business development specialist

career advisor

case manager

business consultant

career coach

Equus-Workforce-Solutions

•	Conduct outreach and recruitment of youth customers. 
•	Develop and maintains contacts with community organizations and educational institutions for the purpose of outreach, recruitment and positive public relations. 
•	Present information regarding youth programs and services to community groups and organizations. 
•	Orientates customers to the services and eligibility requirements of the WIA program in both group settings and individually. 
•	Determines eligibility and assists youth with enrollment into program services 
•	Assist customers with their career planning and career decision-making process. 
•	Assess customer’s employment and training needs. 
•	Assist customers in identifying and addressing barriers to employment, and refers services within the one-stop system as appropriate, or to community resources as necessary. 
•	Provide case management services to youth working to obtain a GED 
•	May refer youth to other appropriate Youth Service Providers in the Region for additional assistance. 
•	Provide job development and appropriate job referrals to WIA youth customers 
•	Conduct follow-up services with customers regarding their job search. 
•	Assist in organizing job fairs and participates in job fairs, trade shows, and appropriate community events. 
•	Monitoring of youth services will include, but will not be limited to, eligibility determinations, documentation to support selective service registrations, citizenship, veteran’s status, household size, and other demographic required documentation. 
•	Monitoring of youth performance outcomes 
•	Knowledge of skills and aptitude tests, ability to interpret and analyze test results. 
•	Knowledge of and ability to provide training to clientele on resume preparation, proper interviewing skills/conduct, and networking skills. 
•	Effectively communicate with various community organizations, social service agencies, educational institutions, various employers, and the public, including being sensitive to professional ethics, gender, cultural diversities and disabilities. 
•	Provide a variety of services for clientele regarding education, employment, and life-support, including referrals, counseling sessions, and follow-up sessions. 
•	Testify in legal proceedings or court. 
•	Maintain frequent contact with County departments, other community organizations, social service agencies, educational institutions, various employers, and the public, for purposes of exchanging/information and rendering service and instruction.
•	Maintain Information Website for youth: http://www.clubemerge.org/default.aspx

The mission to assist employers and participants in connecting is great. However, funding is inadequate leading to inadequate staffing and unfulfilled promises. Mid level managers are consistently being tasked with details and minutia that really should be done by lower level staff specifically tasked with those duties. This is clearly a financial choice made by upper management and leads to their ineffectiveness in relaying valuable training and leadership to their own staff. Funding is not adequate for the desired results. I came on board in the early part of the year, primarily to address needs in some of the outlying counties that were previously being worked entirely by remote staff over 100 miles away. Evidently I have been effective as I wrote more contracts in the first month of the project year than were written in this area in previous 12 month project years. Now we are 2 months in to the project year and we are being told that our funds are so severely limited that we cannot fund any adult or Transitional Job contracts and the Dislocated Worker funds are also dwindling rapidly. Since I was last one hired, I'm sure I will be the first one cut when there are no more funds, so I feel there is no job security. Employers that we serve are also being impacted as we are not reimbursing them in an appropriate (and promised) amount of time with no explanation being given which prevents us from giving adequate and honest explanations to them. I am a veteran business operations manager that re-entered the job market with the specific goal of reducing my personal debt to fully retire in a year or two. My manager is fully aware and supportive of this goal. I include this for contextual purposes as I have managed projects and people in multiple industries for over 30 years and have that experience when reviewing Equus as an employer (and contract partner as well.) Equus, or it's parent company APM,  is trying to do too much with too little. As soon as I find other employment, I will be leaving.

Management is fickle. They say what they want, but then don't desire to give the resources. No Electronic Medication Record or Automated charging. And with Nursing billing this puts a stopper to progress.
    For DSP (Direct Service Provider) is tough but satisfying. The Intellectually and Mentally Handicapable client are truly a wonderful and underserved population.  Many biases in Healthare as well as in general. You could make a difference!!
      The pay is low. The benefits are low to moderate. 
No clinical step ladder for advancement. (Rely on being liked and if you follow blindly then have chance).
        The employees are really really dedicated.  The DSP however have not gotten cost of living raise for going on 5 years. Same with RN and LPN! The nurses are not supported. Money drives this company. Ran by non healthcare managers. (Who got a good raise last year). I was part of upper management. Not fair so I tried to get the DSP and RN/LPN raises, failed. Tried to get Electronic Medication Record and failed. No future actually with company. Shame but true. 
       I do hope more dedicated people come work. The ID and MH clients enrich your lives. Bring ideas. The best come from where the rubber meets the road. The CAREGIVERS.  If you are near the location then not a bad job. But if travel more then 15 miles I would pass. You then work for gas, which may be an hours salary.
        Also be vigilant about benefits. Follow up. Do not let them give lame reasons you need to wait. Keep all correspondance. Get in writing the offer and conditions. The HR dept at Corporate is well...lacking.   And why have Information Technology when the corporation resists the Patient Portability Act, does everything on bark with charcoal..oops pen and paper!

Disappointed and feel like I was duped. 
Interview process for case manager position was a group interview, followed by individual. Felt like they really valued my experience and I was glad to hear it. They had a great attitude about positive, enthusiastic corporate culture and I really liked the people at the company. They hire/enroll you through a temp agency, which I wasn't pleased about. No definite probationary time to hire permanently. Experienced workers in my office waited weeks or months to be hired permanently. One woman was finally made permanent after a year.

Local offices offered mixed signals about true corporate behavior versus mission statement. Case work really meant  data entry and 'paperwork' and this is not what they initially promote. They talk about meeting and doing more for the clients, but case managers spend more time daily entering data  in the system than actually with clients. 

Management and supervisors were generally positive and supportive. Often quick turnovers in case manager job. They do like to promote from within, however, some people were promoted after only 6 months in the job. Because of that, it seems they were always short staffed for case managers.

Didn't even finish training as i was let go because of 'budget' constraints with only one week to go. Heard from coworkers that this happens almost every year. They encouraged me to call if I still want to work for them AFTER their new budget year starts in two months, but how do you trust the stability and security of a company that operates that way? Not sure I could go through that process again.

What started as really promising, turned out to be disappointing and left a bad taste in my mouth for this company.

I enjoyed working with the clients but what I did not like was the co-workers that I had. They were lazy, inept, enjoyed getting by just doing below the minimum of what their job entailed, rarely if ever put themselves out or go above and beyond to help a client solve a problem; they lacked the ability to treat clients as humans, instead they saw them as numbers in the form of quotas, bonuses and retention statistics. The "human" part of "human services".

Management entailed a bunch of people with Masters and PhD degrees and were useless to who were to be their sub-ordinates. They were just walking titles who were clueless as to what each member of the team did. They just liked walking around and giving orders like all tyrants do and they did NOT know what they were talking about or doing. Upper management would have been better off promoting from w/in rather than going out and wasting valuable resource that could have been distributed among those over worked, under paid, under appreciated, over stressed staff members that had gone years w/o so much as a raise or reward incentive. Instead thousands were wasted on finding another anchor to hang and add to the already burdened to contend with. 

It was very, very, very hard to get out of bed and walk in those doors everyday knowing what you were in for. Like I said, I enjoyed the clients and a select few co-workers. The best feeling came when a previous client returns and tells you they are no longer in the program and have gone on to bigger and better things--- great paying job, schooling--- and are great.

Rescare took over the small market I worked in because they had the three largest markets surrounding us already. But they could not find anyone in-house who wanted to be the program director for our market, so they hired an inexperienced contractor. The contractor had 30+ years experience in WIOA, but that was all. 

Right away the new PD set out to do their own thing without listening to the existing managers, in fact the PD forced one of the most experienced managers out, because that person represented a perceived threat to the authority. This set morale down further. The PD was so focused on being the new boss that they lost track of existing deadlines that they were initially warned about maintaining. This created an environment where the PD used personnel poorly to try and fix leaks in the system, in the mean time the personnel were not meeting numbers because they were being used in roles they were not supposed to do. 

A catastrophic crash in all numbers made the state have to initiate an audit. The PD blames everyone else for the problem, without taking responsibility for the fact they tried to fix state defined metrics that were being met well over the benchmarks when they started. It was not broken but the new PD wanted to fix it to show how good they were. 

As of this writing, the state commission has decided that Rescare needs to leave this market. They will probably take their screw up program director because the company philosophy is to protect management at all cost, over employees.

As a workshop facilitator, no day is ever the same yet there is always some consistency. The collaboration and teamwork-focused environment in the job search department is amazing. While the statewide staff are friendly and helpful, the forced participation of career seekers to qualify for their TANF benefits can be difficult at times. Trying to help individuals live their best lives while they drag their feet as opposed to embracing the opportunity can be difficult to digest some days. While the program is called Employment First… most days it seems like enabling first is a more accurate title for how the organization operates. Many career seekers implement minimal effort to meet the requirements of the program to receive their ADC/TANF benefits. Some are even upset (abusive and belittling) when they are asked to participate in workshop and to turn in their resume for job search time. While some career seekers participate to the best of their ability and really take ownership over their plan and career search, the vast majority don’t and it can be soul crushing putting in way more effort than them after a few years. There is also a lack of deescalation and conflict training provided by leadership and staff often have to come up with their own solutions in addressing career seeker hostility. Raises are far and few and are only offered when the entire project (state) has high enough customer feedback surveys submitted. So, an employees pay raise (merit) is at the mercy of their colleagues as opposed to their work ethic and individual survey results. Advancement opportunities are rare and starting wages are non-negotiable. 

A typical day at work was always picking up after the staff themselves. I don’t believe we have learned anything from this company, they were never there to do any in person training at all. They have very very poor management. The HR and CDO tell you to come to them if we need to talk and they are never there. HR treats staff badly. We are always short staff on security. Management cases hostile environments for both students a staff. Supervisors will not help staff at all.   They do not take care of anything. Call-ins and no call no shows are so sad. Security is never there and management will not come in to help out with any staff shortages or even on center issues. The hardest part is being retaliated against when you ask for help knowing that they are not going to help. They ignore any issues that staff go to them with. Knowing that you always are coming into work and the same staff get away with calling in or no call no shows and still have a job. HR blames Equus that the staff get away with it and don’t even do anything about it. They do have their favorites. They don’t train staff for other departments and don’t give you the opportunity to transfer to other departments like they promise. The best thing about my job, are my students and the few staff that are responsible, honest and always reliable to help each other. Over all, if it wasn’t for the students this job is not worth it. It is mentally draining not good for a persons health. Not consistent with all policies. 

What is the best part of working at the company?
The best part of working here would be the participants but it is overshadowed by toxicity.

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
Complete lack of support or training, unqualified management, nepotism, lack of consistency in communication, expectations based on sales strategies rather than participant outcomes, massive turnover, inconsistent application of policy, adversarial leadership culture.

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
Adversarial leadership culture, toxic coworkers, performative displays given more consideration than actual results, quotas on "success stories" even though most participants don't want to be photographed and paraded around.  The performative culture and success story quota really show the lack of trauma informed care.

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
Love working with participants but dread any and all interaction with coworkers or the organization.  Coworkers are constantly adversarial and looking only to further their careers or egos.  No one seems to be looking at participant outcomes past q1.  When they do for program requirements (i.e. WIOA) they don't formulate action or change based on outcomes data just simply report it.  Most positions are grant funded so you are always worried about job security.  If you need to network with the State to help with getting employed there it will work for that.  Otherwise my advice would be to run far away from Equus.

I would not recommend this company to anybody. They are a numbers driven for-profit company and during my tenure here I have seen multiple changes in senior level leadership that do not benefit the overall culture of the current environment. Senior managers are promoted and accommodated when they fail to meet yearly goals while lower level management and staff are terminated without cause and not offered any type of support to address any identified concerns. While I am accustomed to change and can adapt accordingly, our project has had 6 local directors within the last 4 years and many others have left in the interim to include support staff. They are unable to maintain quality staff due to the hostile work environment in which they create. Directors treat staff like incompetent toddlers when giving directives, micromanagement is a way of life yet when guidance is requested, be prepared to have your emails ignored until the last minute and the issues identified becomes a glaring problem. There is no effort made to develop leaders and if you under perform you will be terminated. Senior management is aware of the high turn-over within the local project but fail to realize the root of the problem is ineffective and unrealistic expectations set by senior leaders. The pay and the benefits are nowhere near livable based on the local cost of living and they will constantly add to your duties and responsibilities in ways that do not align with the role you were hired for - all while keeping your salary the same. 

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Business development specialist 3 salaries reported	$21.33 per hour
Career advisor 66 salaries reported	$22.31 per hour
Case manager 39 salaries reported	$22.17 per hour
Business consultant 25 salaries reported	$22.13 per hour
Career coach 19 salaries reported	$20.70 per hour

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