Employment Specialist; Pierce

Are you driven to make a difference in the lives of others? Do you have a passion for helping people overcome challenges and unlock their potential? As an Employment Specialist, that's just what you'll do.

Career Path Services is looking for an Employment Specialist in Pierce County to join our team as an ambassador of hope. You’ll help clients feel comfortable and confident while delivering comprehensive coaching, employment training, job placement support, goal setting, and skill‑building to navigate the complex task of moving out of poverty. Successful Employment Specialists are dedicated to providing personalized support to people and businesses in need by helping adults overcome barriers, build job readiness skills, and secure employment that leads to long‑term career growth.

You’ll manage a caseload, deliver individualized coaching and training, and connect participants with employers and community resources to help them succeed in the workplace. This role is a great fit for someone who is empathetic, resourceful, and skilled at guiding people through challenges with patience and respect. Strong organization, communication, and problem‑solving abilities will help you thrive as you empower our clients to achieve their employment goals.

If this sounds like the right fit for you, join us as we break the spirit of poverty through the dignity of work!

This position will be full time and the work will be hybrid (remote and in‑person work) in Pierce County, WA. Duties include weekly, in‑person appointments around Lakewood and Puyallup and other locations in Pierce County, as needed.

Career Path Services values the power of experience and perspective, and endeavors to build upon this vital strength. We are passionate about building and sustaining a working environment of belonging for all of our staff and customers. We believe every member on our team enriches our culture by exposing us to a broad range of ways to understand and engage with the world, identify challenges, and to discover, design, and deliver solutions.

We are committed to attracting, recruiting, retaining and advancing an engaged team that is responsive to the needs of our diverse clients.

• Initial Engagement: Reach and invite customers to apply for services. Conduct employer and participant outreach and recruitment, orientation and eligibility determination, initial assessment, and service plan development. Participant and employer outreach involves regular in‑person meetings, primarily around Lakewood and Puyallup (and other locations in Pierce County, as needed).
• Service Components for Individualized Career and Training Services: Build a Customer Service Plan that prepares participants for unsubsidized employment at a family supporting wage. Responsible for supervising a caseload of participants by providing comprehensive caseload management, documenting services, and managing an individual practitioner budget. Provides the following services: comprehensive case management, job readiness training, job search assistance (career coaching, labor market information, skills assessments and workshops, resume and interviewing coaching), job retention services, English language acquisition, job skills training, and job placement.
• Program Completion and Transition Strategies: Ensure appropriate timelines and lengths of participation, help the participant achieve their customer service plan to allow for an orderly exit of participants from services, and manage caseload sizes. Tasks include job placement, transition and contingency planning.
• Data Entry: Conduct timely, accurate and complete data input for registrations and enrollments, status changes, exits/terminations and post exit MIS in the division’s operating system.
• Provide Comprehensive Services: Initial contact, interviewing, assessing customers to determine work readiness/employability, offering information about service/training options and community‑based resources, engaging seekers into appropriate pathway services suited to their individual needs and/or facilitating handoff to one‑on‑one services provided by program staff. Create goal setting specific to…