As a school counselor, one resume challenge you might face is effectively showcasing your diverse skill set, including your counseling experience and program development abilities. Our comprehensive guide can help you articulate these skills clearly and concisely, ensuring your resume stands out to potential employers.
- Format your school counselor resume to ensure that it balances professionalism with creativity, and follows the best practices.
- Match the school counselor job requirements by including industry keywords on your resume.
- Use various resume sections to showcase your skills and achievements to answer why you're the best candidate for the school counselor role.
Take inspiration from leading school counselor resume examples to learn how to tailor your experience.
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Professional school counselor resume format advice
Achieving the most suitable resume format can at times seem like a daunting task at hand.
Which elements are most important to recruiters?
In which format should you submit your resume?
How should you list your experience?
Unless specified otherwise, here's how to achieve a professional look and feel for your resume.
- Present your experience following the reverse-chronological resume format . It showcases your most recent jobs first and can help recruiters attain a quick glance at how your career has progressed.
- The header is the must-have element for your resume. Apart from your contact details, you could also include your portfolio and a headline, that reflects on your current role or a distinguishable achievement.
- Select relevant information to the role, that should encompass no more than two pages of your resume.
- Download your resume in PDF to ensure that its formatting stays intact.
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PRO TIP
List all your relevant higher education degrees within your resume in reverse chronological order (starting with the latest). There are cases when your PhD in a particular field could help you stand apart from other candidates.
Essential sections that should make up your school counselor resume include:
- The header - with your contact details (e.g. email and telephone number), link to your portfolio, and headline
- The summary (or objective) - to spotlight the peaks of your professional career, so far
- The experience section - with up to six bullets per role to detail specific outcomes
- The skills list - to provide a healthy mix between your personal and professional talents
- The education and certification - showing your most relevant degrees and certificates to the school counselor role
What recruiters want to see on your resume:
- Master's degree in School Counseling or a closely related field
- State-issued credential for school counseling
- Demonstrated experience in developing and implementing comprehensive school counseling programs
- Strong interpersonal skills with a proven ability to engage and build rapport with students and faculty
- Knowledge and experience with career guidance and college preparation practices
Five dos for building your school counselor resume experience section
The best strategic approach to your school counselor resume experience section is to support your particular responsibilities with actions and achievements.
For example, you could list:
- Up to six responsibilities in your day-to-day work, supported by why they're important for your role, department, or organization;
- Experience items that have helped you sustain and enhance your technical knowledge within the field, or, perhaps, have helped you grow as a professional;
- Any metrics that pinpoint your success within your past roles;
- How you've solved specific problems in your day-to-day work;
- Strategies and solutions you've implemented for growth - and how that growth was measured.
The school counselor resume experience is your best shot at making a good first impression on recruiters. That's why we've included some real-world professional examples to get you thinking about how you present your experience:
- Implemented a comprehensive school counseling program that improved college acceptance rates by 20% over three years through targeted career and academic advising.
- Facilitated conflict resolution and peer mediation training for a student body of over 1,200, significantly reducing behavioral incidents by 30%.
- Developed and led workshops for parents and caregivers on adolescent development, fostering community engagement and strengthening support systems for students.
- Created and launched a digital counseling portal for students which improved access to mental health resources and saw a user registration increase by 150% within the first year.
- Coordinated a school-wide career week, bringing in over 50 industry professionals to speak to students, subsequently assisting in the formation of 100 student-mentor relationships.
- Applied data analytics to track and improve student academic performance which contributed to a 10% boost in the school's overall standardized test scores.
- Championed a peer-led wellness program that resulted in a 25% increase in student-reported well-being and better stress management.
- Collaborated with local businesses to create internship opportunities, enabling over 200 students to gain practical work experience.
- Organized college preparation seminars attended by 90% of the senior class, leading to improved college readiness as evidenced by a reduction in remedial course enrollment.
- Pioneered a targeted intervention program for at-risk youth, reducing school dropout rates by 15% within two school years.
- Instrumental in securing a $100,000 grant for the school's counseling department to enhance student academic and emotional support services.
- Partnered with national organizations to bring anti-bullying campaigns to campus, resulting in a 40% decline in reported bullying cases.
- Launched a bilingual counseling initiative to better serve the school's diverse population, leading to a marked increase in engagement from non-native English speaking families.
- Guided students through scholarship and financial aid application processes, contributing to a $500,000 increase in awarded student aid over three years.
- Cultivated a mindfulness program that became integrated into the school's curriculum, promoting better concentration and emotional regulation among students.
