If you are receiving an income support payment through Centrelink and have activity requirements, you will be required to register with an Employment Service Provider whose role it is to provide job search and employment-focused assistance to jobseekers.

There are two main types of providers:

• Job Services Australia (JSA)
• Disability Employment Services (DES).

Some providers offer both Job Services Australia and Disability Employment Services from the one office location.

When you register for income support with Centrelink, they will ask you a series of questions to assess your individual circumstances and the impact this might have on your ability to find employment.

This group of questions is called the Job Seeker Capacity Instrument (JSCI) and includes questions about your:

• education level;
• personal circumstances;
• work experience.

If this questionnaire identifies that you have barriers to work, you will be sent to a Job Capacity Assessor whose role it is to assess how your medical conditions or identified barriers to work affect your capacity to work.

These assessors will make recommendations as to which Employment Service Provider would suit you best and will refer you to one of these providers.

You have a right to take a couple of days after your Job Capacity Assessment to investigate providers in your area.

The Welfare Rights Centre (WRC) encourages you to do this.

Before you start looking for an Employment Service Provider that suits you, consider the following:

• Identify skills and areas of work that interest you so you can indicate from the start what your goals are. This helps your Employment Service Provider to tailor their services to helping you to achieve your employment goals.

• Identify individual needs you may have regarding appointment times and locations. For example early morning appointments may not be ideal due to medication issues, so be ready to check with potential providers to see if alternative arrangements are possible.

• Ask your friends if they’ve accessed a good provider. If they have, ask them what the provider did well. This will help you to work out what may be important to you. Be aware though that there are different Employment Service Areas, so depending on where you live you may not be able to go to the same service as your friends.

• Be realistic about your expectations. For example, selecting a provider on the basis of whether they will buy you a mobile phone is not going to guarantee you a better service.

• You can read our Fact Sheets about what to expect from the various employment programs and information on what they are able to provide you.
• If you had been with an Employment Service Provider in the previous 12 months, and you need to be linked up with a service again, you will be referred to that same provider. If you do not wish to be with the same provider you can discuss this with Centrelink.

Star Ratings

• You might notice that Employment Services Providers advertise the quality of their service through a system called “Star Ratings”.
• These star ratings are not always a good indicator of the kind of service employment services provide. For example they may not indicate how they treat and work with their clients.
• Use them as a guide only, and remember, a lower star rating does not always mean a lesser service.

Specialist providers

• There may be specialist providers in your area that have greater expertise/knowledge about working with particular groups such as youth at risk, ex-offenders, Indigenous Australians, the homeless, people with mental health issues and culturally and linguistically diverse people. You might like to locate one if you identify with any of these groups.

Employment Service Areas

• To assist governments to coordinate and organise employment, Australia has been divided into Employment Service Areas (ESA). You will be required to attend an employment service provider in the ESA where you live.

You may be able to access one outside your ESA if you can show that a particular service might be able to provide you with better services than you could get elsewhere.

Centrelink can give you a list of providers in your area to contact.

Search on http://jobsearch.gov.au for providers by the region that you live in. This will also give you information on specialist employment services.

Look in the Yellow Pages under Employment Services

• Some listings in this section are commercial recruitment companies so ignore any that reference recruitment

Contact a few Employment Service Providers in your area and ask if you can come in and meet with them.

Don’t be afraid of preparing and taking a list of questions with you to ask the provider as it can be easy to forget what you want to find out.

Sample questions could include:

• Have you been successful in finding work in hairdressing/an apprenticeship for someone like me? How did you do it?
• Do you have case managers that understand Auslan/my cultural background?
• What do you think you would do to help get me a job as a butcher/gardener/shop assistant?
• Which employers do you usually work with?
• Would it help if I had a qualification?
• How would you help me get a qualification?

• On this site:
  • Your rights and Employment Service Providers
• The following act Sheets are available here:
  • Choosing an Employment Service Provider
  • Employment Service Providers - your rights