With the Government led initiative encouraging businesses to hire Veterans and Military Spouses, there has been a significant increase in the amount of job fairs making their rounds of the continental USA. Chances are you have seen a Hiring…

Academy Women and In Gear Career were selected by NetApp as charity beneficiaries for the Twin Cities 10K Fundraising Race in Minneapolis, MN, on October 6, 2012.

This year NetApp’s goal is to get 100 runners racing as a part of the NetApp team in hopes of having the largest corporate group represented. NetApp is excited and honored to have distinguished NetApp leaders flying in from around the nation to run in this year’s race. NetApp also has over 100 more people from…

As I used one hand to dexterously position and operate the Keurig in my kitchen this morning while checking my work emails, eating a bagel and playing 'Simon says..' with my 2 year old, I had a fleeting vision of my morning coffee in Italy 2 years ago. During 2009 and 2010 I worked at the US base in Naples, Italy and I remember vividly the frustration I felt when I first began working there. It seemed impossible to get anything done between 9.30 and 10.30 as everybody would saunter out of…

We are pleased to announce that In Gear Career is actively partnering with Millitary Spouse Business Alliance Partner - MilSpouse eMentor to help our members get the support they need. In addition to finding mentors in your Community of Practice, you can enroll in the eMentor program to find professionals who have volunteered to help you.

The program allows you to enroll as a mentor and/or as a protégé. As a protégé, you can view mentors’ profiles and select someone…

Are you a working military spouse just dreaming of work life balance? For just $9.99 a month this dream can be yours! Ahhh if only it was that easy. How is a working military spouse supposed to fit in all of the demands placed on them, work, eat, perhaps raise children, sleep and find precious minutes for…

Moving around the country..wait..moving around the world? How does a military spouse find sources of income when they are constantly uprooted? As a Certified Health Coach I can recommend my own profession as an option, specifically for those of us with a passion for nutrition. Once we become parents, we better understand the importance of food and nutrition. A sick child will bring out the "Mother Bear" in every one of us and we become advocates for our children's wellbeing. This is…

The “tooth” is, I never thought I’d end up where I am now – a second year dental student, mom, spouse of an active duty service member, and completely unsure of what path I’ll take in two years when I graduate with my degree. When I started out in the Army, I didn’t think much about where I’d be past my service obligation. I was young, newly married, eager to get paid, and kept my rule pretty simple: I’d stay in until it stopped getting fun.

I didn’t expect that fun to stop so…

It's that time of year again; April 15th is quickly approaching. Some lucky families have lived the entire year in one state, others may have lived in two or three. Each move can effect your tax filing status. In addition, filing multiple state tax returns is repetitive and expensive. It doesn't help that the internal revenue code and its state counterparts tend to be ill-written and confusing.

Luckily, there is a multitude of information on the web. For example, simply searching…

One of the main reasons we started In Gear Career was to connect military spouses with other professionals in their fields- to create mentorship and sponsorship relationships to enable you to succeed in pursuing a professional career.

As a career minded military spouse, it is imperative that you have a mentor. Why? As you move from duty station to duty station, you will come across unique career challenges. A mentor is someone who believes in you and wants you to…

I am happy to report that I finally found a job in the Federal Service. It took six months after we returned from Italy, where I left a job there that I loved, but it was worth the wait. I ended up taking a reduction in grade (from a GS-12 to a GS-09), but am happy with the decision I made. It is a new career path for me, and many elements from my past work experience aligned to make me a good candidate for this new position being stood up at a local command here in Washington.

I…

I recently saw that the Senate cut a large portion of funding to the MyCAA program, and it struck a chord with me. The MyCAA program has been somewhat underutilized compared to prior years. I surveyed a few of my fellow military wives' in school and found that many of them did not know about MyCAA. I recall my experience with using it was that there was no direct path for utilizing the benefits. I recently completed my MBA with my husband's GI Bill entitlement, and getting through the…

While not directly related to career development....it falls under fiscal responsibility? Ok- who doesn't love a good deal?

Veterans Day Discounts and Freebies

Restaurants

Abuelo’s Mexican Food

- Abuelo’s offerings vary by region, be sure to call ahead to see what the discounts or freebies are included.

Applebees

- All veterans and active duty military eat free from a…

I’m currently on a plane on my way back from the Military Spouse Employment Partnership (MSEP) annual meeting. My company, along with 23 other companies, was just inducted into the partnership program, bringing the total number of companies to 96 in the partnership. To be honest, it sounded like the Partnership has had some significant bumps in the road to date, but I met a lot of good people really committed to the spouse hiring cause—many of them focused on professional opportunities for…

I’ve been asked to share my personal experience of being promoted from a GS-05 to a GS-12 in just a little over three years. My situation was definitely not the norm and I was lucky to enter the federal government when I did. I was hired as an administrative assistant (GS-05, Step 1) in February of 2008. We were stationed in Naples, Italy at the time. I took the job because I wanted to work, and there weren’t many options for spouses there. I already had a great resume, work background,…

I am a military spouse whose husband just retired from the United States Navy after 30 years of service. Until April of this year I was also a GS-12 Human Resources (Management) Analyst for a naval command in Naples, Italy. I know the “ins” and “outs” of government employment, held a wonderful job, and am now unemployed and struggling to find meaningful work. I broke into a system that is often hard to enter and was let go as soon as my husband had his retirement orders to return to the…

My Story -

When you’re young and newly married, you truly never know where your life will take you, or how it will all turn out….. you think that you may want “x” number of kids, a great job that sets your career on an incredible path, a perfect marriage. You yearn to discover the secret of finding the balance between kids, family, and career and that you will have enough money to travel to all the places you’ve only thus far dreamed about. After 29 years of marriage, 13 military…

Professional military spouses often face challenges when it comes to sustaining meaningful careers when they uproot their lives every three to five years in support of their spouses’ military careers. An option getting more attention lately is that of a “portable” career,…

When I first started my company, I went to a few small business government contracting conferences to see if I could learn more about how to best go about doing business with the government. At one of the first conferences I attended, we sat down with Hill staffers—people working directly for the members of Congress sitting on the Small Business committees—to discuss the issues facing small business owners in government contracting firms.

One man stood up and asserted that…

A lot of military spouses would love to get a government job. It really can be the ultimate portable career, especially if you find a career path that is utilized on most military installations. But I hear over and over from spouses that breaking in to the government system can be daunting.

While obtaining government employment is very different than the hiring process for the private sector, if you know how the system works…