- Established a comprehensive anti-drug program which became a model for neighboring school districts, highlighting the importance of early intervention in substance abuse.
- Spearheaded the adoption of a 'Whole Child Approach' to counseling, integrating socio-emotional learning into the academic curriculum.
- Advocated for special needs students by developing individual education plans that increased college admission among this group by 20%.
- Led a team of counselors in a district-wide mental health awareness campaign, reaching over 10,000 students and reducing stigma around seeking help.
- Facilitated the integration of art therapy into the counseling program, which provided an alternative avenue for student expression and was met with overwhelmingly positive feedback.
- Negotiated with external agencies to deliver personal development workshops that equipped students with life skills essential for post-secondary success.
- Developed a student ambassador program which empowered students to take on leadership roles in peer counseling, thereby fostering a supportive school culture.
- Managed crisis intervention strategies following critical incidents, ensuring the provision of timely support and counseling services to affected students and staff.
- Orchestrated a partnership with technology companies to provide state-of-the-art learning tools, raising the profile of STEM education within the counseling curriculum.
Quantifying impact on your resume
- Include the number of students counseled per year to showcase the scope of your impact.
- List the percentage of students who improved academically after your intervention to demonstrate effectiveness.
- Mention the number of college admission workshops conducted to highlight program implementation skills.
- Quantify the decrease in behavioral incidents following your counseling programs to show improvement in student behavior.
- Specify the number of training sessions led for staff and teachers to emphasize leadership and collaboration.
- Document the percentage increase in graduation rates during your tenure to signal your contribution to student success.
- Detail the amount of grant money secured for counseling programs to underline your resourcefulness.
- Present the number of individualized education plans (IEPs) managed to convey expertise in special education needs.
Action verbs for your school counselor resume
Lacking relevant school counselor resume experience?
Learn how to write your school counselor resume experience in spite of having no real-world (or applicable) experience for the job.
You should:
- Feature relevant projects or publications that could impress recruiters or showcase that you have the basic skill set for the job
- Shift the focus towards your people (communication, organization, etc.) skills to demonstrate that you're a quick learner and can easily adapt to a new environment
- Use the resume objective to not only highlight your accomplishments but also map out how your career plans are perfectly aligned with the company's vision
- Select either the functional-skill-based resume format (that puts the focus on your skills) or the hybrid one (balancing expertise with skills).
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PRO TIP
Bold the names of educational institutions and certifying bodies for emphasis.
Bringing your school counselor hard skills and soft skills to the forefront of recruiters' attention
Hard skills are used to define the technological (and software) capacities you have in the industry. Technical skills are easily defined via your certification and expertise.
Soft skills have more to do with your at-work personality and how you prosper within new environments. People skills can be obtained thanks to your whole life experience and are thus a bit more difficult to define.
Why do recruiters care about both types of skills?
Hard skills have more to do with job alignment and the time your new potential employers would have to invest in training you.
Soft skills hint at how well you'd adapt to your new environment, company culture, and task organization.
Fine-tune your resume to reflect on your skills capacities and talents:
- Avoid listing basic requirements (e.g. "Excel"), instead substitute with the specifics of the technology (e.g. "Excel Macros").
- Feature your workplace values and ethics as soft skills to hint at what matters most to you in a new environment.
- Build a separate skills section for your language capabilities, only if it makes sense to the role you're applying for.
- The best way to balance school counselor hard and soft skills is by building a strengths or achievements section, where you define your outcomes via both types of skills.
There are plenty of skills that could make the cut on your resume.
That's why we've compiled for you some of the most wanted skills by recruiters, so make sure to include the technologies and soft skills that make the most sense to you (and the company you're applying for):
Top skills for your school counselor resume:
Knowledge of counseling theories and techniques
Understanding of child and adolescent development
Crisis intervention skills
Knowledge of educational psychology
Familiarity with the legislation relevant to schools
Assessment and evaluation skills
Academic advising
Understanding of special education procedures
Career counseling
Knowledge of community resources and referral procedures
Empathy
Active listening
Communication skills
Problem-solving
Patience
Flexibility
Cultural competence
Ethical decision-making
Collaboration
Confidentiality
PRO TIP
If you failed to obtain one of the certificates, as listed in the requirements, but decide to include it on your resume, make sure to include a note somewhere that you have the "relevant training, but are planning to re-take the exams". Support this statement with the actual date you're planning to be re-examined. Always be honest on your resume.
Including your education and certification on your school counselor resume
The significance of your resume education section is paramount. It can show your diverse talents and experiences that are relevnt to the position.
