People work for many reasons. A job can provide income and financial security. It can be a place to use your talents, connect with others, build experience, gain independence, or achieve a dream. For people with disabilities, finding the right job can also mean navigating benefits, job accommodations, transportation, communication, and other practical considerations.
That is why person-centered employment services for people with disabilities shouldn't begin with assumptions about what someone can do or with a list of available jobs. They start with the person.
What matters to you? What are you good at? What do you want from work? And what would help you move forward?
At Employment Resources, Inc. (ERI), those questions help our employment and benefits specialists understand not only the job someone is looking for today, but where they may want that job to lead.
A Goal Worth Mapping Out
GiGi Bedner, one of ERI's Benefits Specialists, often hears from people who feel their employment choices have already been narrowed for them.
"Often folks with disabilities who are seeking employment feel like their only job options are in foodservice or maintenance," says GiGi, "...and then someone surprises you."
One person GiGi worked with had a very specific goal: opening his own food truck. He wasn't simply imagining something he might like to do someday. He had already won a local BBQ competition against restaurant-level competitors. He knew his product, had thought about what the business would require, and estimated he would need about $70,000 to get started.
"It's actually not a crazy pie in the sky dream," GiGi says. "It's a reachable goal."
The challenge is figuring out the path. He currently works for a delivery company and is trying to save money while also understanding how increased earnings, savings, and eventually self-employment could affect the benefits he relies on. GiGi is helping him work through those questions.
His story illustrates an important part of employment and benefits counseling: when someone knows what they want, the next step is not to judge whether the goal is ambitious. It is to understand what it will take to get there.
Start Somewhere, but Keep the Destination in Mind
Sometimes the job someone wants isn't the job they can step into immediately. That doesn't mean the goal needs to disappear.
Bethany Courtney, one of ERI's Employment Specialists, worked with a young man interested in a career in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). He pictured himself eventually leading a team and earning a strong salary. At the time, his resume included a grocery store job, and he did not yet have all the credentials or experience employers were looking for in the roles he wanted. Because he does not use speech to communicate, a traditional interview process also presented an accessibility barrier.
When they found a position that aligned with his interests, Bethany worked with the employer to make the interview process accessible. She obtained the interview questions in advance so he could type his responses. During the interview, she sat with him and read his answers to the hiring panel.
He wasn't selected for the position, but he reached the final round. That experience helped show what was possible. Today, he works for a manufacturing company in the STEM field he wanted to enter. It may not be his final career destination, but he is gaining real experience that can help him continue moving forward.
When Expectations Are the Barrier
Sometimes, assumptions about what a person with a disability can or cannot do create barriers of their own.
Employment Specialist Janna Levings is working with a young man who is blind and preparing to graduate. Music is an important part of his life. He wants to compose, produce, and share music, and he has already been building experience by volunteering at a nursing home, where he plays piano for residents.
At one meeting, someone suggested that the team should avoid aiming too high with his first job placement. Janna questioned why the team should lower its expectations before he had the opportunity to explore what he could do.
Good employment services help uncover those strengths and turn them into possibilities. As Janna puts it: "Finding what you love is fuel for grit."
Financial Security Is Part of the Employment Conversation
For many people with disabilities, deciding whether to work more, accept a promotion, change careers, or return to employment is not simply a career decision. It is also a financial one. Questions about Social Security benefits, Medicaid, Medicare, health care, and other supports can make a good employment opportunity feel risky.
Sarah Carlson understands that experience firsthand. Sarah spent years as a television news anchor in Madison before epilepsy changed her ability to continue working on air. Later, when a new medication brought her seizures under control, returning to broadcasting became possible again.
She had the experience. She had the skills. And an opportunity was there. But she also needed to understand what returning to full-time employment would mean for her Social Security benefits and Medicare coverage. ERI's benefits specialists helped her work through those questions so she could make an informed decision about returning to work.
Today she is back on air.
Benefits counseling isn't about telling someone how much they can work without losing something. It is about helping people understand their options so they can make decisions about work, earnings, health coverage, and financial security that suits their situation and goals.
What Makes a Good Job for You?
There isn't one answer. A good job depends on what matters to the person — their financial needs, strengths, interests, priorities, and goals. That's why ERI's employment specialists listen for more than a job title. We listen for:
- Financial priorities: what does the person need or want employment to make possible?
- Strengths and skills: what are they already good at, including strengths they may not recognize in themselves?
- Interests: what subjects, activities, industries, or problems hold their attention?
- Work preferences: what type of workplace, schedule, tasks, and environment fit them best?
- Connection: is meeting people, contributing to a team, or being more connected to the community important?
- Growth: is this job a destination, or one step toward greater responsibility, higher earnings, or a different career?
- Support and accessibility: what accommodations, technology, transportation, communication supports, or other resources could make the opportunity work?
- Benefits and financial security: how could earnings affect benefits and health care, and what work incentives or other options are available?
These details matter because a successful employment outcome isn't simply getting someone hired. It is helping a person pursue work that makes sense for their life.
Start with What Matters
Career paths don't always unfold exactly as expected. Goals and opportunities change, and people discover new strengths and interests along the way.
Person-centered employment services begin by listening: What does the person value? What skills do they want to use? What kind of life are they trying to build? What financial realities do they need to consider? What barriers can be addressed? Then, help identify the next step.
At ERI, that means starting with what matters to the person, understanding their goals, and building a practical path forward together.
Thinking about work or your next career step? ERI's employment and benefits specialists can help you explore what matters to you, understand how work may affect your benefits, and identify practical next steps.
Support ERI During NDEAM
Employment opportunities can change lives. ERI works throughout Wisconsin to help people with disabilities pursue employment, understand their benefits, and work toward greater financial security.
This National Disability Employment Awareness Month, help strengthen a Wisconsin workforce where people with disabilities have opportunities to work, grow, and succeed.
About ERI
Employment Resources, Inc. is a Wisconsin nonprofit that has provided services in disability employment, benefits counseling, workforce development and related areas since 1990.
Content Reviewed by:
Theresa Kulow, Deputy Director
Employment Resources, Inc. (ERI)
Updated October 2026
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