WASHINGTON (Army News Service) -- The Army and the Department of Defense are growing spouse employment programs and partnerships, career experts told family members this week.

Eddy Mentzer, an Air Force spouse and an associate director in the DOD's Office of Family Readiness Policy, responsible for the Spouse Education and Career Opportunities Program, said the department is about to induct new job partners, bringing the number to almost 350.

As of this week, those employers have hired about 10,000 spouses, he said at an Association of the United States Army family forum.

In addition, last year 22,000 spouses participated in the My Career Advancement program, designed to provide younger spouses with funding for certification, licenses and accreditations, or to start educations.

"The numbers of spouses and the amount of dollars that we're expending have increased over the last year," Mentzer said. "That's turning around a five-year trend of decreasing numbers."

One big challenge military spouses face is transferring professional licenses and accreditations. Although 49 states (New York is in the process of doing this) have laws supporting licensure portability, that "doesn't mean it's an easy process," he said, noting that DOD is partnering with the University of Minnesota to examine the laws in each state, and work with the top 20 licensing agencies in each state.

Spouses can improve their employment chances by working on those licenses in advance of a relocation, and also by reaching out and networking with friends and contacts at their new duty stations.

"The first thing is obviously the network," said Col. Adam Rocke, the director of the Army's Soldier for Life program, which has a family component with numerous partners and resources.

"That can't just develop at the end of your transition," Rocke said. "It's got to be early. You have to make this transition a process and not an event."

Rocke said that many employers are eager to hire military spouses.

"They recognize the talents that you have, that you're educated, you're resourceful and flexible. You're adaptable and can multitask. You're highly educated and ... you're civically engaged," Rocke said. "They want that. They don't just want you to be the employee that stays within the confines of the building. They want you to be outreach for them. They want you to be engaged in the community."

However, Army spouses are often overqualified. They're too educated or in career fields that are too narrow for a rural installation where there are limited job opportunities in the surrounding communities.

It's very challenging and it happens all too frequently, said Amanda Crowe, who works with the Hiring Our Heroes program at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation.

"Some of it comes with creativity and some of it comes with a call to action to employers to recognize skill sets rather than job titles. That's something I encourage military spouses to learn about themselves as well," she said, explaining that her career progression doesn't make sense on paper.

"That's one of the reasons why we encourage in-person networking, because if you ask me how I made those jumps, I can tell you there was a lot of team management. There was a lot of volunteer team management. ... I can string that along ... and I can do that in a cover letter. That's what I encourage spouses to do, but you have to know the skill set and have to look past job titles and you have to realize this is how I can plug into your organization."

Automated application systems may also mean spouses need to be more creative when it comes to jobs they're searching for, Mentzer added. For example, a spouse might want to find a job as a writer, and depending on how she writes her resume, she may not come up as qualified for a journalist position.

"One of our big goals over the next year is to create some algorithms with the Military Spouse Partnership portal so an employer will be able to go in and say, 'I'm looking for 25 people or one person to do this specific job,' and then have the system match the top 20 spouses for that opportunity," he said. And "on the spouse side, of being able to say, 'I'm interested in this type of position: Who are the 20 employers who have the best opportunities for me?'"

He noted SECO also has free, highly qualified career counselors who field about 17,000 calls a month. They can pair with spouses long-term, helping spouses define goals and make steps to reach those goals.

"The spouse and career counselor develop an action plan and then they follow that action plan over a period of months," he explained, saying the program currently offers specialty packages in entrepreneurship and career readiness, with STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) and health care coming soon.

"We're about eight months into the first series that we've offered," Mentz said. "We've had 300 spouses participate in these. The feedback is tremendous. ... We set up this action plan and that career counselor checks in on a monthly basis."

The program has also introduced "Career Connections" to connect spouses with potential employers, helping with everything from the job search to the resume.

"Our counselors do an amazing job with mock interviews," Mentze said. "They research the company and set up an interview based on that company. ... It's not just the typical this is what you may be asked. They conduct a real interview."

"We're excited about where we're going. We're excited about what we're doing. This challenge is not going to go away for military spouses. We are not going to get away from moving. We're not going to get away from overseas locations. We know those challenges exist. As a team, we can put resources and information in place to be able to support spouses as they move around."