If you were consumed by news of NFL kneeling and election results this week you probably missed a pretty astounding milestone: the U.S. Labor Department reported that there are now more job openings in the U.S. then there are people to fill them.

This is the first time this has happened in 20 years.

CNN reported that at the end of April there were 6.7 million job openings.

Does that mean the odds are in your favor to find a job?

Maybe.

Experts told CNN that it is possible that the numbers represent a gap that shows how the jobs and the people searching for jobs are not in the same place. The large number of jobs available also may indicate that there are not enough people with the right qualifications to hire for those positions. 

What it may also mean is that if you polish that resume and begin networking with vigor, you might find yourself in front of a hiring manager faster than you would in a meager job market. So take advantage of it, and get to work.

CNN also reported that the average job search lasts 10 weeks. That can be a very long 10 weeks if your household relied on your second income. Search for jobs not only in your direct career field but also in related fields where you can flex your know how and talents to fit an employers’ needs.

Before you apply to each job, review your resume and rewrite as necessary to show strengths that might be beneficial to each new employer. Be willing to be open-minded and learn new skills on the job.

At the end of the day, a job you never considered may become your dream career.

By Amy Nielsen

This week I am participating in two vastly different symposiums that neatly bracket my scope of practice. I am an integrative nutritionist, herbalist, and chef.

On Saturday I went to a day-long intensive class learning about the varied uses of one herb given by a visiting herbalist who is an expert in that plant. It was held at a world renowned herbalist’s school. On Wednesday, I will attend an end-of-the-year symposium discussing diverse research on the broader topic of metabolism given at Harvard honoring the graduating doctoral students in the program.

Integrative medicine is the bridge that links Western compartmentalized medicine with the whole person biopsychosocial framework held by traditional systems of healing. Integration of the delicate balance of the healing presence associated with many CAM modalities into the rigors of a double blind controlled clinical study is exactly what we need to learn to do.

So much of what is becoming understood about how molecular structures change is leading the drive to understand how we become us. We become us by what we ingest. However, there is arguably a lot more to healing than electron transport train function or cholesterol ratios.

But this is a lot of specific, technical speak that is pointedly of interest to those in my field and few others. The point here is that students of science are tasked with not only keeping up with the latest and greatest innovations but also finding ways to integrate lessons of the past.

Students learning to be integrative practitioners need to learn to be a walking thesaurus of sorts.

One of the dangers of integrating the old and new into the same research platforms is the distinct probability that the outcomes of the research will inevitably go to the highest bidder. It is the job of the student and practitioner, in my opinion, to give equal weight to scientific breakthroughs and the art of traditional medicine.

My current classes are both discussing how to write evidence based papers on integrative topics. That means big ole research papers supported with cited references. This first half of the term is dedicated to searching only biomedical databases of peer reviewed published data.

That is, understanding what criteria make up good research will come in handy when we move on to the next part, finding supporting data within the traditional modalities where there are no nicely indexed databases to search. Learning to distinguish good research from bad makes evaluating research in more obscure and unindexed realms more reliable.

On the flip side, learning how to design a study that truly takes into account both the compartmental needs of the gold standard clinical trial and the need for individualization of treatment present in many of the systems being studied will prove difficult. Herein the choice of cohort and treatment center will need to be carefully examined to ensure the least number of variables introduced into the study. Intraprofessional bias may be a hurdle to jump as well.

The ability to couple both kinds of research leads to well-rounded and supported changes in treatment that can find a place in both a biomedical practice and a traditional practice. Working in new and traditional research helps more patients in the long run, which is after all the whole purpose of doing research in the first place.

Spending concentrated time in both worlds keeps the flexibility of language moving, allows me to become a better practitioner and researcher.

As we move forward in the light speed realm of medical research, it behooves us to remember that not all gold standard trials result in the best treatment for every patient, nor does every ancient technique stand alone without support for the surrounding system.

Integrating the two takes the ability to speak several profession-specific languages while holding deep respect and compassion for the usefulness and necessity of all to heal the ailments of our collective patient base.

My husband says I can make a new best friend in line at the commissary.

I’ll bet many of you are the same way – you move to a new place, and within five minutes you’ve met someone who will be the emergency contact for your kids’ school. Or the person who will be your go-to pet sitter. Or even someone you’ll spend more time with over the next two years than you do with your husband.

That’s military life. We bond fast.

And we bond hard

Friendships are not so easily forged in the civilian world.

We were in our new home for six months before I had one local Facebook friend. I was flummoxed by my inability to meet people and, when I did, the lack of common interests with which to start a conversation.

People were nice and friendly, even more so than I expected. I know some other parents through my kids’ activities. I started doing some volunteer work with a local organization that I care about and made some great acquaintances.

But it just wasn’t the same.

Then something magical happened.

A retired military spouse named Catherine, who was also feeling a little lonely, started a Facebook page for spouses in our local area. Though the group is open to any spouse, those of us who are married to retirees seemed more attracted to it – or maybe more in need of it.

The page grew by word of mouth and in a few months it had grown to 140 members. There is a core group of eight or ten of us who get together regularly. We’ve done coffee-type events at people’s houses, paint and sip parties, movie nights, breakfast dates, lunch dates, dinner dates, shopping trips and even a beach cleanup.

We also play breakfast bingo every week at Chick Fil A.

Other than the PTA spaghetti and bingo night at my kids’ school in Germany, I’m pretty sure I’ve never actually played bingo sober before.

But let me tell you, these ladies know how to have fun, even at 8:30 on a Thursday morning at a fast food restaurant.

Chick Fil A bingo was my first “event” a few months ago. One of the ladies in that spouses’ FB group posted that she was going, and I figured, why not?

That first time meeting up was like a blind date. I had her FB profile pulled on my phone, so I could see her picture. The only thing that would have made it funnier was if I had to swipe right.

Some weeks we have more than half dozen from our group join us, other times it’s just one or two.  Some have little kids at home. Some are grandparents. Some have full-time careers or go to school, or both.

But no matter what, the conversation is easy and lively and funny.

Before this group, I was struggling with the lack of social interaction. I don’t miss the military at all, and I talk regularly to several friends who are military spouses, both still active and retired.

But, as much as I love those sisters, it’s not the same as being right in front of someone and becoming friends in the context of where our lives are now, post-military.

It took a lot of moxie for Catherine to start that FB page. I am forever grateful to her for that.

It also took a lot of gumption for each of us to blindly walk into a meet up at Chick Fil A, the movies, or Panera Bread, having no connection to each other besides the fact that our husbands were once in the military.

And the weird thing is, we rarely talk about the military. I don’t even know which service most of the other women’s husbands served, or their rank.

We’re just regular people now, no longer known to each other simply because our spouse’s serve in the same unit, or because we met at a “mandatory fun” event.

We were brought together by one small shred of military commonality, and we’re bound by embracing the changes we are all going through in life after the military.

It’s a new kind of sisterhood, to go with whatever the new normal is for each of us.

It’s comfortable. It’s familiar.

It feels like home.

Did you just arrive at your new duty station? Are you visiting before the big move to look at housing? Carry some freshly printed resumes with you and hit the pavement too. It’s never too early to start making connections and introducing yourself to the new neighborhood.

Click on the links below for details about each of these military spouse only hiring fairs hosted by The U.S. Chamber Foundation. Registration is required and they often fill up so don’t wait until the last minute!

June 1

Seattle, Wash.

https://www.uschamberfoundation.org/event/seattle-hiring-expo-seattle-mariners-1

June 13

Palo Alto, Calif.

https://www.uschamberfoundation.org/event/palo-alto-military-hiring-fair

June 19

Fort Jackson Transition Summit

https://www.uschamberfoundation.org/event/fort-jackson-transition-summit

June 21

Fort Gordon, Ga.

https://www.uschamberfoundation.org/event/fort-gordon-transition-summit-2

Washington D.C.

https://www.uschamberfoundation.org/event/2018-military-spouse-employment-summit

July 12

Herndon, Va.

https://www.uschamberfoundation.org/event/herndon-military-hiring-fair

Longtime military spouse supporter, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation, is creating a new program called Military Spouse Economic Empowerment Zones (MSEEZs) to help address the issues military spouses face in finding employment.

