Automatically apply for jobs with Zippia

Upload your resume to get started.

Social worker skills for your resume and career

Updated January 8, 2025

4 min read

Quoted experts

Dr. Florence DiGennaro Reed Ph.D.,

Dr. Dianna Cooper

One of the most important hard skills a social worker can possess is experience in healthcare and patient care, because social work often co-exists with medical care. It's also important for social workers to have the hard skill of crisis interventions and creating treatment plans for those in their care.

When it comes to soft skills, social workers will need a very advanced and nuanced communication toolset, based on psychological best practices of communication. Social workers in many settings act as therapists and important lines of contact, so demonstrating proper communication in handling these situations is crucial.

Below we've compiled a list of the most critical social worker skills. We ranked the top skills for social workers based on the percentage of resumes they appeared on. For example, 30.1% of social worker resumes contained social work as a skill. Continue reading to find out what skills a social worker needs to be successful in the workplace.

15 social worker skills for your resume and career

2. Patients

Here's how social workers use patients:

Provided community based group and individual therapy and case management services to behavioral health patients at risk for inpatient hospitalization.
Provided therapeutic services and case management for acutely mentally ill patients in the inpatient and Partial Hospitalization Program.

3. Patient Care

Patient care entails the diagnosis, recovery, and control of sickness as well as the maintenance of physical and emotional well-being through the use of healthcare providers' services. Patient care is described as services provided to patients by health practitioners or non-professionals under guidance.

Here's how social workers use patient care:

Provided patient care including conducting assessments to determine eligibility for programs, determining preliminary diagnosis, developing and implementing treatment plans.
Participated in various performance improvement initiatives within the unit to promote increased performance, patient/family satisfaction, and safe patient care.

4. MSW

Here's how social workers use msw:

Provided supervision for MSW candidate interns as official field instructor and task supervisor Social Work Internship Experience
Supervised MSW student from University of Maryland

5. Discharge Planning

Here's how social workers use discharge planning:

Managed referrals to appropriate community resources based on identified needs, assisted with application for services, and coordinated discharge planning.
Facilitated patient discharge planning and continuity of care utilizing professional relationships, comprehensive knowledge of community resources, insurance coverage options.

6. Home Health

Here's how social workers use home health:

Organized, budgeted and coordinated community health fairs promoting awareness of home health services
Developed and implemented public relations and marketing program for hospital home health agency.

Choose from 10+ customizable social worker resume templates

Build a professional social worker 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 worker resume.

7. Crisis Intervention

Here's how social workers use crisis intervention:

Provided therapeutic intervention service to children using individual, family, and group treatment, including supportive counseling and crisis intervention.
Provided one-on-one student services such as academic support, counseling, crisis intervention, intensive case management services and advising.

9. Rehabilitation

Here's how social workers use rehabilitation:

Facilitated psychiatric rehabilitation, psycho-education, and MICA therapeutic support groups for the chronically mentally ill forensic clients with AOD problems.
Assure team cooperation and participation in continuity of resident care, rehabilitation, work with families and associated governmental agencies.

10. Psychosocial Assessments

Here's how social workers use psychosocial assessments:

Complete computer-based comprehensive psychosocial assessments.
Provided Social Work services for adult patients throughout this tertiary care hospital including psychosocial assessments, counseling and community agency referrals.

11. Veterans

Here's how social workers use veterans:

Counseled veterans and Medi-Cal clients individually to provide behavioral interventions in order to address their anxiety, depression and anger.
Collaborate extensively with the Veterans Administrations Incarcerated Veterans Reentry Specialist to secure services, for eligible veterans, upon release.

12. Community Agencies

Community agencies stand for the organizations operated to provide human service in the community.

Here's how social workers use community agencies:

Leveraged an interdisciplinary approach to refer children and families to specialized services within a Head Start program and community agencies.
Conducted appropriate referrals to community agencies or make connection within the organization who specializes in specific needs of patient/family members.

13. Substance Abuse

Here's how social workers use substance abuse:

Executed full assessments including substance abuse history, family history, medical history, educational history and mental health history.
Provided clinical intervention, including coordination with DSS for protective service investigations, substance abuse evaluations, and referrals.

14. Group Therapy

Group psychotherapy or group therapy is the practice of treating a group of clients together in one sitting throughout multiple sessions. This practice allows people to receive encouragement and support from their peers who are taking the same group therapy.

Here's how social workers use group therapy:

Facilitated individual, family, and group therapy within an acute psychiatric setting; participated in weekly psychiatric treatment review meetings.
Conducted individual, family and group therapy with severely emotionally and behaviorally disturbed children and adolescents in a residential setting.

15. 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 workers use child abuse:

Trained and effectively utilized techniques in interviewing sexually/physically abused children, medical/legal aspects of child abuse, and family intervention/treatments.
Conduct time-sensitive investigations regarding allegations of child abuse and neglect, providing an advanced level of specialized case management.

5 Social Worker resume examples

Build a professional social worker 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 worker resume.

Create my resume

Build a professional resume in minutes using this template.

What skills help Social Workers find jobs?

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

What skills stand out on social worker resumes?

Dr. Florence DiGennaro Reed Ph.D.

Associate Professor and Chairperson, Director of the Performance Management Laboratory, University of Kansas

In my experience, employers appreciate real-world experience where students/recent graduates can apply the knowledge they learned in their courses to actual work settings. Thus, graduates who have had service-learning practicum courses, internships, or other relevant experiences have resumes that tend to stand out to future employers.

What soft skills should all social workers possess?

Dr. Dianna Cooper

Associate Professor, Campbellsville University

The "change theory" used in social work practice follows several steps, including engaging, assessing, planning, intervening, evaluating, terminating, and following up. Soft skills are most likely to occur in engagement, intervention, and termination. Social workers are trained to "start wherever the client is," understanding that clients can be individuals, families, groups, communities, or organizations. Social workers are trained to respect the client as the expert in their needs, honor self-determination, use a strengths-based approach, and respect difference while using inclusion. The training turns into soft skills such as being empathetic, warm, genuine, and respectful. Social workers also develop skills in knowing when to listen and when to nudge the client toward action. Social workers are trained to intervene and, when change is completed, to terminate. Helping clients know when to end services also requires soft skills of talking about hard topics, seeing a brighter future and setting goals, recognizing when change is happening, and saying goodbye respectfully.

What hard/technical skills are most important for social workers?

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 worker 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 workers need?

Jacqueline Burse Ph.D.

Assistant Professor, University of Arkansas at Little Rock

Because of the impact of COVID-19, racial, political, and economic issues, it will be critical for master's level social work graduates to hone in on their advanced clinical skills (assessment, evaluation, counseling/therapy) in efforts to address mental health and wellness.

What technical skills for a social worker 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 worker skills to add to your resume

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

Social Work
Patients
Patient Care
MSW
Discharge Planning
Home Health
Crisis Intervention
Social Services
Rehabilitation
Psychosocial Assessments
Veterans
Community Agencies
Substance Abuse
Group Therapy
Child Abuse
Support Services
Financial Assistance

Medical Care
Family Therapy
Mental Illness
Mental Health
Foster Care
Compassion
Nursing Home
Excellent Interpersonal
Protective Services
Community Services
English Language
Emotional Support
Individual Therapy
Provide Emotional Support
Care Conferences
Domestic Violence
Social History

Intake Assessments
Social Security
Community Resources
MDS
Risk Assessments
Group Sessions
CPS
Developmental Disabilities
Referral Services
Law Enforcement
Mental Health Issues
Psycho-Social Assessments
Child Protective
IEP
Court Reports
Sexual Abuse

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