Home School Counsellor Resume template
School Counsellor resume template
A clean starting structure with example content grounded in what school counsellors actually do day to day, not generic filler. Download and replace the bracketed placeholders with your own details.
Which resume format should you use?
Reverse chronological
You have a steady work history. This is the format almost every recruiter and ATS expects by default.
Functional
You're changing fields or have gaps in your employment. Leads with skills rather than a job-by-job timeline.
Combination
You're early career or have worked consistently but for only a few employers. Blends a skills summary with a shorter chronological history.
This template uses the reverse chronological format: the one most school counsellors should default to, since most Australian recruiters and ATS software expect it.
Professional summary
School Counsellor with experience providing confidential, student-centred support across primary and secondary settings. Skilled in assessing wellbeing needs, developing intervention plans and working alongside teaching staff and families to keep students engaged and supported. Comfortable balancing individual casework with whole-school mental health programs and workshops.
Key skills
- Counselling and support work
- Pastoral care and wellbeing
- Student assessment and reporting
- Case note documentation and progress tracking
- Crisis intervention
- Student information management systems (Compass, Sentral)
- Counselling assessment software (Welltrak)
- Microsoft Office (Word, Excel)
- Stakeholder liaison with parents, teachers and external providers
Experience: example bullet points
- Conducted individual counselling sessions with students facing personal, social and academic difficulties, managing a caseload across multiple year groups
- Assessed student mental health and wellbeing needs and developed individualised support plans, tracking progress against agreed goals through documented case notes
- Delivered resilience and mental health education workshops to whole classes and year groups, adapting content to age group and identified risk areas
- Liaised with teachers, parents and external health providers to coordinate wraparound support, reducing gaps when students transitioned between services
- Maintained accurate, confidential case records in line with school policy and mandatory reporting obligations, supporting continuity of care throughout a student's schooling
Education
Bachelor degree in psychology, social work or counselling, typically followed by a postgraduate qualification such as a Master of Counselling or Master of School Counselling; registration with PACFA or the ACA (or AHPRA where the psychology pathway is used) and a current Working With Children Check are generally required.
Keywords an ATS is likely to scan for
Applicant tracking systems match your resume against terms in the job ad before a person ever sees it. Only include the ones that actually apply to your experience, but if a term below matches something you've done, use the same wording the job ad uses.
- Pastoral care
- Case management
- Working With Children Check (WWCC)
- PACFA registration
- ACA membership
- AHPRA
- Mandatory reporting
- Compass
- Sentral
- Individual Education Plan (IEP)
- NCCD
- Student wellbeing
- Crisis intervention
- Mental health support plan
Getting past ATS screening
- Match the specific skills, certifications and terms used in the job ad, not just your own wording for the same thing.
- Keep formatting simple: no tables, text boxes, columns, headers/footers or graphics. Parsers frequently drop content placed in these.
- Submit as .docx or PDF unless the job ad specifies otherwise.
- Use standard section headings (Experience, Education, Skills) rather than creative alternatives.
- List your core skills and technical competencies in their own section so a keyword scan can find them instantly.
This is a starting point, not a guarantee of interviews. Tailor every bullet point to your own real experience and the specific job ad.