What does an equal opportunity specialist do?
Equal opportunity specialists are responsible for ensuring compliance with policies, guidelines, and opportunity laws so that employment practices can provide equal opportunity without discriminating against national origin, race, religion, color, gender, disability, or age. Some duties and responsibilities include investigating employment practices and preparing reports related to investigations, monitoring the implementation of guidelines and their impact on nondiscriminatory employment practices, and acting as liaisons between employers and minority placement agencies or between equal opportunity administrators and job search committees. Skills required for this position include good analytical and problem-solving skills and excellent organizational skills with keen attention to detail to prepare and facilitate affirmative action plans.
Equal opportunity specialist responsibilities
Here are examples of responsibilities from real equal opportunity specialist resumes:
- Manage on site AAP & EEO reporting.
- Recruit, manage and motivate volunteers in public education, professional education, service and rehabilitation and tobacco control programs.
- Mediate cases for informal resolution, whenever possible.
- Create and run the EOL academy in Iraq.
- Investigate applicant's assertion of business ownership for adherence to 49 CFR
- Monitor ADR status, and report all complaint/mediation activity within the AOR.
- Assist outside counsel with litigation matters, including NLRB complaints ALJ hearings.
- Investigate and respond to EEOC, OFCCP, DOL and state agency complaints.
- Mediate and resolve disputes involving faculty, staff, and students through formal mediations.
- Select to assist in the development of EOR training course, which become the model for DoD.
- Interview members of the public who contact HUD because they believe they have been discriminate against in the housing area.
- Conduct quality reviews of internal EEO discriminatory complaints, provide EEO/AA training and assistance to both Westinghouse and Boeing management.
- Provide assistance to those filing charges in understanding the laws HUD enforces and their rights in filing a charge of discrimination.
- Investigate allegations of workplace discrimination on EEO/AA matters.
- Recruit minority applicants for employment in key professional/management positions.
Equal opportunity specialist skills and personality traits
We calculated that 14% of Equal Opportunity Specialists are proficient in Compliance Reviews, Complaint Investigations, and Rehabilitation. They’re also known for soft skills such as Analytical skills, Communication skills, and Creativity.
We break down the percentage of Equal Opportunity Specialists that have these skills listed on their resume here:
- Compliance Reviews, 14%
Conducted compliance reviews of service providers under Hill-Burton, Age, Sex and Nationality allegations of discriminatory practices in service delivery.
- Complaint Investigations, 10%
Work closely with Office of Complaint Investigation (OCI), attorneys and other authorities outside the command and agency.
- Rehabilitation, 9%
Observe individuals' behavior and specific responses to treatment and rehabilitation programs, support services and medication and reports observations.
- Discrimination Complaints, 9%
Processed discrimination complaints and monitored on- and off-base discrimination incidents involving military personnel and their family members.
- Investigative Reports, 7%
Conducted independent investigations of complaint allegations, developed and utilized investigative plans, prepared investigative reports, and developed enforcement recommendations.
- Title VI, 5%
Investigated alleged violations of Title VII, labor, wage and hour laws and company policy.
Common skills that an equal opportunity specialist uses to do their job include "compliance reviews," "complaint investigations," and "rehabilitation." You can find details on the most important equal opportunity specialist responsibilities below.
