Social Worker Resume

A social worker is a professional who mostly works with people and helps them deal with their daily lives, understand and acclimatize to illness, disability and death, and get social services, for instance government assistance, healthcare, and legal assistance. A number of social workers are doing job as administrators in social service establishments, carry out research, write grants for non-profit agencies, and advocate for social policy at different levels of government. Generally, social workers carry out interventions through research, community organizing, policy, teaching, and direct practice.

Job Description for Social Worker:

Social worker job description may include, but are not limited to, the following:

Co-facilitates various educational group programs for clients and family members, as well as facilitate individual and group therapy sessions within an intensive outpatient rehabilitation setting. Organizes and manages packages of support to enable service users to lead the fullest lives possible; Develops plans, communicates initiatives to interdisciplinary team, and evaluates effectiveness of treatment. Conducts interviews with service users and their families to assess and review their situation; Cultivates and nurtures positive, productive relationships with clients, families, health team members, and community providers to promote effective coordination of resources. Undertakes and writes up assessments (usually with medical staff) that meet specified standards and timescales; Offers information and counseling support to service users and their families; Recommends and sometimes makes decisions about the best course of action for a particular service user; Participates in multidisciplinary teams and meetings, such as child protection, mental health; Maintains accurate records and prepares reports for legal action; Participates in training, supervision and team meetings.

Tips for Writing Social Worker Resume:

Following are a few most important tips for writing social worker resume:

• Divide the social worker resume into separate sections and subsections along with short paragraphs and bulleted points to make it easily decipherable.
• Provide all necessary details, such as full name, contact information, telephone numbers, permanent address, email address, and job objective.
• Write your key professional achievements as social worker next to the objective section as this gives a good idea about quantifiable results of your work.
• Since Professional Experience section is crucial for the social work job, therefore, it should be above the Education section.
• It is best to describe your professional experience and related basic job duties and responsibilities in bullets.
• Include all of your most important skills that are relevant to the social work in Skills section.

DO’s:

There are a few things that should be included in social worker resume, which are as under:

• Write a job objective in your social worker resume that strikes a chord with the employer.
• It is better to summarize your strengths and key qualifications in the top half of the first page. This can be done with the Professional Achievements section.
• Always emphasize your key accomplishments when writing a Professional Experience section.
• Under each employer, include a bulleted list of your major accomplishments. And show quantifiable results of your work in this section.
• Write your main academic qualifications in your resume that are specially related to social work.
• Add a list of your key social working skills in your resume that can provide benefit to the employer.
• Include the professional affiliations, and professional courses, training, seminars, and workshops that you have attended related to your profession, if any.

DON’Ts:

Following things need to be avoided while writing a social worker resume:

• Don’t include too many responsibilities and accomplishments in your resume as they will conceal the main points.
• Don’t write a long list of skills because it will only be viewed with disbelief.
• Don’t include photos in your resume.
• Don’t misrepresent information.
• Don’t include unrelated personal information, such as your hobbies, health, social security number, age, height, weight, religion, citizenship, race, marital status, or names of wife and kids.
• Don’t include research papers, dissertations, or lists of publications.
• Don’t make your resume too lengthy, as anywhere from one to three pages is more than enough.

Action Words:

Actions words play a key role in making a professional looking resume. These words can be used in the Professional Achievements and Professional Experience sections of the social worker resume. Some of the action words are as under:

Attended, Assisted, Completed, Coordinated, Conducted, Developed, Discussed, Evaluated, Formulated, Found, Initiated, Maintained, Met, Participated, Prepared, Presented, Provided, Reviewed, Required, Treated, Worked.

Interview Tips:

An interview is the most essential part of a recruitment process, which particularly affects the selection or rejection of a job candidate. Therefore, it is important for the candidate to be well prepared for the interview.

Here are some important interview tips that should be followed when preparing an interview for the social worker vacancy.

• Research the employer profile thoroughly for social worker post.
• Create a list of general interview questions related to social work and answers, or you can answer them by yourself.
• Determine field trends related to social work, which are presently happening in your profession and how to face or solve them.
• Identify attributes, traits or abilities necessary for a social worker, related to this job and how to get them.
• Show your keen interest in the available job, however do not overdo it.
• During the interview, maintain a professional behavior and do not discuss personal issues and problems.
• Always close the interview by expressing gratitude and appreciation for their time.

Download Sample Social Worker Resume in MS Word Format