If you joined us for our March Employment Law Roundtable, you may remember Evie King, recruiter, Executive Director of the military spouse wellness nonprofit InDependent, Inc., and 2023 Armed Forces Insurance Military Spouse of the Year. We loved her insight so much that we invited her to join us for a conversation on the DE Talk Podcast where we discuss her experience growing up in a military family and now as a military spouse, working for a military spouse-supportive employer, the challenges she sees military spouses facing as they seek employment, and ways employers can better attract and accommodate these invaluable individuals within their workforces. Here’s a sneak peek!
Kim Lott:
You are a recruiter for a federal contractor, and I’m sure your background as a military spouse has affected how you approach the hiring of veterans and military spouses. Can you talk to us a little bit about that?
Evie King:
I’ve noticed, actually, a couple of things now as a recruiter. One, they don’t teach some really important lessons in business school.
Some of the things that I’ve learned as a recruiter from just reviewing resumes, I’m like, “Why don’t we talk about this more?” And I try to share that knowledge as much as possible when I can. But the other thing– so, I’m very fortunate because my employer, we have since been, we call it “aqui-mergers”, we’re now a tribally-owned government contracting firm, but as of a little while ago, we were a woman-owned government contracting firm, and the women who started the firm were military spouses who started it because they could not find meaningful employment when they were living overseas. And, I always tell them there’s a reason that I’m working for them and not my own company, because never once in my employment career where I often say I’ve had to pivot and persevere, did I think, “I’m not getting a job, so I’m going to make my own company and go out and create positions myself.”
So, it was really wonderful to work for a firm whose entire perspective was looking at people as whole people and not the sum of our parts on a resume. And really seeing that just because your resume doesn’t say explicitly that you did something, doesn’t mean that your experience together, that you could still do that. And that was very, very freeing. It was also wonderful to just… So, my husband went through a deployment while I’ve been with this firm, to be with people who understood what that was like and fully supported me through it. It allowed me to be an employee during that time, and I think an exceptional one, personally.
But also, taking care of myself and my family’s needs and not feeling like those two were in conflict with each other. And it’s been really wonderful to work for an employer that truly lives supporting and hiring military and veterans, and doesn’t just say that they want to do that, but they’ve created a culture where we thrive.
Kim Lott:
Right. And make you kind of leave that identity at the door. “You’re at work now.” That’s very difficult for any employer, just going to allow you to come to work as a whole person, and see that, and understand that and invite that in. That’s a champion employer right there. Now, during a recent Masterclass Roundtable discussion, we talked about resiliency being a key trait of a military spouse. What other great attributes would you say they bring to the workforce, Ms. Evie?
Evie King:
So, I think we’ve sort of talked about it a little bit throughout this whole conversation is that military spouses are extremely well-rounded in a lot of different things. When I look at a military spouse resume and I see the many different jobs, careers, whatever that person has done, what I see is a person who has determination and willingness to excel at everything that they’re presented with. And I think that that is a trait that is very hard to teach. It’s something that is learned through life experiences. And because we go through so many life experiences, often in short periods of time, with varying levels of support, it is just a trait that so many military spouses bring to the table. We truly can take something that seems impossible and make it happen because we approach it from out-of-the-box thinking, because that’s been our whole life. We’ve had to do that. And so, those traits that make us survive or thrive in military life translate very well to the professional’s life. And we saw that during COVID.
So many of us, I mean, we’ve been celebrating milestones far away from our family on video chats for years. And we were often the ones helping our fellow colleagues through that transition of isolation and everything. And it’s like, “No, we’ve been there, and we can help you.”
Kim Lott:
And you push through, and this is where I want to plug right now that you are sitting on a picnic table, in your living room?
Evie King:
Yeah, I was so happy when I found out that this was not recorded with video because I told everybody, I was like, “By the way, I am sitting in what used to be my living room on a picnic table and a folding chair because our household goods are hopefully on their way across the Atlantic at this point in time,” and I’m able to do everything that I need to do.
Kim Lott:
That’s right. You didn’t cancel. You’re like, “You know what? This is on the calendar. This is going to happen. I don’t care if I don’t have furniture.” I mean, that is just a small example of making it happen, pushing forward.
Evie King:
Right. Exactly. There really is, a lot of people say, “I don’t know how you do it.” And I think my answer is usually, “Well, I don’t know how not to because this is my life.” And the option is we either continue to move forward or we fail and I don’t want to do that.
Kim Lott:
Yeah. Well, let’s pivot a little bit to talk about the employers. What I want to get from you is a list of attributes or your idea about what a military spouse supportive employer would have. We’ve talked about military spouses, how they’re resilient, all the gifts that they bring to the workforce, but it’s not going to mean much of anything if we don’t have employers that are going to be able to welcome and receive and be friendly to military spouses. So, if you could talk with us a little bit about what that ideal employer would look like?
Tune in to the full episode to uncover the ideal attributes of a military spouse-supportive employer and some common barriers these individuals face while seeking employment.
And that’s a wrap on Season 5 of the DE Talk Podcast! Stay tuned in the coming months as we launch Season 6 – sign up for text alerts or email notifications to be notified as soon as new episodes are available!
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