What does a resident advisor do?
A resident advisor is responsible for protecting the residents' welfare by promoting healthy leadership and community coordination. Resident advisors' duties include conducting scheduled lifestyle counseling, evaluating opportunities for each resident, resolving conflicts between residents calmly, planning community programs, and encourage everyone's participation. Additional duties include enforcing safety policies and regulations, addressing policy violations, creating incident reports for immediate resolution, implementing emergency drills and procedures, and organizing orientations. A resident advisor must have excellent leadership and communication skills to assist the residents with their concerns and inquiries.
Resident advisor responsibilities
Here are examples of responsibilities from real resident advisor resumes:
- Engage, educate and empower participants to access community base resources in order to achieve greater self-determination, rehabilitation and recovery.
- Train in emergency situations including CPR certification.
- Act immediately and appropriately in an emergency situation, including calling emergency units and administering CPR or first aid.
- Engage, educate and empower participants to access community base resources in order to achieve greater self-determination, rehabilitation and recovery.
- Deliver telemedicine system to support and improve data driven health management and care delivery programs of various state governments in India.
- Train to administer basic first responder first aid as necessary to youth, including, cardiopulmonary and mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.
Resident advisor skills and personality traits
We calculated that 20% of Resident Advisors are proficient in Residential Life, Crisis Management, and Incident Reports. They’re also known for soft skills such as Compassion, Time-management skills, and Interpersonal skills.
We break down the percentage of Resident Advisors that have these skills listed on their resume here:
- Residential Life, 20%
Fostered healthy community in residential life made up of people from diverse backgrounds by organizing events to enhance individual awareness and integrity
- Crisis Management, 8%
Incorporated crisis management skills in monitoring well-being of 35 residents and resolving interpersonal conflicts and personal crises.
- Incident Reports, 6%
Recorded behavior observations, prepares progress and incident reports regarding assigned youth for review by supervisors, and recommends behavioral sanctions.
- Mental Health, 5%
Ensured youth maintained behavioral health plans by following up with respective mental health workers and administered medications as prescribed.
- Conflict Resolution, 4%
Attended workshops on peer advocacy, conflict resolution, emergency management, enforcement of university policy, diversity, and administrative duties
- Role Model, 4%
Build relationships and facilitate a positive living and learning environment by serving as a role model/resource and promoting student involvement campus-wide.
Common skills that a resident advisor uses to do their job include "residential life," "crisis management," and "incident reports." You can find details on the most important resident advisor responsibilities below.
Compassion. One of the key soft skills for a resident advisor to have is compassion. You can see how this relates to what resident advisors do because "social and human service assistants often work with people who are in stressful and difficult situations." Additionally, a resident advisor resume shows how resident advisors use compassion: "provide compassion, devotion, and commitment to excellence with a balance of warmth, caring, and business expertise. "
Time-management skills. Another soft skill that's essential for fulfilling resident advisor duties is time-management skills. The role rewards competence in this skill because "social and human service assistants often work with many clients." According to a resident advisor resume, here's how resident advisors can utilize time-management skills in their job responsibilities: "completed job tasks on time, hosted floor programs, and effectively reconciled roommate conflicts. "
Interpersonal skills. resident advisors are also known for interpersonal skills, which are critical to their duties. You can see how this skill relates to resident advisor responsibilities, because "social and human service assistants must make their clients feel comfortable discussing sensitive issues." A resident advisor resume example shows how interpersonal skills is used in the workplace: "maintained interpersonal relationships with student residents and resolved problems at hand. "
Organizational skills. resident advisor responsibilities often require "organizational skills." The duties that rely on this skill are shown by the fact that "social and human service assistants must often complete lots of paperwork and work with many different clients." This resume example shows what resident advisors do with organizational skills on a typical day: "created organizational and filing system of student incident reports for the housing services office. "
Communication skills. Another skill commonly found on resident advisor job descriptions is "communication skills." It can come up quite often in resident advisor duties, since "social and human service assistants talk with clients about the challenges in their lives and assist them in getting help." Here's an example from a resume of how this skill fits into day-to-day resident advisor responsibilities: "practiced effective communication with residents and staff members -supervised 40 students per semester -designed eye-catching educational bulletin boards"
The three companies that hire the most resident advisors are:
- The Salvation Army34 resident advisors jobs
- FHI 3609 resident advisors jobs
- Covenant House California8 resident advisors jobs
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Compare different resident advisors
Resident advisor vs. Dormitory counselor
These skill sets are where the common ground ends though. The responsibilities of a resident advisor are more likely to require skills like "residential life," "crisis management," "incident reports," and "mental health." On the other hand, a job as a dormitory counselor requires skills like "social work," "education plan," "therapeutic crisis," and "tci." As you can see, what employees do in each career varies considerably.
On average, dormitory counselors reach higher levels of education than resident advisors. Dormitory counselors are 10.9% more likely to earn a Master's Degree and 0.5% less likely to graduate with a Doctoral Degree.Resident advisor vs. Associate dean of person
Each career also uses different skills, according to real resident advisor resumes. While resident advisor responsibilities can utilize skills like "residential life," "crisis management," "incident reports," and "mental health," associate dean of people use skills like "pos," "customer service," "sales floor," and "emergency calls."
Associate dean of people earn similar levels of education than resident advisors in general. They're 2.9% less likely to graduate with a Master's Degree and 0.5% more likely to earn a Doctoral Degree.Resident advisor vs. Cottage parent
The required skills of the two careers differ considerably. For example, resident advisors are more likely to have skills like "residential life," "crisis management," "mental health," and "conflict resolution." But a cottage parent is more likely to have skills like "foster care," "behavioral issues," "independent living," and "administer medications."
Cottage parents typically earn similar educational levels compared to resident advisors. Specifically, they're 1.1% less likely to graduate with a Master's Degree, and 0.5% less likely to earn a Doctoral Degree.Resident advisor vs. House parent
Types of resident advisor
Updated January 8, 2025
