The American Legion Auxiliary holds a special affinity with spouses of military servicemembers. Some ALA members are, or once were, military spouses. Still others have military spouses as family members.
Underemployment and unemployment are common concerns of military spouses. Family relocation due to servicemembers' periodic changes in duty station makes it difficult for spouses to maintain steady employment, leading to resume gaps and skepticism among potential employers. Common careers for military spouses, such as those in the education and healthcare fields, often require state-specific licensing that does not transfer easily from state to state. Deployment further complicates the issue, as spouses are often left to balance finances, care for children and adapt to limited practical support from her/his partner.
Several initiatives are underway to address military spouse underemployment and unemployment. The American Legion Auxiliary is proud to collaborate with the Military Spouse Employment Program of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation’s Hiring Our Heroes initiative. The program aims to improve the lives of working military spouses by helping them achieve upward mobility in the workplace through networking events, online and in-person mentoring, and hiring fairs are exclusively designed for military spouses.
An ALA unit or member can get involved with the Hiring our Heroes Military Spouse Employment Program by organizing hiring and networking events or enrolling as an eMentor. This guide explains how members can get involved with the Military Spouse eMentor Program. To find out how to organize hiring and networking events, please see our guide titled “How to Organize Hiring and Networking Events for Veterans and/or Military and Veteran Spouses” on the National Security page at www.ALAforVeterans.org.
Serve as a Military Spouse eMentor or as a Community Connector to the Military Spouse eMentor Program:
The Military Spouse eMentor Program is a dynamic online community where spouse protégés can receive personalized career guidance, advice, support and inspiration from more experienced military spouses, professional civilian women and spouse-friendly employers.
Mentors and protégés register and connect online, creating an information and support pipeline for the protégés. While the focus of the program is job search and career development, protégé spouses may use their mentoring relationships to get assistance with any and all challenges related to military family life.
The ALA is the first veterans service organization auxiliary to establish a collaboration with the Hiring our Heroes Military Spouse Employment Program. Accordingly, we want a big showing of ALA support for this program, including by widespread member participation in the Military Spouse eMentor Program. There are two ways to get involved with eMentoring:
There are three types of mentors. Choose the type that best fits your qualifications.
The amount of time devoted to and the methods of communication utilized in the mentoring relationship will vary in accordance with the needs of the match. You are encouraged to discuss and establish the parameters of your mentoring relationship early. There is no formal time requirement, though mentors must correspond through email with their match at least once a week. You are welcome to be more engaged should you and the match agree; you can talk on the phone or even meet in person if both parties are willing.
The type and manner of your mentoring relationship will vary depending on the protégé’s specific needs. While the type of mentor you registered as – corporate, career, or peer – will somewhat determine the relationship, your protégé’s needs may not fit cleanly into a specific label. You can expect to discuss issues such as work-life balance, marriage, family, building a career despite the demands of the military lifestyle, coping with deployment and relocation and other topics common among military spouses.
Mentors and protégés have the option of using tools on the eMentoring platform to set and track goals. For example, protégés may wish to set a goal like “Rewrite resume and submit to mentor by August 1.” This goal would then appear on your shared eMentoring page. Once accomplished, the eMentor can mark the goal as complete. This is one way to record the progress of the mentor-protégé relationship.
Also, the eMentor website has an online forum for mentors and protégés to dialogue with a larger network of support. These discussion forums provide a channel for military spouses and eMentors to talk without a formal mentor-protégé relationship. Mentors and protégés can post questions, request resources and generally talk about any issues on their minds; anyone registered as a mentor or protégé can respond.
Registration as an eMentor and matching to a protégé is a quick and easy process. Follow these steps to sign up:
During the registration process, you will be guided through completing your mentor profile which serves as an online biography used by the system’s software to offer you as a “best match” mentor to appropriate prospective protégés seeking a mentor. You will enter information about your experience, desired number of protégés, current or former career field (if applicable), and other background information designed to provide protégés with the ability to assess your suitability to their needs. Be sure to enter "American Legion Auxiliary" in the field that asks you how you learned about the program, so that protégés will know your affiliation with ALA and so ALA can track how many of our members are serving as mentors.
If you select “0” as the desired number of protégés to work with, you will still be visible to protégés who may want to ask you a question and you can interact with protégés in the discussion forums or Q & A area, but you will not be invited into a one-to-one relationship. This is a good option for mentors who would like to participate, but have a very limited time available to do so.
Once you have completed your mentor profile, it will be searchable by registered military spouses. Should a military spouse decide that your profile is a match, they will contact you via email by selecting a “request mentoring” link visible to them within your profile page. Your email address will remain private until after you “accept” the mentoring invitation. Mentors need not wait to be invited into a mentoring relationship, but can instead seek a protégé to work with. To do this, mentors simply select the “Protégés” link while logged into the eMentor Program website and filter the list of protégés by criteria such as “Career Interest”, “Location”, “Children”, etc. to find a Protégé that they can best assist. Once a “good fit” protégé has been located, the mentor can select either the “send message” or “offer mentoring” link visible in the protégé’s profile. This triggers an email to the protégé who can then respond.
You can also contribute to the Military Spouse eMentor Program by encouraging others in your community to participate as mentors or protégés.
In order to best serve the participating military spouse protégés, the Military Spouse eMentor Program must have a large, diverse pool of volunteer mentors from a variety of industries, companies, careers, and organizations. Similarly, potential spouse protégés must be aware that the platform exists in order to utilize it and receive support. Community connectors take simple steps to raise awareness of the program by word of mouth, email messages, newsletter announcements, and social media postings.
There is no requirement that ALA members register in order to serve as an eMentoring community connector. Suggested text for newsletters/emails, Facebook posts, and Tweets is available for your use.
The ALA encourages members serving as eMentors and/or community connectors to identify themselves as such. When interacting with protégés, however, it is important that members not push ALA membership aggressively, as that is not the primary need of the spouses being assisted. Do feel free to mention why you are involved with The American Legion Family as appropriate.
Please also be sure to report your volunteer activities and hours to your unit’s National Security chairman, the committee with oversight of ALA's collaboration with the Hiring Our Heroes Military Spouse Employment Program.
