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College counselor skills for your resume and career

Updated January 8, 2025
4 min read
Quoted experts
Jingjing Lou Ph.D.,
Jingjing Lou Ph.D.
Below we've compiled a list of the most critical college counselor skills. We ranked the top skills for college counselors based on the percentage of resumes they appeared on. For example, 14.5% of college counselor resumes contained colleges as a skill. Continue reading to find out what skills a college counselor needs to be successful in the workplace.

15 college counselor skills for your resume and career

1. Colleges

A college is a learning environment, an academic institution primarily for degree acquisition. It is targeted at running advanced programs and educational classes for professional degrees. Vocational education is also part of the syllabus in some colleges.

Here's how college counselors use colleges:
  • Communicate with admission officers at multiple colleges & universities
  • Developed relationships with colleges and scholarship coordinators.

2. Social Work

Here's how college counselors use social work:
  • Mentored by staff Social Worker, in order to hone counseling skills, as pertaining to the high school population.
  • Worked cooperatively with parents, teachers, administrators, and school social workers for the benefit of the student.

3. Professional Development

Professional development means to have the essential training certification or education with the purpose of earning and having a successful career. Every job requires a different set of skills. However, new skills may be needed in the future. Professional development, in this regard, helps people to develop and polish the skills and become efficient workers.

Here's how college counselors use professional development:
  • Prepare reports on student status, service utilization, student performance / professional development activities.
  • Supported school counselors in working with international students in providing consultation and professional development opportunities.

4. FAFSA

Here's how college counselors use fafsa:
  • Provided one-on-one admissions and Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) advising to Boston Public High School students and their families.
  • Assisted families through the FAFSA, TASFA, and CSS Profile financial aid application process.

5. Admissions Process

Admissions process is the act or process of admitting someone. The admission process is based on the submission of written applications and supporting documents. From the first inquiry made about a college - information gathering, application filing, the admission decision, presentation, matriculation to enrolling for the school year. Especially for schools with competitive admissions, the admissions process requires a lot of time and effort.

Here's how college counselors use admissions process:
  • Provide comprehensive college access services to grades 9-12 on career awareness, financial aid, and the admissions process.
  • Conducted one on one counseling sessions with rising seniors Assisted the students as they began the college admissions process

6. Scholarship Applications

Here's how college counselors use scholarship applications:
  • Process college applications, recommendations, and scholarship applications.
  • Helped students with their college applications and scholarship applications.

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7. Financial Aid Workshops

Here's how college counselors use financial aid workshops:
  • Facilitate college financial aid workshops.
  • Organized college information sessions, school visits, college tours and financial aid workshops.

8. Crisis Intervention

Here's how college counselors use crisis intervention:
  • Provide individual/group counseling and crisis intervention, including mediation support as needed.
  • Implement crisis intervention protocol, including referrals, in emergency situations.

9. Financial Aid

Financial aid refers to cash released to an educational institution to help a student pay the school fee. The issuance of financial aid, whether scholarships, grants, or loans, aims to make access to education affordable to all students irrespective of their backgrounds.

Here's how college counselors use financial aid:
  • Monitor student's financial arrangements and financial aid to assure guaranteed aid and helped students budget appropriately.
  • Coordinated and facilitated educational, financial aid and career seminars for under- served student populations.

10. Financial Aid Applications

Here's how college counselors use financial aid applications:
  • Designed and executed presentations to increase financial literacy and introduced seniors to financial aid applications.
  • Assisted in college application process and financial aid applications.

11. Standardized Testing

Here's how college counselors use standardized testing:
  • Well versed on the financial landscape of education & standardized testing.
  • Provide 1:1 support to students prior to scheduled standardized testing dates.

12. Naviance

Here's how college counselors use naviance:
  • Demonstrated and encouraged the use of Naviance, for all aspects of the college process, in large and small groups.
  • Designed and taught a skills and interest inventory class to juniors using the Naviance data base software system.

13. Mental Health Issues

Here's how college counselors use mental health issues:
  • Developed and presented in-class programming dealing with mental health issues to students and faculty members.
  • Provided training to staff on mental health issues.

14. NCAA

Here's how college counselors use ncaa:
  • Served as site supervisor for internship program and school coordinator for NCAA eligibility for student athletes.
  • Update and carry out all tasks related to the NCAA Clearinghouse.

