Human service specialists provide a variety of social services with an aim to improve the quality of life of those they serve. They can work for many organizations and under the direction of others and directly with the population being served. They work with social workers, psychologists, and other professionals.
Key duties and responsibilities that human service specialists fulfill in this capacity include interviewing clients to determine their eligibility for various social programs. They also help develop programs based on agency funding. Moreover, they gather more information on clients based on investigation of public records. Lastly, they advise or offer mental health counselling or assessment to determine eligibility on medical attention or medication. A high school diploma is the minimum education requirement for this profession; however, many have completed an associate's degree in human services or a specialty area such as gerontology or addiction studies. Essential skills required include patience, compassion, analytical, and planning.
The average hourly salary is $22.35, which amounts to $46,485 annually. In addition, the career is expected to grow in the near future which will result in more opportunities in this profession across the United States.
There is more than meets the eye when it comes to being a human service specialist. For example, did you know that they make an average of $22.35 an hour? That's $46,485 a year!
Between 2018 and 2028, the career is expected to grow 13% and produce 52,200 job opportunities across the U.S.
There are certain skills that many human service specialists have in order to accomplish their responsibilities. By taking a look through resumes, we were able to narrow down the most common skills for a person in this position. We discovered that a lot of resumes listed compassion, time-management skills and communication skills.
When it comes to the most important skills required to be a human service specialist, we found that a lot of resumes listed 15.3% of human service specialists included mental health, while 6.0% of resumes included program eligibility, and 5.7% of resumes included social workers. Hard skills like these are helpful to have when it comes to performing essential job responsibilities.
When it comes to searching for a job, many search for a key term or phrase. Instead, it might be more helpful to search by industry, as you might be missing jobs that you never thought about in industries that you didn't even think offered positions related to the human service specialist job title. But what industry to start with? Most human service specialists actually find jobs in the health care and non profits industries.
If you're interested in becoming a human service specialist, one of the first things to consider is how much education you need. We've determined that 44.7% of human service specialists have a bachelor's degree. In terms of higher education levels, we found that 28.9% of human service specialists have master's degrees. Even though most human service specialists have a college degree, it's possible to become one with only a high school degree or GED.
Choosing the right major is always an important step when researching how to become a human service specialist. When we researched the most common majors for a human service specialist, we found that they most commonly earn bachelor's degree degrees or master's degree degrees. Other degrees that we often see on human service specialist resumes include associate degree degrees or high school diploma degrees.
You may find that experience in other jobs will help you become a human service specialist. In fact, many human service specialist jobs require experience in a role such as customer service representative. Meanwhile, many human service specialists also have previous career experience in roles such as internship or case manager.