Employment specialists help at-risk populations find suitable careers, obtain training, and settle into new workplaces. They can lead workshops, work with websites, and meet with clients individually to provide career advice. They also work in the workplace to ensure employee needs are met. Qualifications vary, but good communication skills and the ability to interact with a wide variety of people are necessary.
An employment specialist helps people who need to work through the process of finding suitable careers, obtaining training, applying for jobs, and settling into new workplaces. These professionals tend to focus on at-risk populations of people who have difficulty finding and keeping work, such as ex-convicts, people with disabilities, and veterans entering the civilian workforce. Employment Specialists can work for government agencies, non-profit organizations and individual businesses that want an on-call consultant to address their employees’ needs.
Employment specialists can lead workshops and other events to provide general information about employment and available resources. They can work with a website to offer articles and employment information, job listings and other resources to members of the public. Community outreach is not necessarily part of the job and tends to be more common for government and non-profit employees who want to improve employment among a target group.
In addition, the employment specialist meets with people individually. Clients can include people who want new jobs and are thinking about changing careers, as well as unemployed people and people re-entering the workforce after an extended break. The specialist determines the candidate’s skills, as well as any specific needs, and applies this information to career advice. Advice can include seeking additional training as well as directly applying for job openings.
In the workplace, the employment specialist can assess employee needs and ensure they are met. This work may include working with employers and employees to accommodate disabilities or other issues, such as needing to leave work early to deal with children dropping out of school. The goal is to help the employee fit into the workplace culture and feel comfortable there, while providing the employer with a reliable, likeable, and functional employee. Sometimes these measures are simple; for example, a wheelchair user may just need a new desk to work comfortably.
The qualifications needed to work as an employment specialist can vary. Some are trained and licensed social workers who focus on employment issues, while others hold these positions internally within a company. On-the-job training at an employment department can familiarize people with work so that they can provide services to a company’s employees and work successfully in recruiting and retention to attract and retain staff. Working as an employment specialist requires good communication skills, as well as the ability to comfortably interact with a wide variety of people.
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