent arrangement, and they live half their lives away from their spouses. If that wasn’t sacrifice enough, their careers take a hit. The most recent statistics stated that 20 percent of military spouses were unemployed or underemployed -- and that’s only the ones who are still in the job market, it doesn’t consider those spouses who have chosen to be a stay-at-home-parent or who have given up on finding work. That’s 20 percent of people (mostly women), who are looking for meaningful work and can’t find it. That’s insane! I look at my own life and the skills and benefits my work has given to me: confidence, communication, friends who have nothing to do with my home life, a place to be challenged and grow independently of my family, diversity of opinions to be exposed to and learn about the way others see the world. There’s value in a professional network and military spouses don’t get the opportunity to build those networks in one town for very long. It hinders their abilities to be seen as valuable assets in an organization. I understand that employers want consistent employees and the inevitability of a move for a military spouse is daunting, but I believe it’s time for employers to open their minds to different options. With proper management, most jobs today can be conducted remotely. Employers mindsets need to evolve to believe that a spouse being moved to a new duty station doesn’t have to end their employment with them. Rather, employers should look at the talent they have in front of them, hire for skills and value, and then problem solve when the time comes for a PCS. If the spouse has been a valued employee, give them a laptop and a landline and make it work -- you save money on office space and keep a very satisfied and loyal employee. We have a responsibility to the families of our warriors and that doesn’t stop at saying, “Thank you for your service” two days a year. What is your best advice to a military spouse who is feeling discouraged with the job hunt? My best advice centers around the conversation about the word courage . Courage isn’t being not afraid. It’s looking at what you’re afraid of, and doing it anyway. That’s how we get stronger and more resilient. Take responsibility for making the best of the situation you find yourself in. Write down all the ways you can (and want to) bring value to an organization, then get creative. Are there companies nationwide that you’re interested in working for? Can you connect to their hiring managers through LinkedIn and begin showing your value to possibly get a remote position? Are there ways you can freelance? Perhaps you can offer your services to entrepreneurs on a limited basis and grow yourself a freelance business. Can you coach others to success in your career field and become a coach or trainer in that field? There are a thousand ways to get creative (and so many military spouses have already done so). Does this solve the problem for all spouses? Certainly not. But it does help move us forward and make progress. Do you have job interview advice for military spouses who are worried about being shut out due to their status? For example, many worry that once the employer hears they are military, they won’t hire them because they assume they’ll be moving in 2-3 years . I am a huge fan of being very direct -- looking someone in the eye, telling them that you understand why you may have gaps on your resume, and their worries over hiring a military spouse because of the propensity to move a lot. I say tell them you get it and that you can’t promise to be there forever, but you can promise to do a kick-ass job while you’re there, to be motivated and a great employee, and to ensure that when you do leave, they’ll be a better organization for the time you were there. This isn’t from a professional hiring standpoint, because every hiring manager and organization is completely different, but I think if you did that, it would be very authentic. Moving around the country (or world) is inevitable if you’re a military spouse. Why should companies consider remote work for current employees who have PCS orders? If you would like to consider approaching your employer with a remote work option, consider the following. If the work doesn’t require you to be on site (ask yourself if you could work from home on a snow day effectively. A cashier could not. A marketing director could.) Then talk to your boss about the possibility of working remotely and propose a trial period. Ask for a test run by working from home for a week to identify any problem areas, then problem solve them together. Not every employer is going to be receptive, but some literally just have never thought of it and would do a lot to keep an amazing employee. Remember that it’s expensive to find and train your replacement, so eliminating that expense by staying on remotely may be a solution to a problem for them! I believe there are two important keys to remote work. The first is leveraging technology well. We live in such a different world than just 10 years ago, and I think employers are unwise not to take advantage of the ability to get remote workers. The fact is, the best talent does not always live 45 minutes or less from your office. By limiting ourselves to the talent within a reasonable daily commute of our office, we limit the potential of our organizations. As a business owner whose team is spread across the country, I agree there are challenges. Team lunch isn’t a thing we get to do. And training a new employee remotely does come with its own set of challenges. But the payoffs of having remarkable talent are so worth it. Secondly, I lead my team based on what I learned as an employee at McChrystal Group. General McChrystal led by the following principles: trust, common purpose, shared consciousness and empowered execution. To contact Jean, email jean@hireserved.com . For more information about Hire Served, visit hireserved.com . [maxbutton id="13"] Connect with us on Facebook!

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