Developing Employment Consultant Competencies:

Successful implementation of customized employment requires a high level of commitment and skill from the staff that provide employment supports on a day-to-day basis. The job title for these employees may vary and include employment consultant, employment specialist, and job developer or job placement specialist. Because many employment consultants enter their positions with limited training and experience, it is particularly important for organizations to approach orientation and training in a systematic way.
Organizations need to clearly identify and catalog the skills that each position requires. Then, they need to systematically plan for an array of intervention and assessment strategies to ensure that staff possess and use those skills. One model for systematic orientation and training has been implemented by Career Support Systems of Richmond, VA. Career Support Systems uses two structured checklists to manage both initial orientation and the acquisition of core job competencies. Instructions are provided as part of the checklist documents.
The Orientation Checklist is designed to ensure that each new employee is provided with a smooth, thorough and standardized entry and orientation to the organization, customers, and services.
The Employee Competency Checklist ensures that each new employee is fully supported to master the critical competencies required to succeed in the Employment Consultant position. This checklist documents acquisition of skills across several learning stages including:

•  Observing someone doing the competency
•  Completing training materials
•  Reading about it
•  Participating in hands-on instruction
•  Achieving comfort explaining the competency to another staff person
•  Achieving comfort doing the competency