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Recruiting Young Professionals
Strategies for Developing a Young, Competent Workforce
By Gina Suslick, NAADAC Government Relations Intern

As a young professional who recently finished my coursework in addictions counseling and am now beginning a master’s program in social work, I can speak for some of the young professionals in the addictions field, and give my views of what could work for recruitment purposes. A few of these I take from the social work field. I do this for two reasons. One reason is that social work has a strong record of recruiting young professionals despite its relatively low average salary (even after obtaining a Master’s degree) and often stressful working conditions (a situation not unlike addictions counseling). The other reason is that social work is so connected to addiction treatment (and in fact, at some schools, you can concentrate on substance abuse and addiction as an area of expertise).

A good first step towards recruiting young professionals is to partner with local colleges or universities as an internship site for students in different human service fields. Internships are a valuable part of the scholastic experience and provide the kind of information that textbooks and lectures cannot. It is often beneficial for programs to become internship sites for students with focuses other than addiction treatment. This may seem counter-intuitive, but the reality is that addiction treatment is closely related to many social service fields. For example, a psychology intern or social work intern could easily do an internship at a treatment agency or facility and not only gain an interest in addictions, but also provide new insight to the hosting agency.

It is critical for a person debating what kind of career path they want to follow to gain an “inside look” at the profession. Without this, how will the student know what is “hype” and what is not? Internships will also give the student a taste of what kind of stressors they would have to deal with and the kind of work they have to do. It takes an investment of time and energy on the part of the program site to ensure that the interns have a substantive, positive experience (strong supervision is particularly important), but it will pay off many times over if you have a constant stream of energetic, enthusiastic interns (and potential future employees) rotating through your program.

Another approach to internships is recruiting and hiring people to work in your agency who have completed classroom hours but have not yet become certified or licensed. These opportunities provide a means to allow participants to finish their licensing or certification practicum while working for an agency. This allows young staff members who have the knowledge base to work in the profession, and they get to finish their certification without worrying about finances (a barrier to finishing school for many students). In order to increase retention, a condition of allowing this could be working for a set amount of time at your agency post-licensure.

A key to recruitment is participating in career fairs. Many students do not know about the existence of hiring opportunities at substance use treatment agencies in their area. Many universities and colleges have career fairs which are an opportunity for both employers and potential employees to meet each other, share information and ask questions. These career fairs are usually coordinated through a career services office but can also be department specific (for example, a social work-specific career fair). A quick call to your local college career center can inform you of what’s required to participate in an upcoming fair. It’s also often helpful to contact the career center because the career advisors there may not be informed about the professional (or internship) opportunities for their students in addictions.

A fourth suggestion for getting young people into the profession is by updating the way positions are advertised. Many students and recent graduates don’t look in the newspaper for jobs anymore. We are an online generation who would prefer to look at craigslist.org, careerbuilder.com, monster.com, naadac.org or the local newspaper Web site to hear about job openings. Don’t write off these options as recruiting tools! In some cases, online job postings are free, which can save an agency money compared to running a print ad. Internships can also generally be posted online for free on colleges’ career center websites.

I am not going to discuss the issue of low pay in this article. Nobody in human services fields goes into it for the money. While I agree that addictions counselors are paid a low salary compared to other jobs, their pay is not significantly lower than those in other human service fields in comparable positions. The pay rate should not be a deterrent for a recent college graduate, as any of these students who are interested in any human service work have to accept a relatively low salary as part of the field. Professionals holding entry-level masters degrees in Social Work in the Washington, D.C., area can expect to earn around $50,000 annually on average, which is not much when you compare how much graduate school can cost.

The next problem in recruiting young professionals stems from the “in recovery or not” issue that arises for all addiction professionals. That is, many college students who are interested in helping those with substance use disorders are not necessarily recovering themselves. This issue raises the question of how well a non-recovering professional can relate to the client. This is a logical issue but not necessarily one that should prevent someone from entering the profession. While it can be helpful to have the same experiences as your clients, you have to (again) compare it to other fields. A psychiatrist can treat those with schizophrenia, even though he or she has not had schizophrenia. A social worker can help abused women find needed resources, even though he or she has never been abused. It is the same with addiction. In some ways, the counselor not in recovery can avoid a common problem with the clients, which is allowing them to get caught up in the counselor’s history and recovery rather than their own.

People are naturally always curious to hear about and share experiences with others, which leads the recovering professional to run the risk of getting entangled in their own experience and not the client’s. That is not to say that one should merely be a textbook of resources and have no connection with the clients, but through working with clients one can learn about their experiences, recovering or not. Many students and even the hiring agency cannot see the positive side of not being in recovery, and this in turn limits the recruitment of young professionals.

Ultimately, the recruitment of young professionals is an attainable goal for the addiction profession. It requires a bit of legwork and creativity in its implementation but with some effort it can become a natural part of the hiring process. It can also lead to a group of well-educated, resourceful professionals who are up to date on current trends in the field and who can help update aspects of the organization. Addiction treatment agencies deserve —and can successfully recruit — a young, competent workforce.

Gina Suslick served as the NAADAC Government Relations intern in the summer of 2009. She is now enrolled in a Masters program in social work at Virginia Commonwealth University.

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