Automatically apply for jobs with Zippia

Upload your resume to get started.

Social services counselor skills for your resume and career

Updated January 8, 2025

4 min read

Quoted experts

Dr. Telvis Rich,

Dr. Benjamin Jeppsen

Below we've compiled a list of the most critical social services counselor skills. We ranked the top skills for social services counselors based on the percentage of resumes they appeared on. For example, 37.9% of social services counselor resumes contained social work as a skill. Continue reading to find out what skills a social services counselor needs to be successful in the workplace.

15 social services counselor skills for your resume and career

2. Patients

Here's how social services counselors use patients:

Provided individual treatment and group therapy to patients experiencing Mental Health Illness, addiction problems, developmental disabilities or co-occurring disorders.
Worked with a Multidisciplinary Treatment Team to address patients' medical and psychological needs throughout progressive stages of rehabilitative process.

4. Financial Assistance

Financial assistance refers to governmental assistance one may receive for a variety of reasons. This help is typically in the form of money, whether a loan, scholarship, grant, or reduced taxes provided to an individual or organization. One of the more common forms of financial assistance is student loans, which offer many prospective students a chance for higher education.

Here's how social services counselors use financial assistance:

Determine refugee's eligibility for financial assistance.
Assist in the procurement of needs such as institutional placement, transportation, financial assistance, medical equipment, shelter, food

5. Scheduling Appointments

Scheduling appointments is the practice of finding a free slot with the person(s) you want to meet. The process of scheduling appointments involves finding mutually free time, negotiating follow-ups, sending reminders, and creating new appointments. Scheduling appointments is important to ensure that the timings of consecutive meetings do not clash with each other.

Here's how social services counselors use scheduling appointments:

Managed caseloads by scheduling appointments, evaluating progress through counseling sessions and making recommendations to treatment team.

6. Direct Services

Direct service is a service provided directly, that is, through person-person contact which gives no room for any middle or third party involvement.

Here's how social services counselors use direct services:

Served from 9/2000 until 6/2003 Sabine Parish Schools Special Education Department: Provided direct services to children, youth and families.
Respond to referrals from school administration, parents, teachers, the Special Education Committee and others by providing direct services.

Choose from 10+ customizable social services counselor resume templates

Build a professional social services counselor resume in minutes. Our AI resume writing assistant will guide you through every step of the process, and you can choose from 10+ resume templates to create your social services counselor resume.

7. Psychosocial Assessments

Here's how social services counselors use psychosocial assessments:

Conducted psychosocial assessments and health education classes.
Conduct psychosocial assessments to determine treatment focus.II.

8. Substance Abuse

Here's how social services counselors use substance abuse:

Provided individual counseling sessions that focused on anger management, victim impact, positive decision-making and substance abuse education.
Provided individual, group, and psycho-educational counseling to women attending an intensive substance abuse program.

9. Medical Equipment

Medical equipment refers to apparatus for use in medical procedures.

Here's how social services counselors use medical equipment:

Assisted clients with obtaining medical equipment, medication, government aid, etc.

10. Criminal Justice

Here's how social services counselors use criminal justice:

Worked with juvenile and adult populations involved in the criminal justice system.
Interview and assess clients involved in the criminal justice system.

11. Rehabilitation

Here's how social services counselors use rehabilitation:

Escorted residents to appointments to train in community integration and other related rehabilitation services.
Provided services to women and children at a residential rehabilitation program.

12. Discharge Planning

Here's how social services counselors use discharge planning:

Case management, discharge planning and coordination of community resource referrals.
Coordinated discharge planning, including the identification of needed resources.

13. Mental Health

Mental health is the state of wellbeing in which an individual can cope with the regular stresses and tensions of life, and can work productively without having any emotional or psychological breakdown. Mental health is essential for a person of any age and helps them make the right decisions in their life.

Here's how social services counselors use mental health:

Provided oversight and intervention to consumers, experiencing major mental health crisis and disruption in functioning.
Provided mental health treatment through individual or group therapy sessions

14. Child Abuse

When a child who is under 18 is mistreated by an adult, it is considered child abuse. There are many forms of intentional harm and mistreatment for example physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional abuse, medical abuse, and neglect in providing adequate basic life necessities.

Here's how social services counselors use child abuse:

Visited homes of families with problems in the area of child abuse and neglect.
Worked with at risk parents to prevent child abuse and neglect.

15. Crisis Intervention

Here's how social services counselors use crisis intervention:

Provided supportive counseling, crisis intervention, and case management services to adolescents and adults with major psychiatric disorders.
Scan and upload documents into electronic health record system Implement crisis intervention services.

5 Social Services Counselor resume examples

Build a professional social services counselor resume in minutes. Browse through our resume examples to identify the best way to word your resume. Then choose from 5+ resume templates to create your social services counselor resume.

Create my resume

Build a professional resume in minutes using this template.

