Helping people find and keep work — assessing skills and barriers, connecting them to training or jobs, and coaching through the setbacks. Part career coach, part case manager.
Days run on one-on-one meetings, building plans, and connecting clients to training and employers. You carry a caseload, document outcomes, and chase placements, and much of the work is helping people believe a job is possible. Funders measure you by who lands work.
What's harder than it looks is the barriers outside your control — transportation, childcare, a job market that won't cooperate. Caseloads and reporting can be heavy, outcomes aren't guaranteed, and you're judged on placements you only partly influence. Settings span workforce centers and nonprofits.
Patient, resourceful, and energized by individual progress — that's the fit. If you need fast wins or hate paperwork, parts of it will frustrate. But if helping someone find footing — and a paycheck — after a rough stretch feels worthwhile, the work tends to give that back.
Your job belongs to your employer.
Your career belongs to you.
Where this role sits in the broader career landscape — and where it can take you.
Remember “your permanent record”?
This time it works for you.
Roles like this one sit within a broader occupational category. The numbers below reflect that full landscape — helpful for context, but your specific experience will depend on level, specialty, and where you work.
Roles with similar work and overlapping career paths
View all Social Services roles →Helping people find and keep work — assessing skills and barriers, connecting them to training or jobs, and coaching through the setbacks. Part career coach, part case manager.
Median pay for an Employment Case Manager is about $46K nationally, with the field ranging roughly from $34K to $77K depending on experience, employer, and metro (BLS).
Core skills for this role include Social Perceptiveness, Active Listening, Speaking, Service Orientation, and Monitoring.
Most people in this role hold a bachelor's degree.
Employment in this field is projected to grow about 1.4% through 2034, with roughly 88,930 people working in it today (BLS).
Closely related roles include Program Manager, Case Manager, and Case Services Manager.
Still figuring out what you want to become
when you grow up?