What is a Facilitation Job?
A facilitation job will require you to take on the responsibility of facilitating a group. One of your main responsibilities as a facilitator will be designing a process and/or leading groups through a process to help them reach their collective goal. There are many goals a facilitator can help a group with. Here are just a few:
- Co-creating a vision and mission
- Designing a new service or product
- Brainstorming and prioritizing initiatives
- Resolving conflict and solving problems
- Gathering perspectives and finding common ground
- Learning topics or skills
A Comprehensive List of 30+ Facilitation Job Titles
Facilitation jobs exist in diverse industries. Here are the most popular facilitation job titles that are in high demand:
Human Resources / Organizational Development
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- Leadership Development Facilitators
- Organizational Development Specialist
- Organizational Transformation and Change Consultant
- Learning and Development Facilitator
- Professional Development Facilitator
- Change Management Consultant
- Government / Nonprofit
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- Community Engagement Specialist
- Strategic Engagement Coordinators
- Public Participation Specialist
- Partnership Development Manager
- Community Organizer
Mental and Public Health
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- Support Group Facilitator
- Recovery Group Facilitator
- Therapeutic Group Facilitator
- Expressive Arts Facilitator
Technology, Design, and Management
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- Agile Team Facilitator
- Agile Project Manager
- Design Thinking Facilitator
- Customer Development Facilitator
- Design Sprint Master
- Innovation Coach
- Strategy Facilitator
- Lean Facilitator
Education
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- Workshop Facilitator
- Facilitator / Trainer
- Webinar Facilitator
- Learning Facilitator
- Instructional Designer and Facilitator
Process Facilitation
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- Retreat Designer and Facilitator
- Conference Designer and Facilitator
- Focus Group Facilitator
- Strategic Planning Facilitator
- Meeting Facilitator
Conflict Resolution
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- Mediator
• Conflict Manager
• Restorative Justice Facilitator
- Mediator
Why do some of these job titles not include “facilitator”?
A fair amount of facilitation job titles do not include “facilitator” in the title even though a primary function of the job is facilitating. You will often have to read the job description to determine if it is really a facilitation job. This is because facilitation is not a mainstream concept yet (although we are working hard everyday to ensure it becomes one). Employers do not know to include facilitator in the title. You will have to read between the lines.
Why do Facilitation Jobs exist in diverse industries?
There is not one industry that is the “founder” of facilitation. There is not one industry that monopolizes this profession.
Facilitation has strong historical roots in political activism, community organizing, organizational development, and the public health field. It has even deeper roots as an indigenous and democratic practice.
The act of facilitating is multidisciplinary and cross-sectoral. Every industry has meetings. Every industry has to figure out how to coordinate groups more effectively. Facilitation took root in diverse industries over the past 3-4 decades and has matured into terminology, jargon, processes, and models that are industry specific. This is why there are literally thousands of facilitation approaches and models you can get training and certification in. A lot of those training and certifications prepare you for facilitation jobs in specific industries.
Many facilitators, including myself, argue that all of these facilitation approaches are saying the same thing. Or rather teaching similar skills and mindsets. They are teaching people how to design and lead a participatory process. Participatory design means the process is inclusive, collaborative, and engaging and generates dialogue, wisdom, creativity, trust, and respect among people with different perspectives.
What is fundamentally different within the plethora of facilitation approaches is the language they use. When I say language I mean terminology and jargon. This is important. To some extent, facilitators can work across many industries on diverse projects. That’s the beauty of specializing in general process facilitation, you can help most clients.
On the other hand, general process facilitators may struggle with facilitating meetings for an agile based organization that’s focused on their PI planning. You would have to train in agile facilitation to succeed in that context.
A general process facilitator may struggle with designing and implementing a community wide engagement plan that will inform the next Master Plan for a City government. You would have to train in community engagement to succeed in that context.
A general process facilitator may struggle with facilitating a journey map and HCD prototyping session for a client. You would have to train in design thinking or design sprint facilitation.
I could go on and on. Hopefully you are catching my drift here.
Finding what Facilitation Job is right for you
The journey that professional facilitators will often embark on is finding the context and industry that feels right for your skills, your heart, and your personality. We have a few resources to help you on the path…
Take our Facilitative Leadership quiz
Download our free “Become a Facilitative Leader” ebook
Search for Professional Facilitation trainings on our Calendar
Explore facilitation jobs on our free job platform
