4 Steps to Health and Human Services Career Readiness

Whether you’re considering starting UMA’s Health and Human Services (HHS) program, or you’re halfway through and ready to prepare for your job search, this blog will provide helpful information about the career path and the steps to career readiness.

Ultimate Medical Academy (UMA) helps prepare HHS students for entry-level positions by providing core courses such as Public and Community Health, Social Welfare, and Legal and Ethical Issues in Human Services.

We also help with your post-graduation job search via our Career Readiness’ Career Success Course titled SS2000. This course consists of four basic steps, which can help you maximize your post-graduation job search. But first, it’s important to understand the job verticals you can work within when choosing a career in HHS.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that social and human service assistant roles—a category of job positions within the health and human services (HHS) field that include titles such as case work aide, social work assistant, and human service worker—are expected to grow 8% between 2023 and 2033.¹

The 3 HHS Career Verticals

Here are three basic career verticals that standout among the main areas from which UMA graduates can pursue within the health and human services field. They are:

1. Mental Health.

Health and human services workers in the mental health vertical may be tasked with connecting patients with the resources or care they need to manage their mental health conditions. You may work with people who struggle with addiction, are victims of abuse, or who have survived a major trauma, among others.

2. Elderly Care.

When you pursue this HHS career path, you may have some direct care duties, offering senior patients physical assistance with tasks they may have trouble performing on their own. Elderly care workers may also be responsible for connecting patients with resources that could contribute to their quality of life.

3. Youth Services.

These health and human services workers help youth overcome trauma or abuse while also providing support for any special needs or processing challenges. As with elder care, HHS professionals in this vertical might help advocate for this demographic as they may not yet be able to advocate for themselves.

Identifying the HHS vertical that most aligns with your interests and career goals can help you and your Career Services advisor prepare your next steps toward a job in this field. Another tool that will help get you career ready is our Career Success Course, SS2000.

UMA’s Career Success Course SS2000

Although UMA’s Health and Human Services Associate Degree online program enables students to earn their degree in 18 months,² the Career Readiness portion of your educational program starts 18 weeks prior to graduation. This course is designed to help prepare you for your post-education job search. It does this by providing services that can help you get more “career ready”.

Our goal at UMA is to help HHS students increase their readiness for their job search once they’re ready to pursue entry-level jobs in the field. We do this with our Career Success Course SS2000, which offers students greater career readiness in just four steps.

SS2000: 4 Steps to Career Readiness

During the Career Readiness portion of your health and human services education, students are guided to pursue an HHS job by completing these four steps:

Step 1: Resume Submission

This first step involves nothing more than submitting your resume sometime within the first two weeks of the SS2000 course. Your instructor will review your resume and provide feedback, offering you the opportunity to implement the recommended changes to make your resume more impactful, compelling, or easier to understand.

Step 2: Practice Interview

With your resume submitted, the next step is a practice interview. This takes place during the third week of your Career Success Course. During this one-hour session, an interview specialist will put you through a mock interview. This allows you to practice your answers to potential interview questions, so you feel ready for the real thing.

Step 3: Course Survey

The third step to UMA’s Career Readiness course is to complete your Course Survey. This survey is utilized by our career readiness professionals to better understand how we can assist you with your HHS job search.

Step 4: Fine-Tune Resume

The final step is working with your interview specialist to fine-tune your health and human services resume. Make your final tweaks to this document and it’s ready to be submitted once you find an open entry-level HHS position you’d be interested in pursuing.

To help make sure you don’t miss any of these important steps, UMA offers a Career Readiness Checklist. But our support doesn’t stop there.

From Career Readiness to Career Services

Once you’re ready to put your new resume and interview skills to use, UMA’s Career Services is there to help. Our more than 200 specialized advisors can further assist you as you prepare for your job search.

Need help personalizing your resume for a specific job opening? We have you covered. Maybe you aren’t even sure where to start looking for an open HHS position. We can assist with this too.

Perhaps your concerns are more related to the interview. You feel like you have a good grasp on how to answer prospective questions, but you aren’t sure what to wear. Our team can provide suggestions for proper interview attire, helping you impress your potential employer with your outfit choice.

Not only that, but we have longstanding relationships with hundreds of healthcare employer partners. These employers tell us what they’re looking for in job candidates and this enables us to connect them with UMA’s HHS grads who are best suited or most qualified for their specific openings.

To learn more about how our Career Services professionals can help you, call us today at 888-315-8211. We’d love to discuss the many ways in which we can help prepare you to pursue a career in health and human services.