Social Worker Resume Guide + Tips + Example
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Make career moves with a professional social worker resume. This guide will help you create an effective resume for a social worker to showcase your empathy, case management and cultural competence, among other skills that make you a desirable candidate.
Start by editing this social worker resume sample template, or explore our resume templates to find the best one for you.
Social worker resume example (text version)
Sienna Davis
Charlotte, NC 28203
(555) 555-5555
example@example.com
Summary Statement
Diligent social worker knowledgeable in assisting clients with building coping mechanisms to address life challenges. Skilled in mediating between family members to resolve conflict. Experienced in life skills coaching to help clients lead healthy and successful lives.
Summary of Qualifications
- Experience helping individuals access community resources and assistance.
- Background in volunteer work and community involvement.
- Established alliances with diverse populations and cultures.
Professional Skills
Communication
- Assisted with interviewing over 50 individuals and families to assess needs and provide informational resources.
- Documented interactions with families during wellness checks.
- Communicated with various families each day and provided community resource guides to clients to meet family needs for assistance.
Emotional Support
- Built solid and trusting rapport with children and families, fostering trust and communication to meet case needs.
- Provided emotional support, intervention and care coordination for an average of 150 chronically ill patients per month.
- Showed empathy towards family situations and offered assistance.
Conflict Resolution
- Mediated between family members to facilitate conflict resolution and build healthy family relationships.
- Assisted a team of five social workers with wellness checks and home visits to supervise separated families.
- Assisted social workers with investigating suspected cases of child abuse, neglect and exploitation.
Skills
- Strong communication
- File management
- Family services
- Community resources
- Conflict resolution
- Individual and family counseling
- Documentation/reporting
- Time management
Work History
- September 2022 – Current
Charlotte – Mecklenburg School District – Charlotte, NC
School Social Worker Intern - June 2018 – May 2021
Northern Virginia Family Services – Fairfax, VA
Volunteer
Education
- Expected in May 2024
University of North Carolina, Charlotte Charlotte, NC
Master of Social Work Social Work - May 2021
George Mason University Fairfax, VA
Bachelor of Science Social Work
5 essentials of a top social worker resume
Contact details
Create an accurate and up-to-date contact section. Include your full name, city, state and ZIP code, followed by phone number and email address. Finally, add a professional website, LinkedIn profile or any other professional networking profile.
Personal statement
This is your introduction to a potential employer. Also called a professional summary, use it to showcase your best skills and relevant work experience to perform as a social worker. In no more than five sentences, let the hiring manager know: your years of experience, one or two job-relevant professional accomplishments and your job-related skills.
Skills
Match your skills to those in the social worker job description. This will bring your job-relevant competencies to the attention of your potential employer, making you a desirable candidate. Create a bulleted list with hard skills, like your case management, counseling and crisis intervention, and soft skills, like communication, flexibility and empathy
If this is your first job as a social worker, include transferable skills from other employment.
Work history
List your work history in reverse chronological order. In every entry, include the company names, locations and dates of employment, and under every job, include a bulleted list of three measurable accomplishments. For example, launching a new and successful program, leadership and training duties, specialized patient care and so on.
If this is your first job in social work, include other relevant work experience, like volunteer experiences, community services, professional projects and more.
Education
List your education with bullet points. Include the educational institution’s name, the degree conferred and graduation year. Skip the graduation date if it has been over 10 years. Include honors, awards and job-relevant coursework.
If you did not attend college, list your high school and any other post-high school course you’ve completed.
See why My Perfect Resume is a 5-star resume builder
Action words for a stand-out social worker resume
Action words can help you add confidence and strengthen your achievements as a social worker resume. These verbs back up your achievements and highlight your skills.
Here’s a short list of action words for a social worker resume:
- Conduct
- Provide
- Supervise
- Conduct
- Workshop
- Participate
- Perform
- Manage
- Assist
- Conduct
- Serve
- Coordinate
- Facilitate
- Maintain
Combine these action verbs with quantifiable achievements to create a professional social worker resume. Make it easier with our online resume builder, which provides step-by-step guidance and editable content suggestions while allowing you to save your document and return to finish it.
Top skills for a social worker resume
Carefully review the social worker job description and match the required skills that fit you.
Here are examples of skills to include in your resume for a social worker:
- Client assessment
- Case management
- Cultural competence
- Knowledge of Treatment Accountability for Safer Communities (TASC)
- Documentation
- File management
- Child welfare
- Crisis Intervention
- Community resources
- Foreign languages
- Family counseling
- Family services
- Crisis intervention
- Community outreach
Check out our 800+ resume examples to help you create the perfect skills section for a social worker resume.
