Example Career: Equal Opportunity Representatives and Officers

Career Description

Monitor and evaluate compliance with equal opportunity laws, guidelines, and policies to ensure that employment practices and contracting arrangements give equal opportunity without regard to race, religion, color, national origin, sex, age, or disability.

What Job Titles Equal Opportunity Representatives and Officers Might Have

• Affirmative Action Officer (AA Officer)
• Civil Rights Investigator
• Equal Employment Opportunity Officer (EEO Officer)
• Field Representative

What Equal Opportunity Representatives and Officers Do

• Investigate employment practices or alleged violations of laws to document and correct discriminatory factors.
• Prepare reports related to investigations of equal opportunity complaints.
• Interview persons involved in equal opportunity complaints to verify case information.
• Study equal opportunity complaints to clarify issues.
• Interpret civil rights laws and equal opportunity regulations for individuals or employers.
• Meet with persons involved in equal opportunity complaints to arbitrate and settle disputes.
• Develop guidelines for nondiscriminatory employment practices.
• Monitor the implementation and impact of guidelines for nondiscriminatory employment practices.
• Coordinate, monitor, or revise complaint procedures to ensure timely processing and review of complaints.
• Provide information, technical assistance, or training to supervisors, managers, or employees on topics such as employee supervision, hiring, grievance procedures, or staff development.
• Conduct surveys and evaluate findings to determine if systematic discrimination exists.
• Prepare reports of selection, survey, or other statistics and recommendations for corrective action.
• Meet with job search committees or coordinators to explain the role of the equal opportunity coordinator, to provide resources for advertising, or to explain expectations for future contacts.
• Act as liaisons between minority placement agencies and employers or between job search committees and other equal opportunity administrators.
• Counsel newly hired members of minority or disadvantaged groups, informing them about details of civil rights laws.
• Review company contracts to determine actions required to meet governmental equal opportunity provisions.
• Verify that all job descriptions are submitted for review and approval and that descriptions meet regulatory standards.
• Consult with community representatives to develop technical assistance agreements in accordance with governmental regulations.

What Equal Opportunity Representatives and Officers Should Be Good At

• Written Comprehension - The ability to read and understand information and ideas presented in writing.
• Oral Comprehension - The ability to listen to and understand information and ideas presented through spoken words and sentences.
• Oral Expression - The ability to communicate information and ideas in speaking so others will understand.
• Written Expression - The ability to communicate information and ideas in writing so others will understand.
• Problem Sensitivity - The ability to tell when something is wrong or is likely to go wrong. It does not involve solving the problem, only recognizing there is a problem.
• Inductive Reasoning - The ability to combine pieces of information to form general rules or conclusions (includes finding a relationship among seemingly unrelated events).
• Deductive Reasoning - The ability to apply general rules to specific problems to produce answers that make sense.
• Speech Clarity - The ability to speak clearly so others can understand you.
• Information Ordering - The ability to arrange things or actions in a certain order or pattern according to a specific rule or set of rules (e.g., patterns of numbers, letters, words, pictures, mathematical operations).
• Near Vision - The ability to see details at close range (within a few feet of the observer).

What Equal Opportunity Representatives and Officers Need to Learn

• Law and Government - Knowledge of laws, legal codes, court procedures, precedents, government regulations, executive orders, agency rules, and the democratic political process.
• English Language - Knowledge of the structure and content of the English language including the meaning and spelling of words, rules of composition, and grammar.
• Personnel and Human Resources - Knowledge of principles and procedures for personnel recruitment, selection, training, compensation and benefits, labor relations and negotiation, and personnel information systems.
• Customer and Personal Service - Knowledge of principles and processes for providing customer and personal services. This includes customer needs assessment, meeting quality standards for services, and evaluation of customer satisfaction.
• Sociology and Anthropology - Knowledge of group behavior and dynamics, societal trends and influences, human migrations, ethnicity, cultures and their history and origins.
• Administration and Management - Knowledge of business and management principles involved in strategic planning, resource allocation, human resources modeling, leadership technique, production methods, and coordination of people and resources.
• Clerical - Knowledge of administrative and clerical procedures and systems such as word processing, managing files and records, stenography and transcription, designing forms, and other office procedures and terminology.