Quality education entails a holistic approach to training minds and molding character in order to produce better citizens. This can be achieved with the help of competitive teachers and passionate school counselors. If you want to take part in making the world a better place, you can partner with institutions and other stakeholders.
You don’t have to be a teacher to foster change; you can explore a career in counseling. With the increasing demand for school counselors, which is about 35,000 openings each year, it provides more opportunities for professionals. However, this number also makes the job market more competitive. Hence, you need a well-written school counselor resume to have better chances of securing this post.
That being said, you need to make sure to revamp your job search documents. Don’t worry; we’ve got your back! If you’re not confident in writing a school counselor resume, we have prepared a resume sample for you and some surefire tips to ace your job search.
What is a School Counselor?
The effectiveness of the educational system lies in the good partnership of all stakeholders. This means providing education requires collaboration among teachers, administrators, counselors, guardians, and students. Therefore, the role of school counselors, often referred to as guidance counselors, is essential to the development and learning of students.
School counselors help students with their academic and personal lives. They make sure that students can keep up with their studies and are equipped for college and the real world. Aside from helping them with their coursework, counselors also help them process their emotions, deal with stress and other mental health issues, and decide on what path to take by listening and giving useful advice.
What are the Duties of a School Counselor?
Apart from the two main roles of school counselors—providing emotional support and academic help through school counseling—they’re also responsible for assisting students to prosper in their fields of interests. Here are some common tasks of a guidance counselor.
- Collaborate with teachers to come up with effective teaching strategies
- Research for new and better approaches in dealing with student’s usual problems
- Perform routine interviews to know how to help them better
- Assess the abilities of students and give recommendations when needed
- Provide opportunities for social and personal development by conducting relevant seminars
- Handle behavioral issues and help struggling and difficult students
- Assist students in achieving academic goals
- Give career and life advice to prepare students for what’s ahead
How Do You Become a School Counselor?
As stated above, school counselors require skills and expertise in dealing with people and helping them to be their best versions of themselves. Because of that, you need to prove you have what it takes through your credentials and qualifications. Here’s a quick rundown of some requirements to be a school counselor.
- Bachelor’s degree in psychology or related field
- Having a master’s degree is a plus
- Work experience as a counselor in the academe is an advantage
- Professional counseling certifications
- Understanding of different behavioral patterns and how to deal with them
- Excellent communication and leadership
- Analytical thinking with conflict-resolution skills
What to Include on Your School Counselor Resume
Now that you know the skills and qualifications of a school counselor and the roles necessary to be an effective one, it’s time to get your hands on revamping your school counselor resume. Your job search tool needs to be tailored to the job and should highlight why you’re the best fit for the post.
Contact Information
One of the first things a hiring manager will see is your contact information. Hence, make sure that you include your complete update info, such as your name, home address, phone number, and email address. You can also add the link to your LinkedIn profile, if you have one. Plus, placing your certification beside your name can help impress recruiters.
Expert Tip:
Double check your information before sending your school counselor resume to your target institutions. This section is vital so hiring managers can contact you in case they consider your application.
Specific Target Job
Others refer to this as the career tag. In this section, you state your target job to let employers know what position you’re applying for. It also prevents your application from getting mixed up with other posts.
Qualifications Profile / Summary of Qualifications
To grab the attention of recruiters, you need to pass the 6-second eye test. You can do this by writing a compelling resume summary. Put emphasis on what you can bring to the table as a guidance counselor.
Expert Tip:
Steer clear from the resume objective-type statement. Instead, write striking titles and headlines to catch the hiring manager’s interests.
School Counselor Skills
As mentioned earlier, school counselors need to be equipped and skilled at providing assistance to students and other stakeholders to ensure holistic learning. With that, it’s crucial to highlight why you’re capable of taking on the job. Moreover, it’s best to put emphasis on relevant skills on your school counselor resume, such as EQ, teamwork, perceptive intuition, and decision-making, among others.
Work Experience
To spice up your school counselor resume, add relevant work experience. Make sure you’re meticulous in writing this section because it’s one of the critical parts of your job search tool. List your work history—including the company names and their locations, job titles, and employment dates—in reverse chronological order
Cite your job descriptions, noteworthy contributions, and accomplishments using bullet points. Doing this makes it easier for recruiters to read through your career highlights.
If you’re a recent graduate, you can use a resume format that is appropriate for your career situation while expressing how qualified you are for the job.
Education
After your relevant work experience, include your educational background. This is an integral part of your resume because you’re vying for a position in the education sector. Name your school name and its location, your course title, and the dates of your graduation. If you have a remarkable GPA that’s above 3.5 and recognition you’ve received, you can also mention it.
Training, Certifications, and Licenses
Training programs, certifications, and licenses give an impression that you’re serious about excelling in your career path. That’s why including this section in your resume gives you a head start. State here all the training programs, workshops, and seminars you’ve attended, along with industry-related certifications and licenses you’ve obtained.
Other Possible Information to Include on Your School Counselor Resume
Your professional affiliations, relevant activities, technical skills, and projects handled can give your resume a plus point. Thus, add a section to highlight them and other info that might grab the attention of hiring managers.
How to Write Your School Counselor Resume
Writing an effective school counselor resume is easy if you know the details you need to include on your tool. Guess what? We want to make it easier by giving you surefire tips on writing a job-winning job search document.
1. Use simple yet appealing design and layout.
Apply a simple resume layout as it makes it readable. With that, avoid fancy font styles, unnecessary design, or borders. Instead, keep it professional-looking.
2. Choose the most appropriate resume format.
Use a resume format that best suits your career status. Don’t forget, your resume is your tool to market yourself to potential employers, so make sure to highlight your qualifications, relevant work experience, and expertise.
3. Showcase your school counselor skills.
Just like other jobs, this post requires a balance of hard and soft skills. Therefore, you need to effectively market why you’re the best candidate through your school counselor resume.
4. Add relevant keywords.
Aside from the skills, industry-related keywords help you beat the applicant tracking system (ATS). This is critical because your resume needs to get past the ATS before hiring managers can set eyes on your job search document.
Expert Tip:
Resume keywords are job-related words and phrases outlined in job postings. That in mind, your school counselor resume should match the job ad.
5. Use concrete data and examples.
Your accomplishments are nothing if you don’t have concrete data and examples to back them up. Thus, you have to quantify your achievements to showcase how qualified you are for the job.
6. Proofread your school counselor resume.
Before sending in your job application, be sure that it’s error-free. Check every detail to ensure that there are no grammar errors, misspelled words, inappropriate punctuation, or typos.
Expert Tip:
After proofreading your document, use our free resume review to check if your school counselor resume can pass the ATS and the eyes of hiring managers.
School Counselor Resume Example
To help you further, here’s a school counselor resume example to guide you in writing yours. Take note of how one of our expert resume writers laid out important sections and highlighted the qualifications and skills of an aspiring school counselor. You can also check out other resume examples that our writers curated for different industries.
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Land Your Target Job with the Help of Professional Resume Writers
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We at Resume Professional Writers have a career development team to help you elevate your career and achieve your objectives. What are you waiting for? Connect with us today and let our experts write you a well-written school counselor resume.