Certifications for social worker resume
Certifications reinforce your knowledge and commitment to your social work. It can also help you stand out from other applicants. Add value to your expertise by including them in your social worker resume.
These are a few certifications to consider for your social worker resume:
- Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW)
- Licensed Social Work Associate & Independent Clinical (LSWAIC)
- Licensed Social Work Associate (LSWA)
- Social Worker Associate (SWA)
- Certified Independent Practice Social Worker
Pair your resume with a matching cover letter
Social worker resume FAQ
1. What is a good objective for a social worker resume?
The resume objective is what we now call the professional summary. It helps introduce you to recruiters and hiring managers in under five sentences by presenting your best, job-relevant skills. Include years of experience, one or two professional accomplishments and most relevant skills. You should always customize it according to the job description.
For example:
Social worker with five years of experience in youth counseling. Bright Future program founder and manager promoting cultural empathy among middle and high schoolers Experienced in transitioning out of foster care. Native Spanish speaker.
Remember, you want to grab their attention; once you have the interview, you’ll be able to elaborate on other important skills.
2. How to write a social worker resume?
Follow our tips from this guide to build your social worker resume. Start with the five primary sections, which are:
- Contact information
- Personal statement or professional summary
- Skills
- Work history
- Education
If there is more information to include, you can add optional sections, like:
- Professional memberships or associations
- Certifications and licenses
- Volunteer experience
Always keep the job description in mind when creating and updating your resume to match their requirements. This will help you catch a hiring manager’s attention by presenting yourself as the candidate they need. If you need more guidance, use the social worker resume sample to start and move on to our Resume Builder for a fast, easy and professional resume.
3. What to put in a skills section of a resume for a social worker?
Your skills section should always be tailored to the role and organization. They are seeking a specific candidate and will scan for the skills they need. Always save the job description and use it as a reference. Also, research the organization and include skills you can deem useful to their needs according to your finding.
Do’s and don’ts for building a social worker resume
- Use measurable achievements to describe your abilities and experience as a social worker.
- Use action words to make an impact on your social worker resume.
- Tailor your resume to your target social worker job.
- Use keywords from the job description throughout your social worker resume.
- Format your social worker resume so that it is easy to read by ATS software and human eyes.
- Lie about your social worker experience and skills.
- Boast that you’re the “best social worker.”
- Include irrelevant personal information, such as your ethnicity and age.
- Add skills and experience not pertaining to a social worker resume.
- Forget to proofread. A social worker resume with errors is unprofessional.
Top 4 tips for acing a social worker interview
Research the prospective employer
Learn about the employer’s history, goals, values and people before your social worker interview. Being able to show that you have in-depth knowledge about a potential employer shows interest, dedication and commitment — traits that make a desirable candidate.
Practice at home.
Start by reviewing the most common interview questions, such as:
- Why Did You Choose This Career?
- What Is the Biggest Mistake You’ve Made?
- How Do You Determine Priorities in Scheduling Your Time?
- Describe a Time When You Needed to Cope With a Stressful Scenario
Ask a trusted person for help preparing for your interview. Search for other possible interview questions, write down answers and practice with your interview partner. Once you’re done, ask them for feedback and work with them to improve your answers, tone and body language. Being prepared will help you have a smoother social worker interview experience.
Pro tip: Practice in front of a mirror and evaluate your facial expressions and body language, which hiring managers will notice.
Arrive with questions.
An interview works both ways: you’re also interviewing the employer. Prepare at least three questions to learn more about the role, employer and how it would fit in your career. Hiring managers expect questions and you’ll be able to learn more, while showing your enthusiasm and interest in the role.
Here are a few examples of questions to get you started:
- Why did you choose to work here?
- What obstacles have you faced in your time here? How did deal with them?
- How do you measure performance?
- What tools do you provide for the safety and success of social workers?
- How do you handle extreme cases?
- What can you tell me about the culture?
- What’s the career path for a social worker at this employer?
Remember to ask open-ended questions and give the interviewer time to answer.
Round up your references.
Contact former managers and colleagues to be potential references. They should be able to vouch for your work ethic and skills as a social worker. Explain to them where you are in the process and when they could expect to be reached. Don’t forget to ask for two letters of recommendation.
If this is your first job, you can request a reference from a mentor, former professor or community leader that can vouch for your skills.
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Social Worker Resume Example
Nilda Melissa Díaz is a Career Advice Writer. She has worked for the Washington Post, Stringr, and Latina Style Magazine. She has a master's in journalism from Columbia University and is a member of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists.