Not every capable worker fits the shape of a standard job posting. For some people with disabilities — especially those with the most significant disabilities — the ordinary hiring gauntlet of résumés, applications, and competitive interviews screens out real ability before an employer ever sees it. Customized Employment is a different route entirely. Instead of squeezing a person into an existing job description, it negotiates a job that fits their specific strengths, interests, and needs. And it starts not with a want ad but with a process called Discovery — genuinely getting to know who the person is. This is a family's guide to what Customized Employment and Discovery are, how a customized job actually gets built, and how it's funded here in New York.
This is a plain-English map to help you ask the right questions — not advice for your family member's specific situation, and not a guarantee of what any agency will fund. Availability and provider capacity vary. Confirm the specifics with your ACCES-VR counselor or OPWDD care manager, and see the U.S. Department of Labor's Office of Disability Employment Policy (ODEP) for the national framework.
What Customized Employment Is
Customized Employment is a federally recognized approach — defined by the U.S. Department of Labor's Office of Disability Employment Policy (ODEP) and written into the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) — that individualizes the relationship between an employee and an employer so it meets the needs of both. Rather than competing for a job that already exists exactly as posted, the person (with a job developer's help) negotiates a role shaped around what they bring. It's built precisely for people the standard competitive process tends to fail, and — this part matters — it still aims at the real thing: an integrated, community job at competitive wages, not a segregated or make-work placement.
It Starts With Discovery, Not a Résumé
The front end of Customized Employment is Discovery, and it's a genuine departure from how hiring usually works. Instead of testing or interviewing the person, Discovery gets to know them in the settings of their everyday life — watching what they're good at, what draws their interest, and the conditions in which they do their best work. It's essentially answering three questions:
The output of Discovery isn't a score or a ranking; it's a profile of the person — the raw material for building a job that actually fits. That reframing is the whole point: the standard process asks “can this person do our job?” Discovery asks “what job would let this person shine, and who needs it done?”
How a Customized Job Gets Built
From the Discovery profile, a job developer works with employers to shape an actual role. That usually takes one of a few forms:
- Job carving. Take an existing position and “carve out” the tasks the person does well — and that an employer genuinely needs done — sometimes reassigning other duties elsewhere. The employer gets those tasks handled reliably; the person gets a role built from their strengths. Both sides come out ahead.
- Job negotiation or creation. Identify an unmet need in a workplace — work that's falling through the cracks — and propose a new role built around it that the person can fill. The job didn't exist as a posting; it's created because it solves a real problem.
- Self-employment or micro-enterprise. For some people, the best “job” is a small business built around their skills and interests, launched with planning and support. Customized Employment includes this path, not just working for someone else.
Whichever form it takes, the through-line is the same: the job is designed, through negotiation, to match the person — instead of the person being asked to contort to match a job.
How It's Funded in New York
Customized Employment isn't a separate benefit you go out and buy — it's a method that New York's employment services can deliver, and the two main doors are the ones families already know:
- ACCES-VR. New York's vocational rehabilitation agency can fund Customized Employment and Discovery services for eligible individuals. Our overview of how ACCES-VR works covers who qualifies and how to start.
- OPWDD. For people with developmental disabilities, OPWDD's employment services can take a Discovery-driven, customized approach — a more individualized gear within the programs described in our guide to OPWDD employment services.
- Employment First. Both fit New York's Employment First philosophy — that competitive, integrated employment should be the first option explored for working-age adults.
The practical move: ask your ACCES-VR counselor or OPWDD care manager specifically whether a provider in your area offers Customized Employment and Discovery. Not every provider does, and availability varies — so name it by name rather than assuming it's on the menu.
Customized Employment flips the usual hiring script: instead of fitting your family member into a posted job, it builds a job around who they are — starting with Discovery (getting to know them in real life) and ending in a negotiated, carved, or self-employed role at competitive wages. It's a federally recognized method (DOL/ODEP, WIOA) aimed at real community jobs, and in New York it's delivered through ACCES-VR and OPWDD under Employment First. Ask providers for it by name — availability varies.
How This Differs From the Standard Route
It's worth being clear how this fits with what you may have already read. Our OPWDD guide explains what the programs are — Pathway to Employment, Supported Employment, and how they compare to day programs. Customized Employment is a specific method a family can ask a provider to use within those services. If the standard supported-employment route — find a posted opening, apply, place — hasn't worked for your family member, Customized Employment and Discovery are the more individualized approach to ask for. Same goal of a real job; a more tailored way of getting there.
Where We Fit — and Where to Get Help
To be clear about the lanes: eligibility and funding for Customized Employment sit with ACCES-VR and OPWDD. What Innovative Placements of WNY does is the hands-on employment work — job placement, job coaching, résumé help, interview preparation, and accommodation planning — helping a person with a disability find and keep a real job in Western New York, at no cost to eligible job seekers. A strengths-first, get-to-know-the-person approach is simply how good job placement works, and we collaborate with ACCES-VR and other agencies across the region. For families still supporting the search, our guides on supporting an adult child's job search without taking over and transitioning from school to work are natural companions to this one.
Call us at (716) 566-0251 or email andreatodaro@ipswny.com to connect with our team. Visit innovativeplacementswny.com to learn more about our services.