The foundation launched the effort in collaboration with USAA, and is working with both public and private companies and foundations to connect military spouses with employers and employment-related tools and resources.

The first cities picked to be economic empowerment zones are places like San Antonio and Tampa where many of the necessities are already in place. Planners envision the zones as a “one stop shop” for spouses as they seek employment.

A recent study by the Foundation, called Military Spouses in the Workplace, found that the majority of military families need a second income, but only 50 percent of military families are able to have dual income because of the inability of the military spouse to find a job.

Hiring Our Heroes will launch several  MSEEZs throughout 2018 in cities across America in hopes of  fostering a collaboration between key stakeholders to help identify best practices that will support and advance the mission of connecting military spouses with meaningful employment opportunities, ultimately strengthening the financial security of our 21st century military families.

The next MSEEZ will launch in June in Seattle.

For more information visit www.uschamberfoundation.org

By Amy Nielsen

I don’t remember when I fully understood that May is a problematic month for me. I know it has been so for a very long stretch of my life. It is both my most favorite month and also the month I most prefer to keep at arm’s length. In working on a project for school, I am required to write a timeline of my life and I have been struck by certain patterns. Events in May seem to top the list.

May is traditionally seen as the glorious bursting forth of life after the rains of April washing all the seeds of the earth as they are heated with lengthening sun. In truth, buds quite literally burst open in the warm sun as they swell with cell growth at a rate that we can see with the naked eye and measure by the hour in some plants.

Ladybugs emerge from the window panes while orange newts and garden snakes sun on the slate path. Skunks and peepers dominate the still chilly nights. Goslings and eaglets. Bunny kits scatter when I walk to the car in the morning. You can almost hear the buzz of the electrons being transferred as the sun rises stronger every morning.

This energy is infectious and sends my focus to scatter with the winds that swirl with the thunderous storm drafts.

The events that have happened in May over the years are difficult to list without sounding like a litany of personal catastrophe alternating with ridiculous coincidence. Suffice to say that there are several birthdays - mine, my Dad’s, and my daughter’s. There are several personal childhood surgeries always landing in May. Having spent a lot of years in a private school, it marks the beginning of summer being let out several weeks earlier than our public school counterparts. Last, but arguably the most catastrophic, it is the month that took my Dad from me.

That last one might seem to many like the biggie, but it really was just the universal exclamation point on an already crystal clear message. May is trouble.

Ever since I was a kid, May has been a month of anxiety. My May usually meant either packing like a crazy person to spend the months before the next school year overseas, or prepping like a crazy person for surgery on my knees so we could leave for overseas as soon as I was recovered enough.

In reading over this assignment I have the regular sense of déjà vu as I write out yet another seasonal march of weirdness in May. In the last few years I have made a study of May, and this year is no different. I know that I started focusing on May the year we bought this house. We closed on May 1.

When the realtor put the key in my hand that early May morning, I felt for all the world like there was a shift in the fabric of the universe. It was a shift I knew well having felt it a few times before already. For once, however, I actually was able to focus on it and understand that it was a shift into another plane of my progression in this life and to be welcomed rather than a ticket to a new level of panic and terror.

That first May at our house in Grove Hill was a great and glorious one. One for the record books. It was filled with new experiences, hard work, and a personal sense of accomplishment I hadn’t felt in a long time. It was the beginning of my next go around.

The following May was among the most terrible as it was an anniversary of a huge loss. For almost 25 years, now more than half my lifetime, I have been without my Dad. He was killed in a car accident in May so very long ago. May is our shared birthday month and I firmly believe a little of his soul lives in his granddaughter born on a Mother’s Day that happened to fall the day before his birthday.

It is interesting to note from a purely clinical side that the majority of my manic episodes begin in May. I have had this pointed out to me recently by a few learned folks in both my professional and personal circles. The key now will be to get a plan together so the summer doesn’t explode into pixie dust or dragon flame and I have a shot at not collapsing again next May.

So to say May is complicated is somewhat of an understatement.

In working with a Shaman from a long way away a couple years ago, I learned to hear myself in a way I had never before. So now I listen to May with ears tuned to my energy. I have learned about the fire in the belly of one with a connection to the May energy, the fire of Beltane, the bursting of bud.

The flipside to all of this is that I absolutely adore the nature of May. After the winter, May feels like I can breathe again, even and especially with all of the blasted pollen. There is finally enough sunlight that I feel like I am alive. Every day, even the rainy, chilly one, I can see progress of each leaf growing, I can smell the oxygen being returned to the air by the plants, I can feel the Earth warming under my feet.

May is such a glorious riot of emotion that I get turned around and upside down. I can’t contain the energy that zooms around and begs, no demands, to be entertained. A May thunderstorm will for sure remind you how small and insignificant you are. May is very merry and also very problematic.

When American actress Meghan Markle weds Prince Harry this weekend she will take on a title much more important than anything royalty could bestow upon her. She will become a military spouse.

Prince Harry served in the British Army for ten years, rising to the rank of Captain. He served two tours in Afghanistan.

While visiting the U.S. several years ago, he told Michelle Obama and gathered military families that his tour in Afghanistan “changed his life.”

Since then the Prince helped create and support the Invictus Games, an annual world-wide sporting event to celebrate wounded warriors and give them an opportunity to compete athletically. The inaugural games, held in London in 2014, drew more than 400 athletes who competed for five days in front of a crowd of 65,000 people.

He has trekked with injured service members to the North Pole. He told British GQ, "This extraordinary expedition will raise awareness of the debt that this country owes to those it sends off to fight - only for them to return wounded and scarred, physically and emotionally. The debt extends beyond immediate medical care and short-term rehabilitation. These men and women have given so much. We must recognise their sacrifice, be thankful, so far as we can ever repay them for it."

Prince Harry’s dedication to his brothers and sisters in arms is the focus of his days. Now, we welcome his new bride into the fold.

Though she, thankfully, will never experience the hell of deployment or the exhaustion of a PCS, she is our sister in arms.

Like her husband, she is certain to kneel to tend to our wounded and bow to honor our dead. We are thankful for her service as she makes serving her new military family a focus of her days too.  In turn, her military family will envelope her in love and devotion.

Welcome, Meghan. We’re glad to have you. And, we’ve got your back. Always. 

Are you graduating from a degree program this year?

There may be more jobs waiting for you to choose from than in past years.

Employers plan to hire 4 percent more new graduates this year than from the Class of 2017, according to the National Association of Colleges and Employers.

Surveyed employers said their hiring numbers are growing due to company growth, retirements and the need for entry-level talent.

The NACE report says the Northeast region is the only one of the four regions reporting an overall decrease in college hiring, with a slight dip of 1.7 percent. The Southeast (3.8 percent), Midwest (10.4 percent) , and West (4.1 percent) regions are showing increases.

While the Northeast region projects a small decrease in overall hiring, spring 2018 recruiting plans for employers in this region show the most promise, the NACE report says. More than three-quarters of respondents in the Northeast have firm or tentative plans to recruit on campus in the spring.

Wondering who employers are looking for? The organization says Almost 84 percent of new hires will hold bachelor’s degrees, 12 percent will have master’s degrees, 2.4 percent will have associate degrees, and 1.7 will hold doctoral degrees, with the remaining 0.4 percent holding professional degrees.

The top hiring fields are business, engineering and computer and information sciences across all levels of degrees, associate, bachelor’s, master’s and doctorate. Near the bottom of every list in every degree type is humanities and education majors.

