Education Requirements for the Human Services Manager
As with all leadership positions, the Human Services Manager needs a diverse skillset and broad knowledge base in order to reach their maximum effectiveness. Some of the skills that are extremely helpful for the Human Services Manager are: organization, attention to detail, communication skills, building rapport with workers and motivational skills.
Many of the aforementioned skills can be honed through an excellent educational background. It is also very important to have an advanced degree if you want to be competitive in acquiring a management position. You will first want to earn a Bachelor’s degree in a relevant discipline such as Sociology, Psychology, Human Services, Social Work or Counseling. Any of these degrees are helpful but a degree in Social Work or Human Services is most helpful, especially if you can find a Human Services Leadership program.
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While there are many Master’s degrees in Behavioral Sciences that can be useful in management some of them are more niche degrees such as Psychology, Counseling or Sociology, all of which can be helpful in organizations with a strong emphasis on either of those disciplines. We highly recommend that you consider earning your Master’s in either Social Work with a degree concentration in management or Human Services with a degree concentration in Human Services Leadership. Both will give you a broad base of knowledge that will be applicable in a variety of Human Services organizations and are highly sought after degrees by employers. If you stay in school to earn your Ph.D. you will gain access to the most potential careers and will be seen as a preferred candidate for most occupations.