Social work tends to look for areas where you can demonstrate hands on experience in roles. You’ll need to express information in a manner that does at least two things. It needs to both defeat the filters on resume engines for HR and cater to what the hiring manager is looking for. Obviously, this the first time they’ll be learning about you and your background. Therefore, you’ll want to craft any relevant experience and education in a manner that demonstrates hands-on know how. Make sure your social work resume stands out.

It may be likely that given your desire to enter a social work field you have experience in volunteering or internships that will reflect that. If you are post college and earning an advanced degree, you’ll have compiled more experience. There are activities on and off campus that should have had hands-on experience. Use what you can highlight to fit various skills that are entwined with being a social worker. 

Find ways to call out to the experiences you’ve had in past positions and roles. Demonstrate how you were able to use the various applicable skills to meet objectives and ensure success. When addressing the highlighted ability, ensure that you are tying those back into how it may benefit your ability to add to the new organization. Which bring us to our next point…

When you are drafting your resume, ensure that you are adequately answering some of the requests of the post. Ensure that you are reviewing the details carefully. Look at what is listed about the expected role and explain how your prior experiences help you fit this position. In highlighting your abilities, your goal should be to demonstrate how the success you had in those roles can cross apply to the position you are applying for, even if they are different roles. 

A few smart ways in doing this can be in addressing how you handled individuals you worked with, or motivated a group to achieve a set of goals together. If you helped create a program, describe the process and how that can then be relayed back into your current career pursuit. Regardless, make sure you address the post and the concerns of the hiring manager. The rest of your resume can only speak to your experience and qualifications and nothing more.

Ensure you are making all of the roles and responsibilities actionable. HR managers look for this as a general rule in most fields. Ensure that you are using action verbs when describing how you approached a task and responsibility and how it impacted the intended goal. 

This will be important for both the software that filters resumes and the HR manager that is seeking the candidate. If you want to ensure getting an interview, this is a must.

It is of the utmost importance that you list off your qualifiers outside of job experience. Certifications, education, and specialties show you are prime candidate for a role, even if your experience might lack specifics for a requested position. 

Licensure is another key measure of capability and employability. Many states require a license to work in various roles and more importantly advance. If you aren’t licensed, you are likely limiting your capabilities and future growth in social work.

In summary, you’ll need to highlight several factors in strategic ways in order to ensure viability as a candidate. It’s all about presentation when it comes to landing the first interview, there you can demonstrate your strengths which are largely dependent on interpersonal skills and communication.