To read the full report, visit http://careerservices.wayne.edu/pdfs/2018-nace-job-outlook-survey.pdf

How long is sufficient to retain a quality job?

Army leadership is asking that question now and assuring senators that they are working to help military spouses find employment.

This week Military.com reported that top Army leaders spoke with lawmakers about helping spouses find meaningful work and that longer assignments to duty stations could be a way to make that happen.

Senators told those leaders that currently it takes 140 days for the Army to hire spouses or civilians for on-base jobs, a result of a “clunky and inefficient” vetting process in the Office of Personnel Management.

Earlier this month President Donald Trump issued an executive order encouraging federal agencies to speed the hiring of military spouses. Still, lawmakers say a lack of stabilization in one location, as well as a lack of on-base jobs, are the biggest hurdles.

To read the full report by Military.com, please visit, https://www.military.com/daily-news/2018/05/15/army-mulls-longer-assignments-encourage-employers-hire-spouses.html

PCS season is here. Time to start purging, packing and planning. Time to start looking at houses and school districts and things to do in the new place. Time to start convincing the kids how great the new place is going to be. Time to start saying goodbye to friends and neighbors and get ready to reinvent yourself all over again for the umpteenth time.

Oh, wait.

Not me.

Not this year.

I don’t have to do that anymore. We’re retirees now.

Looking back on my husband’s 26-year Army career, it’s amazing that we spent 17 years OCONUS. We PCS’d 13 times. Here’s all the places we were stationed, in order:

Hawaii (Schofield Barracks), Georgia (Ft. Benning), North Carolina (Ft. Bragg), Okinawa, Korea (Yongsan Garrison), Florida (MacDill Air Force Base), Germany (Stuttgart), MacDill AFB again, Kansas (Ft. Riley), Stuttgart again, Canada (Toronto), Stuttgart a third time, and back to the U.S.

We weren’t on the typical summer PCS cycle until later in my husband’s career. Once we were, it was like clockwork. We moved five of the last seven summers. And now, it seems, nearly everyone moves between May and September. It has become the official season of goodbyes and starting over.

PCS’ing always brings a mixed of emotions. Marriages are stressed, kids are heartbroken, pets are confused, household goods are lost, finances are stretched.

But it’s exciting, too. One of my favorite things about Army life was the first few weeks at a new duty station – getting to know the area, checking out restaurants and shopping, meeting new neighbors. And if we got really lucky, my husband might have a little free time to enjoy the new place, too, before starting what always seemed like a 24/7 work cycle, or going TDY, or to the field, or getting deployed, or whatever else might come up.

Of course there was all the stress of deciding where to live, signing up for utilities, getting the kids registered for school, living in a hotel.

Our moves usually had a few extra unknowns, too. Since we did so many OCONUS transitions, we were always waiting for a car to arrive, waiting longer for our household goods, and trying to get settled while adjusting to new languages and a new culture.

But that part was kind of exciting, too.

Our last address change was in August, when we bought a house in Florida.

The other day my husband commented that, almost eight months after moving in, we were finally, completely, unpacked and set up.

 “It feels like we’re really here,” he said.

Our next door neighbor made a similar observation while commenting on the long list of home improvement projects we’ve been doing.

He said: “So I guess you’re here to stay.”

And now, with PCS season upon us, the realization has hit me that we will never again get a set of military orders. Never again will we anxiously wait to find out where the next duty station is, and as soon as we get there start to wonder when and where the next move will be.

I don’t know that we’ll live in this house or this place forever, but we’re parked here for at least the foreseeable future. And, if and when we do move again, it will be on our own terms.

So, for all of you going through the PCS craziness this summer, I salute you. I wish you good packers and no damage, healthy kids, healthy pets, the strength of a superhero and the patience of a saint.

I wish you a smooth transition to your new place and, most of all, a great start to your new adventure.

I feel your pain, but I don’t feel bad for you. I’m envious.

Enjoy it while you can.