Community Support Specialist Resume Example

As a community support specialist, your organizational skills and communication abilities help your clients navigate complex situations and systems. When you’re searching for a job, you need to use these same skills to navigate the job market and clearly convey your experience and qualifications to a potential employer. Our example resume and writing tips will help you effectively showcase your qualifications to hiring managers and recruiters.

It’s important to target your job application materials to your industry and to the specific job posting. You need to include relevant skills, focus on professional accomplishments, and present your information in an organized way. How do you know if your resume measures up? Compare your resume to our community support specialist resume sample to ensure you’re using best practices for your niche in the field of social work. If you get stuck, you can get quick assistance with our resume builder.

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Angela Connors

100 Broadway Lane
New Parkland, CA, 91010
Cell: (555) 987-1234
email@example.com

Professional Summary

Compassionate Community Support Specialist with extensive understanding of mental health support methods and strategies. Experience in teaching and maintenance of daily living skills, crisis intervention and family reintegration. Particularly expertise in providing access to needed community resources.

Core Qualifications

• Community Resources
• Counseling Strategies
• Mental Health Diagnoses
• Safe Physical Management
• Case Management
• Documentation
• Family Integration

Experience

Community Support Specialist, April 2011 – May 2015
Triangle Behavioral Health Services – New Parkland, CA

• Managed a caseload of seven clients and their families.
• Taught skills of daily living, as well as coping, interpersonal and communication skills.
• Assisted in addressing treatment plan goals, along with other agency personnel; worked with the family to ensure all goals were understood.
• Connected clients and their families with needed resources within the community such as financial assistance, medical services and educational sources.
• Wrote detailed progress notes after each client meeting or interaction.

Community Support Specialist, June 2007 – April 2011
New Parkland Community Services – New Parkland, CA

• Assisted mental health clients and their families to learn the skills and obtain the resources they need to be successful members of their communities.
• Taught skills of daily living such as budgeting, cooking, job seeking and shopping.
• Intervened during times of crisis or emergency, providing counseling and access to outside resources.
• Wrote in-depth progress notes each visit.

Education

2007 Bachelor of Arts – Social Work
New Parkland University – New Parkland, CA

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Why Is This a Good Community Support Specialist Resume Sample?

From the beginning, this resume conveys that the jobseeker has both the technical knowledge and the interpersonal qualities that a community support specialist needs. The professional summary uses concise, descriptive phrases to create a snapshot of the writer’s qualifications, mentioning experience in “crisis intervention” and the compassion that the jobseeker brings to the work. In order to convey this information quickly, this section omits personal pronouns and confines itself to three main phrases.

Next, this community support specialist resume sample emphasizes a select group of relevant skills in a short, bulleted list. This writer lists six key qualifications to keep this section concise and easy to read. It’s a good idea to include between six and eight skills here; any more, and you risk overwhelming your reader. Make sure you include any specific skills or qualities that the job posting mentions so that a manager can see your qualifications at a glance and know your experience is relevant to the position.

In this community support specialist resume sample, the author makes good use of strong action verbs and specific, quantifiable metrics to demonstrate concrete accomplishments. For instance, the writer specifies a caseload of “seven clients” and uses the stronger action word “managed” instead of writing the weaker phrase “was responsible for managing clients.” When you include metrics and strong verbs, you help your reader picture the specific ways that you can contribute to a team or company.

At the end of the document, the writer includes a brief education section, mentioning the key information—degree, program, year, and location—without unnecessary details. A reader will want to see quickly that you have the necessary professional preparation, but when the job requires a college degree, you don’t need to mention high school. If he or she wants to know about your extracurricular activities or what courses you took while in school, you can discuss it during the interview.

Why You Need a Strong Community Support Specialist Resume

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, employment in the field of social work should grow by 12 percent through 2024. However, the Bureau’s Occupational Outlook Handbook also mentions that growth will depend on specialty. For instance, health care social workers should see more growth than those working in child and family services.

Given these variables, employers look for support specialist candidates who meet the needs of their specific organizations and agencies. It’s essential to show that you have experience in the relevant specialty and possess the qualifications needed to be a great fit.

Studies have shown that readers spend an average of six seconds scanning a resume before they decide whether or not to keep reading. With our community support specialist resume sample and writing guide, you can catch their attention on the first pass so they want to keep reading and set up your interview.

Costly Community Support Specialist Resume Mistakes To Avoid

When you write your resume, you want to avoid mistakes, such as typographical errors and blatant fabrications, since these will damage your credibility with a reader. There are less obvious mistakes, however, that can also hurt your chances at your ideal job.

Applicants sometimes neglect the professional summary and core qualifications sections, but as a community support professional, you need to quickly convey that you have the skills an employer is looking for. If you don’t clearly outline your education or experience from the beginning of your document, an employer might not keep reading to find out more about you. This sample resume makes it clear that the jobseeker understands critical skills within the mental health specialty by mentioning “counseling strategies” and “safe physical management” in the qualifications section.

Finally, notice how this community support specialist resume sample follows recommended practices by limiting the overall document length. We recommend sticking to a single page for most resumes.

Conclusion

Writing a strong resume can be challenging, but our guide and sample resume give you the tools you need to succeed. Using our community support specialist resume sample as an inspiration and tool for comparison, you can showcase your key qualifications, frame your previous experience with compelling language, and provide the critical education information you need to craft a compelling document.