Workforce Solutions ~ O*NET Contributions

Defense, Labor Partnership Provides Core Web Resource On Employment, Education, & Relocation for Military Spouses

Workforce Challenge: Military spouses and other family members often face challenges to maintaining stable careers or reaching their educational goals. Permanent Change of Station (PCS) moves can delay or disrupt plans for building job tenure or completing degrees or professional training. Many young spouses fresh out of high school are faced with figuring out how to find a job or additional education in a strange new city or region. Those with established careers may discover their credentials don’t transfer as easily as their furniture. They need help figuring out what they can do in their new locale and how to prepare for future relocations.

Interagency Solution: The Military Spouse Resource Center, also known as MilSpouse.org (www.milspouse.org), is designed to help them. Owned jointly by the Departments of Defense and Labor, the Center is a Web portal for locating national, state, and local sources of information and assistance. The site offers thousands of links to pertinent and practical information available from public and private Web sources. It focuses primarily on employment and training, education, and related community resources, such as child care and transportation.

O*NET Contribution: MilSpouse.org links to selected career information and job search tools available at little or no cost to its users, including CareerOneStop (www.careeronestop.org), Career Voyages (www.careervoyages.org), O*NET® OnLine (online.onetcenter.org), and the O*NET™ Career Exploration Tools (www.onetcenter.org/tools.html).

For spouses new to the job market, MilSpouse.org offers step-by-step guidance on what to do before beginning a search, including how to determine your skills and learn about occupations of interest. O*NET OnLine and the O*NET Interest Profiler (www.onetcenter.org/IP.html) are key resources in this process. To see how they can use O*NET information, individuals can select the CareerOneStop Coach (www.onestopcoach.org) to walk them through an O*NET Skills Search. Spouses who want or need to change careers in their new location also will find these O*NET resources helpful.

Key Results: In 2005, use of MilSpouse.org has grown, as major search engines have discovered and linked to it. In addition to their spouses and families, military personnel themselves are using the Web site to help with relocating or transitioning from military to civilian careers. For them, O*NET OnLine provides a Crosswalk that links military occupations to their civilian equivalents. They also can use the Skills Search and Related Occupations to identify occupations employing particular skills and expand the universe of career possibilities an individual may want to consider.

Transition Tools: Some One-Stop Career Centers near military bases have incorporated O*NET information and other local workforce information in presentations for Transition Assistance Programs. These programs are offered regularly to service members who are leaving or retiring from military service. A special online “BRAC Coach”
(www.brac-coach.org) has been developed to assist military and civilian personnel, businesses, and workforce agencies in communities likely to be affected by the forthcoming Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC). The Coach points to a wealth of resources, including O*NET.

E-Mail: info@milspouse.org
URL: http://www.milspouse.org/