NJ Civil Service Navigator

Residential Living Specialist Family

Career series with 3 positions

Rather than one job, Residential Living Specialist is a rank used across 2 different specializations in New Jersey civil service (3 codes total).

Specializations include Mental Health, and Mental Health/Deaf Language: Specialist. Pay across the family spans $48,272 to $69,861, around the 8th percentile of all civil service job families by top pay. State payroll records show 258 people across the family's titles, most concentrated at Health and Senior Services.

Residential Living Specialist is closely related to Physician Specialist.

3
Positions
2
Specializations
Salary Range: $48,272 - $69,861/year

Specializations

Mental Health Mental Health/deaf Language: Specialist

Positions in This Family

What the Residential Living Specialist family covers

Residential Living Specialist works as an umbrella classification: 2 different specializations share the title across 3 codes. Every title in it is a state title, so the employer is a state department, commission or authority rather than a county or municipality.

Case-carrying titles are the largest civilian block in New Jersey government outside clerical work. They run through the Department of Children and Families, Human Services, county welfare and social services boards, and the guardianship and child support programs. The families are usually built as clean numbered ladders because caseload complexity is what separates one rung from the next, not a change of profession. A social work degree is common at the professional levels, though many of the specialist and technician titles admit experience instead.

The ladder, ordered by pay

Sorted by pay instead of by title number, the Residential Living Specialist family stacks up as follows.

The distance from the bottom of Residential Living Specialist (mental Health) to the top of Residential Living Specialist (mental Health/Deaf Language: Specialist) is $21,589, an increase of about 45% over the entry minimum.

What each title does

The specifications themselves are the clearest guide to what separates these titles. Here is how each one opens.

Getting in: the stated requirements

None of the specifications in this family names a degree requirement, which places these titles among the New Jersey positions open to applicants without formal higher education. Experience requirements sit at 2 years wherever they are stated.

On how the jobs are filled: 3 are competitive, filled from an eligible list after an open competitive or promotional examination.

Who actually employs these titles

258 people appear on the state payroll under 2 of these titles, at 1 agency. Health and Senior Services alone accounts for about 100% of them.

  • Health and Senior Services — 258 employees

Median actual pay varies across the family, from $67,499 for Residential Living Specialist (mental Health) up to $67,499 for Residential Living Specialist (mental Health/Deaf Language: Specialist). Those are medians of what people are really paid, not schedule minimums and maximums.

State payroll only, deduplicated by payroll title; local employers file separately, so a family with local codes looks smaller here than it is. How this is counted.

How the pay is set

Titles in this family are paid on the H salary schedule. See every step in that schedule. Bargaining is handled by AFSCME. Union contracts and rights are collected here.

Where these jobs exist

Hiring for this family runs through state service. Departments, commissions and boards fill these titles from eligible lists built by the Civil Service Commission, so the route in is an announcement and a filing deadline rather than a posting you apply to directly. What state jurisdiction means, and a breakdown of who employs what.

Related titles elsewhere in the plan

Nearby in the plan, ranked by how distinctive the shared terms are rather than by how many words happen to match.

Families next to this one

New Jersey's classification plan links families by shared terminology and by the routes people actually take between them. These sit closest to Residential Living Specialist.

Common questions about Residential Living Specialist jobs

How many separate Residential Living Specialist classifications does New Jersey have?

The Residential Living Specialist family holds 3 title codes. Each code is a separate classification with its own published specification, requirements and salary treatment.

How much is a Residential Living Specialist paid?

Published salary data for this family runs from $48,272 at the bottom of Residential Living Specialist (mental Health) to $69,861 at the top of Residential Living Specialist (mental Health/Deaf Language: Specialist). Those are schedule figures. Where the title appears on the state payroll, actual median pay is listed on the page above.

Is there a civil service test for Residential Living Specialist?

Yes for most of the family. 3 of the 3 titles are in the competitive division, which means appointment comes from an eligible list built by an open competitive or promotional examination.

What are the requirements to become a Residential Living Specialist?

No degree requirement is parsed from the specifications in this family, which puts these titles among the New Jersey civil service jobs reachable without formal higher education. Experience of 2 years is named where a requirement is stated.

Which agencies employ Residential Living Specialist staff?

State payroll records show 258 people in this family across 1 agency, with Health and Senior Services the largest at 258. Local government employers are not covered by that extract.