Admissions Counselor Resume Examples and Tips

Admissions counselors assist students through the admissions process for a school or college, handling paperwork, networking with candidates, reviewing applications, performing administrative activities, and arranging campus tours and information sessions. For this role, you’ll be expected to have strong interpersonal, organizational, and communication skills.

To prepare a perfect resume for an admissions counselor role, follow our resume examples and tips.

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Admissions Counselor Resume Sample

Top 4 Characteristics of a Best-in-Class Admissions Counselor Resume

  1. Summary Describe your best skills, qualities and work experience in a few sentences, featuring strengths that match what the employer needs. For example: “Enthusiastic, friendly and hardworking admissions counselor with 5+ years of experience in private college settings.”
  2. Skills To get the right skills for this section, browse the job description and take note of the skills the employer is looking for. Include professional skills such as in-depth knowledge of academic programs, administrative skills, and scholarships and financial aid expertise, and soft (or intangible) skills such as time management, good communication skills and decision-making.
  3. Work History Instead of just laundry-listing daily tasks, focus on major responsibilities and accomplishments, describing them in quick bullet points. For example: “Oversaw graduate admissions processes, including hiring, training, and supervision of six junior members.”
  4. Education Highlight your highest academic qualifications, along with name and location of the institution where you received your credit. Add any special courses, training, or licenses you have, such as completion of a certificate program in College Admissions and Career Planning.

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Find the Right Template for your Resume

Make your resume gets noticed by using these employer-ready templates:

Fresh

The colorful header for this template leaves a strong impression, while the clearly defined sections make it easy for hiring managers to scan.

Contempo

This layout uses a bold font for the header, making the job applicant’s name stand out. The streamlined design makes it a breeze to move sections around and customize them.

Esteemed

This clutter-free template uses dot graphics to guide hiring managers from your professional summary to your education section. Each heading uses colored resume fonts for easy navigation.

Check out more free templates to use as the foundation of your resume on our free resume templates page.

Do’s and Don’ts for Your Resume

  • DO proofread your resume. The admissions process depends on accuracy and good judgment — and a resume that contains silly errors is neither. Review your resume before you send it in, making sure all grammatical and spelling errors are taken care of, and your information is accurate and up to date. For extra help, create a resume using our resume builder, and we’ll do the checking for you.
  • DO add relevant soft skills. As a counselor, relating well to others and bringing an effective approach to work is important — feature soft skills that reinforce your abilities in these areas, such as strong motivational skills, effective time management, public speaking ability and a positive demeanor. For more suggestions on soft skills, visit our Top Resume Skills page.
  • DO keep your resume concise. Since hiring managers spend only a few seconds on average to review your resume, it’s important to keep your document short and crisp. Limit your work history section to the last ten years, and stick to highlighting skills and achievements that directly relate to the job you want. Use punchy bullet points and phrases instead of long sentences. The goal: a document that’s two pages long at most.
  • DON’T use fancy graphics or layouts. Instead of trying to make your resume stand out with extravagant fonts and graphics, focus instead on having the right content that satisfies employers’ needs. A document cluttered up with unusual elements can often confuse hiring managers, or worse yet, confuse the applicant tracking systems (ATS) employers use to scan resumes. A clean, straightforward, professional resume template for your resume is the best choice, every time.
  • DON’T forget to quantify your accomplishments. Stating you’re good at a certain task is one thing — describing your achievements in terms of numbers does a better job of presenting your capabilities. For example, “Increased student enrollment” doesn’t say nearly as much as “Challenged to increase enrollment by 15%, exceeded goals by increasing enrollment by 60%.”
  • DON’T forget to use relevant keywords. We mentioned (ats) above — to get past an ATS scan, your resume needs to have the right keywords. Scan the job posting and take note of important phrases that spell out what the job needs (e.g., “Conduct phone, chat, and emailed-based communication with prospective students,” or “Knowledge of word processing, spreadsheet, and database applications”). Then come up with your own skills and experiences that match these needs, and add them to your resume. For example, you could mention a work experience where you communicated with prospective students, or list “Proficiency with Microsoft Office and Oracle RDBMS” as a skill. For more keyword tips, visit our article How to Use Keywords Effectively.