You never know when opportunity will knock, so be prepared with a quick sales pitch to market your strengths and abilities.

IN A PERFECT WORLD, finding a good job with excellent pay and benefits would be as simple as signing your name on an employment contract. In the real world, however, it's not that easy. Under the best circumstances, finding a job is a full-time job itself. Add your status as a mobile military spouse to that equation, and you'll find yourself facing a worthy challenge indeed.

But you can meet and beat that challenge with a dose of good-old-fashioned salesmanship that promotes not only your skills, abilities, and past accomplishments, but also your strengths as a military spouse. If you're serious about finding a job, you have to be ready at all times. By creating and practicing a three- to five-minute sales pitch, you will be prepared to market yourself for a job, whether you are sitting in a job interview, standing in line at the commissary, or cheering in the stands next to another parent at the soccer field. You never know when the opportunity to sell your skills will present itself.

Your sales pitch should clearly and concisely tell a potential employer or networking contact what you have to offer an organization or company. You have unique abilities, experiences, and accomplishments. Brush up on those by reviewing your résumé. Your sales pitch shouldn't be a memorized speech, but rather an informed, intelligent piece of relevant conversation on your behalf. It should include, at minimum, the number of years' experience you have in your field and a short list of your most applicable skills and qualifications. It should strive to highlight your most relevant accomplishments as well as any licenses or certifications you might have that are required for the job. Additionally, include one or two value statements that tell the employer something about you as a person and how you operate on the job. Sometimes, a good personality that fits in with an organization is more desirable than specific job skills.

In the process of preparing your sales pitch, don't neglect to include the positives of being a military spouse. In the past, highlighting the fact that you were a military spouse generally meant the proverbial kiss of death for any real consideration on the behalf of an employer. Fortunately, times have changed. Today, it is not necessarily considered bad career mojo to have multiple jobs listed on your résumé, as is typically the case with spouses who find themselves at the mercy of multiple PCS orders over time. In fact, your varied work experiences can be a plus. Other strengths you might possess, by virtue of being a military spouse, that are highly desirable to employers include:

• An amazing flexibility and adaptability with an environment subject to constant change and stressful factors. Businesses exist and thrive because of their ability to adapt to the ever-changing status quo. As military spouses, we could have written the book on this one, don't you think?
   
• Solid decision-making skills. As spouses, we don't always have the luxury of waiting for things to work themselves out and often have to make decisions to facilitate progress. Businesses are no different. Someone has to be willing to stand up and make decisions after carefully evaluating the pros and cons.
   
• Ability to work independently to see a job through to completion. Remember your last PCS move? Your spouse was al--ready gone and your kids were not, and the success of a major relocation rested on your shoulders. Such mastery of project management is highly regarded by employers.
   
• Ability to work as a team player. I'm betting that you have had the occasion to play the role of major support person at least once or twice in your career as a military spouse.
   
• Inside knowledge of how other businesses are run. Employers are always interested in how other companies do business. Because of your experiences in other jobs, you can bring much-valued insight into how other organizations operate.
   
• Ability to interact with individuals of varying professional levels. As you may know, the real power within a company doesn't necessarily lie with the person who has the six-figure job title. Your ability to work with everyone, compliments of Uncle Sam's cross-cultural world, can be a real plus.
   
• Having a wide network of associates all over the world. The old cliché that it's not what you know, but who you know, is alive and well. Fortunately, as military spouses, our network of contacts can spread throughout the world, literally. In a global business environment, that can't be a bad thing.

You'll find that your job search will take no time at all if you are prepared with the right weapons in the first place. The sales pitch described here should definitely be in your arsenal!

Janet Farley is author of Jobs and the Military Spouse (Impact Publications, 2004) and The Military-to-Civilian Career Transition Guide (Jist, 2004). She also writes a career advice column for the Stars and Stripes newspapers.