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Welfare reform has increased the importance of employment over simple eligibility determination. Research has focused on strategies for enhancing employment among welfare recipients, and this article adds to the literature by examining specifically the effects of using an assessment tool to assist case managers in targeting services to a heterogeneous client population. Analysis indicates that clients of case managers who used the screener, compared with a set of clients of case managers who did not use it, received more services and had higher program participation rates but experienced no improvement in short‐term employment outcomes. This suggests that the instrument as a tool in case management is effective at identifying client needs, which is the first step to achieving more favorable employment‐related outcomes in the long run.