- Incorporate educational qualifications, mentioning the institution and period.
- If you're on your academic journey, pinpoint your expected completion date.
- Opt for leaving out degrees that don't serve the job's purpose.
- Provide an overview of your educational experiences if it spotlights your milestones.
When recruiting for school counselor roles, candidates with relevant education and certification definitely stand out amongst competitors.
Showcase your academic background in the best way possible by:
- Listing all degrees and certifications that are part of the candidate qualifications in the school counselor advert
- Including any extra certificates, if they make sense to your application
- Not going over the top in details - the certificate name, institution, and dates are enough
- If you're in the process of obtaining a degree or certificate that's relevant to the job, include your expected graduation/certification dates
The education and certification sections help back up your application with years of experience in the industry or niche.
Select some of the most cutting-edge or applicable credentials for your next school counselor application from our list:
The top 5 certifications for your school counselor resume:
- National Certified Counselor (NCC) - National Board for Certified Counselors (NBCC)
- Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC) - Varies by state licensing boards
- Certified School Counselor - Varies by state Department of Education
- Master Certified Coach (MCC) - International Coach Federation (ICF)
- Board Certified Coach (BCC) - Center for Credentialing & Education (CCE)
PRO TIP
If you failed to obtain one of the certificates, as listed in the requirements, but decide to include it on your resume, make sure to include a note somewhere that you have the "relevant training, but are planning to re-take the exams". Support this statement with the actual date you're planning to be re-examined. Always be honest on your resume.
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Best practices to your school counselor resume summary or objective
To start, how do you know if you should include a resume summary or a resume objective ?
- Resume summaries are ideal for school counselor professionals with more experience, who'd like to give a quick glimpse of their biggest career achievements in the top one-third of their resumes.
- On the other hand, resume objectives serve as a road map for recruiters. Candidates use the objective to show how their experience aligns with the school counselor role they're applying for while showcasing the North Star of their career (or where they want to be as a professional in the next couple of years).
The resume summary or resume objective could be the perfect fit for your school counselor resume. The function of both is to highlight your professionalism succinctly. So, keep your writing specific: include no more than four sentences and target your application to the role. Here's how these specific resume sections help the school counselor candidates stand out.
Resume summaries for a school counselor job
- With a decade of experience in educational psychology, I bring a strong track record of developing comprehensive school counseling programs that have boosted student retention by 15%. Expert in individualized student support, conflict resolution, and career guidance ready to further enhance the holistic development of students.
- Dedicated professional with 8 years of experience in behavioral therapy, seeking to transition into school counseling. Successfully managed caseloads of up to 50 clients, showing a consistent ability to foster trust and build rapport with at-risk youth, which will be beneficial in promoting student success in an educational setting.
- Former Human Resources Specialist with over 7 years of experience in talent development and employee relations looking to pivot into school counseling. Exceptional interpersonal skills and a commitment to fostering a supportive environment that align with facilitating student growth and resilience in school settings.
- Energetic educator and aspiring school counselor with extensive knowledge in developing curriculum and student engagement strategies, leveraging 5 years of teaching experience. Seeking to apply a passion for youth mentorship and a master's degree in counseling to empower students academically and personally.
- Aiming to leverage a recent master's degree in school counseling from a top university and an internship at a large urban high school. Eager to apply learned theories of adolescent psychology and effective communication techniques to guide students in their educational and emotional journeys.
- Recent graduate passionate about beginning a career in school counseling, bringing an empathetic approach and fresh theoretical knowledge. Committed to using obtained counseling skills in practicum experiences to provide evidence-based support for students and contribute to a positive school climate.
Four more sections for your school counselor resume
Your school counselor resume can be supplemented with other sections to highlight both your personality and efforts in the industry. Use the ones you deem most relevant to your experience (and the role):
- Awards - to celebrate your success;
- Interests - to detail what you're passionate about outside of work (e.g. music, literature, etc.);
- Publications - to show your footprint in the wider community;
- Projects - to pinpoint noteworthy achievements, potentially even outside of work.
Key takeaways
We've reached the end of our school counselor resume guide and hope this information has been useful. As a summary of our key points:
- Always assess the job advert for relevant requirements and integrate those buzzwords across various sections of your school counselor resume by presenting tangible metrics of success;
- Quantify your hard skills in your certificates and skills section, while your soft skills in your resume achievements section;
- Ensure you've added additional relevant experience items, such as extracurricular activities and projects you've participated in or led;
- Use both your resume experience and summary to focus on what matters the most to the role: including your technical, character, and cultural fit for the company.
