Employment & Career Pathways Guide, U.S, Enterprise

Reporting Line: Workforce Placement, Retention & Growth Manager

Supervises: None

Status: Full time, grant funded; continuation depends on funding. 40 hours a week. Weekday daytime hours, with evenings and weekends as needed

Location: Minneapolis Hub; On-site, non-remote position (expected to work 80% -100% in office, at community sites, or with employers)

Travel expectations: Frequent local travel to employer, training and community sites across the Twin Cities metro.

About Alight

Alight is a proximity-driven humanitarian organization that restores power and agency to people experiencing displacement. For nearly 50 years, we've walked alongside our customers, displaced communities, in some of the most challenging and complex places in the world. We center the choices, dignity and lived experience of the people we serve, even when it complicates the work.

Alight's purpose is to inspire and unleash abundance in every person. Our mission is to build a meaningful life for and with the displaced: not just meeting basic needs, but building lives filled with joy, dignity and connection. We co-create solutions hand in hand with the communities we serve, because they know best what they need.

About the U.S. Enterprise team

Alight U.S. connects New Americans in the Twin Cities to the networks, resources and knowledge they need to navigate employment, education and other U.S. systems. We serve all New Americans: anyone born outside the United States, and their children.

The Role

The Employment & Career Pathways Guide walks New American job seekers through one journey:complete a training that fits their goals, get a job, and keep it for at least 90 days.

The training can be short, like completing one digital literacy assessment and earning a certificate. It can be more involved, like earning a PCA certificate. Or it can be a new training Alight adds later. Guides carry a caseload of job seekers from their first meeting, through training and placement, to at least 90 days on the job.

Guides work with every New American job seeker who comes to Alight. They know which programs a person qualifies for, what enrollment paperwork to complete, and where to record case notes so each funder sees the person's progress.A guide never turns a job seeker away because they're unsure which program fits.They enroll the person and if they are not sure what the job seeker qualifies for they work with the Workforce Placement, Retention, & Growth Manager or another person on the Alight team to properly assess eligibility and then enroll them.

Guides are part of a five-person employment team led by the Workforce Placement & Retention Manager. Each guide has monthly goals for placements, follow-up and accurate records, and the team reviews progress together every week.

Key Responsibilities

1. Enrollment and assessment (10%)

• Meet new job seekers and screen them for every program they qualify for.
• Complete the matching enrollment paperwork accurately, the first time, and enroll each person in every program that fits.
• Know where each funder needs case notes for that person, and set up their records in the right systems from day one.
• Assess each person's skills, work history, goals and barriers.

2. Employment planning and job readiness (20%)

• Build an individual employment plan with each participant, and update it as things change.
• Coach on resumes, applications, online hiring systems, interviews and U.S. workplace expectations.
• Connect every job seeker to a training that fits their interest, from a single digital literacy assessment and certificate to a PCA certificate or a new training Alight adds. Stay in touch during training so they move straight into job search when they finish.
• Arrange support services that remove barriers to work, such as transportation, licenses and IDs, credential evaluation and work supplies, following grant and agency rules.

3. Job search and placement (35%)

• Match participants to real openings that fit their skills, schedule, transportation and childcare.
• Build working relationships with hiring managers and recruiters, and keep the team's list of openings current.
• Help participants apply, prepare for interviews, accept offers and complete onboarding (for example tax forms, direct deposit and training portals).
• Help run group job readiness and application events and hiring events, including recruiting candidates and following up afterward.
• Confirm and document each placement, including employer, start date, wage and hours.

4. Keeping the job: the first 90 days (15%)

• Stay in contact with each newly placed participant at least monthly through day 90, and more often in the first weeks.
• With the participant's permission, check in with the supervisor, and help solve problems early: attendance, schedules, communication, transportation, childcare or cultural misunderstandings.
• Document retention at 90 days, and help with a job upgrade or re-placement if a job ends.

5. Case management records (15%)

• Record all contacts, services, placements and follow-ups accurately and on time in each required system:
  • WorkForce Onefor DEED participants
  • MRISfor ORR-eligible participants
  • Alight's internal databasefor everyone
• Write case notes at least monthly for each active participant, or more often where a grant requires it.
• Keep case files complete and ready for internal and funder monitoring. Fix gaps flagged by the manager or the Data Management & Quality Coordinator promptly.

6. Team and collaboration (5%)

• Take part in weekly pipeline reviews and case reviews. Share caseload status honestly so the team can help.
• Share what you're learning about barriers to getting and keeping jobs. It helps Alight design better tools for job seekers.
• Work with colleagues and partner organizations on referrals, and follow confidentiality practices and required trainings.

What success looks like

• Your caseload is active: every participant has a current plan, a training that fits, and a next step.
• Every job seeker you meet is enrolled in the right programs, with nobody turned away.
• You meet your monthly placement and follow-up goals.
• Peopleyou place are still working at day 90.
• Your records in every system match what is actually happening.

Qualifications

Education & Experience

• 2+ years of experience in employment services, job placement, vocational counseling, case management or a similar role. Lived experience and community knowledge also count.
• Experience helping people find work, and comfort talking with employers.

Knowledge, Skills, Abilities

• Knowledge of the barriers refugees and immigrants face in the U.S. job market, and of community resources that help.
• Organized and accurate with data entry and documentation. Able to learn new systems (training in WorkForce One and MRIS is provided).
• Strong coaching, communication and problem-solving skills, and the ability to manage many priorities.

Other

• Driver’s license and Motor Vehicle Check clearance along with access to dependable transportation required.

• Applicants must be legally authorized to work in the United States
• Flexibility to work regular evenings and some weekends.
• Languages: English proficiency required. A second language spoken by New Americans in Minnesota (for example Somali, Oromo, Amharic, Arabic, Dari, Pashto, Spanish, Swahili or French) strongly preferred.

Values Alignment

You are curious and truly listen. You appreciate the complexities of human beings. You ask questions, seek information, and dig deeper into understanding a problem holistically before working to solve it. You enter a space with humility and an eagerness to learn.

You believe shared ownership creates better outcomes. You trust displaced customers to guide the way forward. You’re open to new and different possibilities, are motivated in what an abundant future could hold, and you generate ideas sparked from insight – and foster spaces that are safe for others to generate their ideas too. You bring others in, build ecosystems, and share power with those who care about this more than you do. You adapt your work to make space for others.

You embrace transformation. You recognize and honor that our work centers people – a constantly changing and complex customer within a constantly changing and complex world. And so too, we must constantly change. You believe in the abundance of human beings and you understand that to unleash that abundance, we must bravely enter a bold new chapter capable of transforming the future.

You value beauty. You believe a meaningful life includes joy, dignity, and connection. You place weight on the experience people have – of a place, a space, a person, a service. You strive to create things that are human-worthy and you believe quality should be determined by those experiencing it.

Benefits & Compensation

• Pay range is $26 - $31.05/hr, commensurate with experience.
• Benefits-eligible position
• Borderless Team of 2,500 staff worldwide that sees possibility, celebrates moments of abundance, shares new ideas, and strives to do a better thing every day.
• Learning & Development – Access hundreds of free online learning courses to take at your own pace and tailor to your professional goals.
• Flexible Leave Time – Between vacation days, personal leave days, and holidays, you have ample opportunities to take time off when you need it.

Alight is an Equal Opportunity Employer offering employment without regard to race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age, national origin, citizenship, physical or mental disability, or protected veteran status. Alight complies with all applicable laws governing nondiscrimination in employment.

We strive to represent the diverse communities we serve. Applicants who contribute to this diversity and those who bring lived experience with displacement are strongly encouraged to apply.