Job Description

About the Company

North Lawndale Employment Network is a comprehensive workforce development agency on Chicago’s West Side dedicated to advancing the economic outcomes of the community’s residents through innovative employment initiatives, including our social enterprises. In August 2021, North Lawndale Employment Network transitioned to a new campus, which features a premier community café for residents and stakeholders.

Our Mission

To improve the earning potential of the North Lawndale community through innovative employment initiatives that lead to economic advancement and an improved quality of life.

About the Role

We are seeking a Client Solutions Specialist to function as the central focus of case management services to NLEN clients; and provide eligibility determination through group orientation and assessment. This position assists NLEN clients with navigating program services, needs-related resource connection, and entry into unsubsidized employment. This position also provides career counseling, financial coaching, and job retention for a caseload of NLEN clients.

Responsibilities

• Screens participants for training to determine suitability for program and likelihood of successful placement.
• Maintains and develops case notes of all activities in the electronic system for all applicants in conjunction with client’s hard file as required documentation.
• Conducts individual counseling sessions.
• Prepares Individual Employment Plan (IEP) to discuss realistic short-and/or long-term goal(s) with clients.
• Implements client management systems, Salesforce, ECM, Career Connect & Illinois workNet to successfully route participants through various stages, resulting in the completion of IEP goals as applicable.
• Performs client follow-up on IEP no-show appointments.
• Ensure clients’ understanding of appropriate work and business behaviors.
• Ensure clients’ job readiness by reviewing/reinforcing job readiness criteria.
• Instrumental in helping clients to develop resumes and professional portfolios while partnering in conjunction with the Digital Equity Specialist.
• Identify and effectively resolve self-imposed barriers.

Mentoring

• Assist in removing technical barriers such as daycare, transportation, lack of uniforms or interviewing clothing.
• Assist in removing self-imposed barriers such as only wanting to work in a certain geographic location, and time frame.
• Assist in generating job leads and publishing the job order.
• Ensure clients are job ready by understanding appropriate business attire, behavior, and attitude.

Financial Coaching

• Develop plans of action and provide tools, resources, and accountability to the participant to help them meet their goals.
• Document results, conduct accurate measurements, and generate outcome reports.
• Utilizes client management system to successfully route participants through various stages, resulting in the completion of IEP and financial goals and as applicable.
• Update Individual Employment Plan (IEP) to discuss realistic short-and/or long-term goal(s) with participants.

Administrative

• Perform data entry utilizing Salesforce, ECM, Career Connect, Illinois workNet, and other custom databases.
• Conduct research and compile results as requested.
• Assists program staff with various projects including but not limited to outreach when needed.
• Prepare for job fairs, exhibits, and presentation materials/plans.
• Maintains baseline knowledge of relevant program and service/training-related terminology.
• Track and manage correspondence and documents for contracts and provider placements.
• Other duties as assigned.

Social Media

• Provide monthly information to a department head for submission to Director of Development for use on social media.

Qualifications

• Three years of experience in career coaching, case management, or related field is required.
• Bachelor’s degree in education, social work, counseling, or related human services field.
• Previous experience with CRM systems like Salesforce, ECM, Career Connect, and IL workNet is highly preferred.
• Strong knowledge of vocational training markets.
• Ability to establish a liaison and interact with private and public agencies.

Required Skills

• Neighborhood-focused employment initiatives are fundamental.
• Successful programs are neighborhood-focused and community-driven, so they meet the specific needs of individuals.
• Quality of work matters.
• People who work hard should not be poor.
• A full-time job must meet basic needs and offer conditions for engagement, advancement, and respect.
• Economic mobility is essential to reducing poverty.
• Family supporting wages and financial literacy are core to addressing economic insecurity, which disproportionally affects African American, Latino, and other families of color.
• Economic insecurity is not only impacting the poor; it has grown to threaten the middle class.
• Self-employment and entrepreneurship are critically important economic mobility strategies to generate income and boost household finances.
• We must address the racial wealth gap and social inequality.
• The United States’ history of racially charged public policy has created the modern racial wealth divide not just through the legacy of slavery and Jim Crow, but through the more recent race-based discrimination in hiring, housing subsidies, tax subsidies, and veteran benefits as well as other implicitly and explicitly racist public policies.
• Everyone deserves human dignity and empowerment.
• To uphold this belief, we do all of our work in a manner that values human dignity and eliminates shame, humiliation, and stigma by building on the strengths that help our participants and community survive loss and trauma and rebalance the power dynamic between participants and authority figures.

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