Analytical skills. The most essential soft skill for an equal opportunity specialist to carry out their responsibilities is analytical skills. This skill is important for the role because "training and development specialists must evaluate training programs, methods, and materials and choose those that best fit each situation." Additionally, an equal opportunity specialist resume shows how their duties depend on analytical skills: "conducted interviews; gathered, compiled and analyzed data collected; prepared investigative reports and made recommendations for administrative review. "
Communication skills. Another essential skill to perform equal opportunity specialist duties is communication skills. Equal opportunity specialists responsibilities require that "training and development specialists must convey information clearly and facilitate learning to diverse audiences." Equal opportunity specialists also use communication skills in their role according to a real resume snippet: "identified best lep practices in support of ocr's national effective communication in hospital initiative. "
Creativity. Another skill that relates to the job responsibilities of equal opportunity specialists is creativity. This skill is critical to many everyday equal opportunity specialist duties, as "specialists should be resourceful when developing training materials." This example from a resume shows how this skill is used: "trained employees in all areas of inventory computer systems and electronics. "
Instructional skills. A big part of what equal opportunity specialists do relies on "instructional skills." You can see how essential it is to equal opportunity specialist responsibilities because "training and development specialists deliver employee training programs." Here's an example of how this skill is used from a resume that represents typical equal opportunity specialist tasks: "use learning management system to deliver curriculum and instructional activities. "
The three companies that hire the most equal opportunity specialists are:
- First Federal Savings & Loan8 equal opportunity specialists jobs
- Twilio7 equal opportunity specialists jobs
- Zendesk7 equal opportunity specialists jobs
Choose from 10+ customizable equal opportunity specialist resume templates
Build a professional equal opportunity specialist resume in minutes. Our AI resume writing assistant will guide you through every step of the process, and you can choose from 10+ resume templates to create your equal opportunity specialist resume.
Compare different equal opportunity specialists
Equal opportunity specialist vs. Complaint investigations officer
Essentially a fighter for humanity, a human rights investigator carries out investigations into human rights matters. They collect, analyze, and document information relating to human rights matters, and they propose methods for investigations. Depending on where a human rights investigator works, they may also have to investigate employment practices to document and correct discriminatory factors. For all intents and purposes, this position functions as the voice for the voiceless.
These skill sets are where the common ground ends though. The responsibilities of an equal opportunity specialist are more likely to require skills like "compliance reviews," "complaint investigations," "rehabilitation," and "discrimination complaints." On the other hand, a job as a complaint investigations officer requires skills like "fda," "customer complaints," "investigation process," and "iso." As you can see, what employees do in each career varies considerably.
The education levels that complaint investigations officers earn slightly differ from equal opportunity specialists. In particular, complaint investigations officers are 6.1% less likely to graduate with a Master's Degree than an equal opportunity specialist. Additionally, they're 2.9% less likely to earn a Doctoral Degree.Equal opportunity specialist vs. Human rights investigator
Specialists are employees who are responsible for specific tasks or activities in the department they are assigned to. The actions or tasks they work on are related to their educational background or work experiences. They are usually highly skilled in specializations related to the work they are assigned to. Specialists are also highly trained on the competencies that are required of their specialty. As such, they are focused on the skills and competencies that are needed to enhance their experience in their specific field further.
Each career also uses different skills, according to real equal opportunity specialist resumes. While equal opportunity specialist responsibilities can utilize skills like "compliance reviews," "complaint investigations," "rehabilitation," and "title vi," human rights investigators use skills like "law enforcement," "investigation findings," "conduct interviews," and "administrative hearings."
Average education levels between the two professions vary. Human rights investigators tend to reach similar levels of education than equal opportunity specialists. In fact, they're 3.4% more likely to graduate with a Master's Degree and 2.9% more likely to earn a Doctoral Degree.Equal opportunity specialist vs. Civil rights representative
The required skills of the two careers differ considerably. For example, equal opportunity specialists are more likely to have skills like "compliance reviews," "complaint investigations," "rehabilitation," and "investigative reports." But a civil rights representative is more likely to have skills like "real estate," "civil rights," "autocad," and "salesforce."
Most civil rights representatives achieve a lower degree level compared to equal opportunity specialists. For example, they're 11.8% less likely to graduate with a Master's Degree, and 0.6% less likely to earn a Doctoral Degree.Equal opportunity specialist vs. Specialist
Even though a few skill sets overlap between equal opportunity specialists and specialists, there are some differences that are important to note. For one, an equal opportunity specialist might have more use for skills like "compliance reviews," "complaint investigations," "rehabilitation," and "discrimination complaints." Meanwhile, some responsibilities of specialists require skills like "patients," "customer service," "work ethic," and "patient care. "
The average resume of specialists showed that they earn lower levels of education compared to equal opportunity specialists. So much so that theyacirc;euro;trade;re 10.9% less likely to earn a Master's Degree and less likely to earn a Doctoral Degree by 6.4%.Types of equal opportunity specialist
Updated January 8, 2025