What skills help Social Services Counselors find jobs?

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

What skills stand out on social services counselor resumes?

Dr. Telvis Rich

Associate Professor, Long Island University-Brooklyn

For a 21st century professional Social Worker, the following skills are essential to highlight on the resume: details of the roles, responsibilities and tasks completed during the bachelor level and/or master level Social Work practicum (internship), the interprofessional skills of working with diverse clients, communities, supervisors and colleagues during the practicum, and a clear vision of the population the applicant seeks to serve in an agency or organization. In short, today's workplace is very competitive; thus, a concise list of skills that highlight professionalism, diversity, service, competency in a practice area, and respect for others are truly essential. These required skills align to the National Association of Social Workers (NASW) Code of Ethics and employers will seek to see such on a well written resume. Further, a quality cover letter outlining the skills will enhance the resume in a competitive and ever changing Social Work marketplace.

What soft skills should all social services counselors possess?

Dr. Benjamin Jeppsen

Associate Professor, Augustana University

Cultural awareness, knowledge, and skills are important, including openness to work with people with varying religious views. The ability to easily connect with others and put people at ease in your presence is valuable in working with clients and collaborating with a treatment team. As more and more agencies interact with the medical field, spiritual leaders, and other holistic approaches to health, counselors need to see their role in an interdisciplinary approach to healing and work effectively with other departments. With teletherapy/virtual therapy, just the simple difficulty of creating eye contact when one's camera is not directly aligned with their viewscreen can complicate important connections in the therapeutic relationship. Learning to effectively connect through screens is essential.

What hard/technical skills are most important for social services counselors?

Dr. Dianna Cooper

Associate Professor, Campbellsville University

Hard or technical skills are most likely to occur in the stages of assessing, planning, intervening, and evaluating change theory. Social workers are trained to gather lots of information and then analyze strengths and needs. Social workers present their assessments to clients and work together to create goals and the steps that reach goals when executed. The process involves using the client's vision of what "better" looks like. Social workers then use evidence-based techniques to move the client toward the goal and define measures to know when the goal is met. The technical skills used in this process include analyzing many types of information repeatedly, knowing what resources exist and how to refer, knowing how to design effective goals and steps to achieve goals, researching current evidence-based practices, defining and measuring progress, and setting limits and timeframes.

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

Lillian Wichinsky Ph.D.

Associate Dean, University of Nevada - Reno

The need for social workers with expertise in mental health care, school-based social work, health and substance misuse are particularly important. Sixty percent of mental health care in the US is provided by social workers and the need is growing.

What type of skills will young social services counselors need?

Samantha Fletcher Ph.D.

Executive Director, National Association of Social Workers, New York State

The core skills of social work do not change over time. These skills include empathy, active listening, critical thinking, assessment, intervention, evaluation, advocacy, policy analysis, and adaptability. Social workers also need to evaluate the organizations they work in to assess for oppressive practices and policies. One of the profession's core values is social justice, which directs social workers to "pursue social change, particularly with and on behalf of vulnerable and oppressed individuals and groups of people. Social workers' social change efforts are focused primarily on issues of poverty, unemployment, discrimination, and other forms of social injustice" (National Association of Social Workers, 2017). As a profession, social workers aim to dismantle racist, sexist, heterosexist, xenophobic, ableist, classist, and religiously biased systems and structures.

What technical skills for a social services counselor stand out to employers?

Michael Heron

Assistant Professor, Saginaw Valley State University

Critical thinking skills, interpersonal communication skills, and being proactive. Employers want problem solvers not just someone who can take direction. Critical thinking is important to solve problems and to show that you can be trusted to get things done correctly. Interpersonal skills are important because effective communication is paramount in a high functioning office, agency, or organization. Lastly, being proactive is something that any employer would want to see from their staff. It, again, shows that you are looking to solve problems and can do that before the problems even arise.

Do you want to know more?

List of social services counselor skills to add to your resume

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

Social Work
Patients
Social Services
Financial Assistance
Scheduling Appointments
Direct Services
Psychosocial Assessments
Substance Abuse
Medical Equipment
Criminal Justice
Rehabilitation
Discharge Planning
Mental Health
Child Abuse
Crisis Intervention
Community Resources

Provide Emotional Support
Intake Interviews
Mental Illness
Support Services
State Agencies
Protective Services
Social History
Community Agencies
Court Cases
Treatment Services
Pregnant Women
Group Therapy Sessions
Court Reports
Early Intervention
Developmental Disabilities
Individual Sessions

Family Therapy
Emotional Support
Vulnerable Adults
Community Services
CPR
Foster Children
Medication Management
Adult Protective
Sexual Abuse
Anger Management
Medical Appointments
Client Assessments
ADL
Emergency Situations
Domestic Violence
Crisis Situations

Updated January 8, 2025

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

Browse community and social services jobs