Tell us about Recruit for Spouses –who are you, and what you do?

Recruit For Spouses is a B-Corp certified social enterprise recruitment agency, which helps support the partners of serving members of the UK Armed Forces into employment.  It’s a community which experiences significant barriers to employment, and we help partners overcome these barriers and find meaningful, rewarding jobs with employers who will support them. 

‘Barriers to employment’ is a term which gets used a lot, and it can sometimes be easy for people to not consider that military spouses experience barriers. What kind of barriers do the candidates you support face when seeking employment?

The most common barrier for military spouses is due to their unique circumstances; they move a lot, so require flexible employment. 98% of the candidates we support are women, and if a military family has children at home, the spouse is often also the primary carer, and may require part-time work to fit around child-care and other responsibilities.

The challenge for us, is finding employers who really engage with us to understand the challenges that our unique candidates face. But also articulating the quality of candidates in the military spouse talent pool; for many, the only commonality military spouses have is that they are all married to someone serving in the Forces, and there is such a diverse range of skills in this community which are untapped by employers.

How do you support military spouses?

We take a two-pronged approach. 75% of the people we support haven’t worked in over 5 years, so we have a Career Academy which helps these candidates by providing employability skills training, CV support, workshops, and mentoring. But we’re also prioritising wellbeing and mental health; we are starting to work with a lot of psychologists and coaches, supporting people and giving them self-confidence. This is crucial for when military spouses go into interviews, and they’re faced with questions about career breaks, and what looks like ‘job hopping’ due to changing locations so often.

But the other part of our business is the recruitment agency; we provide both temporary and permanent recruitment into other organisations.

Do you experience any challenges in finding employers?

We often find that because of the high percentage of women in the military spouse community, that employers come to us due to the fact that they want to increase the gender balance within their organisations. When it comes to working with us, they add us to their Preferred Supplier Lists, but as a small agency, we can often get lost among bigger recruitment agencies which they work with, and it can often take 12 – 18 months for us to jump through the hoops in order to get onto procurement lists. But this is a common problem for many VCSEs and small businesses face when trying to work with larger companies.

The best way we have overcome some of these challenges, is by having champions within the organisation who understand what we do, and understand that there are more benefits to having military spouses in your organisation, or having a B-Corp in your supply chain, than just ticking the ‘diverse supply chain’ box.

So how do you ‘sell yourselves’ to larger companies?

We wanted a differentiator, which was actually one reason why we pursued B-Corp certification. We could see the value we were adding to our candidates, due to the recognition of B-Corp by other, larger, organisations and the benefits to these organisations by having B-Corp businesses in their supply chain.

But due to the values of the military community, another way we can sell Recruit For Spouses to organisations, is simply by promoting the values and the work ethic of our candidates. By the nature of the lifestyle, military spouses are adaptable, resilient, and resourceful. For example, we put five spouses into a team within a large company and measured their productivity. The team’s productivity increased by 78% within the first 3 months.

How can organisations support your candidates?

It’s really a case of opening your eyes and ears; being open-minded to a different approach, and understanding where some adjustments can be made. Not all jobs need to be a 9-5, and not all jobs need to be office-based; that’s something that the pandemic taught us, but lots of organisations are trying to encourage staff back into an office, when working remotely is often more accessible, more flexible, and often more productive.

It’s also about providing training and support. 75% of our candidates haven’t been in employment for 5 years, so there’s a lot of imposter syndrome, confidence issues, and it may take candidates time to adjust back into work, and even to adjust to using internal systems and to how technology has evolved in the workplace over the last few years alone. We’ve found that Buddy Systems are great for supporting people back into work.

How can businesses engage with Recruit For Spouses? And what kind of client are you looking for?

You can visit our website, and we’re also on Facebook and LinkedIn. Alternatively, you can email us at enquiries@recruitforspouses.co.uk.

We work with organisations across multiple sectors, and of all different sizes. But we’re currently seeking to work with and support SMEs, and larger SMEs in their recruitment. While our candidates have a wide range of skills and backgrounds, we have many brilliant candidates seeking part-time, flexible work, and many looking specifically for administration-based roles.

How can we help

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