15. Career Planning

Here's how college counselors use career planning:
  • Supported students through academic, social and emotional issues while navigating post-secondary education and career planning.
  • Worked closely with students regarding college selection/preparation, and long-term career planning.
top-skills

What skills help College Counselors find jobs?

Tell us what job you are looking for, we’ll show you what skills employers want.

What skills stand out on college counselor resumes?

Jingjing Lou Ph.D.

Chair and Associate Professor, Beloit College

Apart from other common skills and characters you often see in education majors, our graduates from the education program stand out from other education graduates because they are trained to think interdisciplinarily and internationally. Specifically, our graduates learn different perspectives about teaching, learning, youth, and society from international and interdisciplinary perspectives. They have an in-depth understanding of social justice in different cultural contexts concerning different social groups -elite or marginalized, urban or rural, majority or minority. Some of the institutional learning outcomes of Beloit College are listed below, and these are all soft skills our graduates are proud to be equipped with and help them to be successful candidates of the positions they are applying for in teaching or other jobs in the broad field of education studies, including but not limited to education policy, counseling, school psychology, social work, international education, etc. We even have education graduates working for Facebook.

What soft skills should all college counselors possess?

Jingjing Lou Ph.D.

Chair and Associate Professor, Beloit College

1) Productive Collaboration

2) Effective Communication

3) Creative Problem Solving

4) Intellectual and Professional Agility

What hard/technical skills are most important for college counselors?

Jingjing Lou Ph.D.

Chair and Associate Professor, Beloit College

To go along with these soft skills, our students master hard skills such as communications (writings and presentations), quantitative thinking (a requirement for all requirements), and intercultural literacy (understanding and working with people from different contexts).

What college counselor skills would you recommend for someone trying to advance their career?

Leigh Ann Tipton-Fisler, PhD, BCBA

Associate Professor and Program Coordinator of Specialist in School Psychology and Clinical/ Community Mental Health Graduate Programs, Western Illinois University

- The best I can give to graduates is to focus on taking small steps at first. Often the first year in the field can be exciting and overwhelming at the same time. The system we work in (the helping profession broadly) often has a lot of challenges, and new professionals want to re-envision a path for changes. This is tangible, but at first, it is important to understand the roles and functions in the workplace before flipping everything upside down. I suggest taking one small change at a time in an area that is important to you and build relationships and trust with your professional colleagues before overloading yourself with the new job and new goals.

What type of skills will young college counselors need?

Dr. Thomas Dearden Ph.D.Dr. Thomas Dearden Ph.D. LinkedIn profile

Assistant Professor of Sociology, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University

Indeed, the way we work is changing. The skills that young graduates will need are diverse. Transferable skills and soft skills will certainly be marketable. These include traditional crafts such as communication, but I also think the world expects more empathy from its employees. Young graduates with an understanding of racism, sexism, and environmental responsibility will become increasingly important.
Do you want to know more?
Read more about what experts have to say about college counselor

List of college counselor skills to add to your resume

College counselor skills

The most important skills for a college counselor resume and required skills for a college counselor to have include:

  • Colleges
  • Social Work
  • Professional Development
  • FAFSA
  • Admissions Process
  • Scholarship Applications
  • Financial Aid Workshops
  • Crisis Intervention
  • Financial Aid
  • Financial Aid Applications
  • Standardized Testing
  • Naviance
  • Mental Health Issues
  • NCAA
  • Career Planning
  • GPA
  • Career Exploration
  • Academic Support
  • Test Preparation
  • Student Body
  • Support Services
  • Group Therapy
  • Mathematics
  • Study
  • Summer Program
  • Community Services
  • Course Selection
  • Guest Speakers
  • Classroom Presentations
  • Eating Disorders
  • Selection Process
  • Career Development
  • Test Scores
  • Academic Performance
  • Recommendation Letters
  • GED
  • Educational Programs
  • Conflict Resolution
  • CSU
  • PowerPoint
  • College Planning
  • Career Awareness
  • Cuny

Updated January 8, 2025

Zippia Research Team
Zippia Team

Editorial Staff

The Zippia Research Team has spent countless hours reviewing resumes, job postings, and government data to determine what goes into getting a job in each phase of life. Professional writers and data scientists comprise the Zippia Research Team.

Updated January 8, 2025

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