Student Support Specialist Resume: Writing Guide & Free Template

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As a Student Support Specialist, you know how to counsel your charges to academic success, but are you monitoring the progress of your own career? Our tailored resume templates can help you provide case management to your future job prospects!

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Table of content:

In this ResumeGiants guide, we’ll cover the essential parts of a student support specialist resume that will show off your skills and let any employer know you have what it takes to help students:

• Writing the best possible resume for a student support specialist position.
• Creating the ideal student support specialist resume objective or summary.
• Completing the experience and education sections of your resume.
• Including relevant student support specialist experience.
• Other helpful tips, tricks, and advice to help student support specialists begin their exciting career.

Of course, what guide is complete without plenty of examples!? We’ll show you what a proper student support specialist resume looks like, so you can get an idea of how to set up your own resume.

You already know how to navigate the intricacies of the student experience, so if writing a resume already feels too easy for you, skip ahead to our online resume builder to get started on your killer resume.

Don’t worry, we don’t hold grudges if you don’t want to read the entire article.

Just choose the template that best fits your style, fill in your information, and download your brand-new resume. You’ll be ready to apply for student support specialist positions in no time! 

However, if you do want to learn all the best tips, tricks, and advice to create the perfect student support specialist resume, keep on reading! There’s plenty of juicy information in the following sections to help you get started. 

Before jumping right into the tips and tricks (no matter how juicy they might be), let’s take a look at a what a good student support specialist resume looks like.

Just like you’re going to guide students to the right path for them, this example will be your roadmap to designing the perfect resume.

Resume Example

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[Stuart Sporting]

[Student Support Specialist]

[1859 Helper Drive, Charlotte, NC 28105 | 704-555-4357 | s.port@email.com]

Summary

Dedicated and empathetic student support specialist with over 5+ years of experience working with students, teachers, and parents to ensure lasting success in the classroom, seeking a position at Concord Academy. Proven ability to identify needs, foster relationships, and provide support to assist students in their academic goals.

Experience 

Right Here Community College | Charlotte, NC

Student Support Specialist

2017 – 2022

• Worked with incoming freshmen to build semester class schedules using EMS Campus software
• Organized student schedules and meetings with a 100% success rate
• Maintained communication between students, parents, and teachers via email, phone, and web-based communication platforms
• Assisted with off-campus recruiting efforts that increased program participation by 25%

Mom and Pop Hardware Store | Concord, NC

Sales Associate

2015 – 2017 

• Worked with customers to help them find the items they need
• Provided step-by-step instructions to complete basic projects
• Implemented an organization system for the stockroom that resulted in 20% faster shipment fulfillment

Education 

University of North Carolina | Charlotte, NC

Bachelor’s Degree in Business Administration

2012 – 2016

Skills

• Communication
• Collaboration and teamwork
• Organization
• Time management
• Active listening
• Problem-solving

• Proficient with Microsoft Office, including Word and Excel
• CPI Non-Violent Crisis Intervention training
• Behavioral intervention plan (BIP) development

Certifications

First Aid and CPR
American Red Cross, 2020

SMART Certified Educator
SMART Technologies, 2018

Awards

• Excellence in Support Services Award Winner

Right Here Community College (2021)

• Four-Time Employee of the Month

Mom and Pop Hardware Store (Nov & Dec 2016, Feb & March 2017)

Languages

• English (Native)
• Spanish (Fluent)

Clearly you’re the best student support specialist, but what’s the best way to tell that to potential employers?

You have to choose the right student support specialist resume format to display all your incredible information clearly and efficiently. So, what’s the best student support specialist resume format?

Unfortunately, there’s no best resume format that works for everyone, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t a few tips to point you in the right direction (much like you’ll do for students very soon). Here are a few formatting guidelines you should follow when writing your resume:

• Use a reverse-chronological order for your education and work experience sections.
• Leave plenty of whitespace between sections and paragraphs to keep the page clean and easy to read.
• Try to limit your resume to one page. You can go to two pages if absolutely necessary.
• Use bold titles and headings so potential employers can scan the sections easily.
• Chose a professional font like Calibri, Arial, and Cambria, to name a few.
• Save your resume as a PDF to prevent formatting issues.

The trick to building the perfect student support specialist resume—or any resume for that matter—is to put the most important information first.

You want to hook the reader (potential employers) right away, so they keep reading. In the worst case, they might stop reading, but at least they’ll get the good stuff first, giving you a shot on the job.

Here’s a quick look at what a standard student support specialist resume layout looks like:

1. Header with personal information and contact details
2. Resume summary or objective
3. Work experience
4. Education
5. Soft and hard skills
6. Other sections (as needed)

Remember way back when we said to put the most important information first? Well, you’re welcome to rearrange the sections to fit your specific skills. 

For example, if you don’t have much professional experience, maybe your education is a bit more important. Just swap the sections to put your education first.

Armed with your checklist of all the sections that should go into a great student support specialist resume, let’s take a look at each section one by one.

Since you should know your personal information (we hope, at least), let’s hop right to the resume summary and objective.

You’re probably wondering, what’s the difference between a resume summary and resume objective? Well, you’re not the only one who knows how to lend support!

• Resume summary – A brief explanation of your experience, along with any skills that would make you a killer student support specialist 
• Resume objective – A quick statement about your career goals

Student Support Specialist Resume Summary Example

A student support specialist resume summary is a brief description of your professional experience—typically in about two or three sentences.

It should also include any specific knowledge or skills that would make you the perfect candidate for the job.

An easy way to write your student support specialist resume summary is to create a list of all your relevant experience and skills you want to add. Then, condense them into a few sentences. This will help ensure you don’t leave out any juicy details!

It’s always helpful to have a good example. Here’s what a good student support specialist resume summary might look like:

The key to a great student support specialist resume summary (or any resume summary for that matter) is to include specific, concrete details. 

Applying to a job isn’t a friendly activity; it’s a competition. You want to make sure your resume stands out from the other applicants. Anyone with student support specialist experience “helps students.” You need to go deeper. You don’t just help students; you identify needs and foster relationships!

If you want a little extra credit on your resume summary, include the employer’s name.

Personalizing your resume to the specific job shows attention to detail, which is a much-needed quality for any successful student support specialist. 

How to Write an Entry-Level Student Support Specialist Resume Objective

Don’t have experience to summarize? That’s okay! That’s what a resume objective is for.

A student support specialist resume objective is a quick sentence or two explaining your overall career goals and the skills you posses that will help you achieve them.

Why do you want to be a student support specialist, and where do you want your career to go? Answer the questions, sum them up in about two sentences, throw in a few relevant skills, and you have yourself a perfectly fine resume objective!

The easiest way to customize your resume objective to the position is to simply include the name of the school you’re applying to.

Entry-Level Student Support Specialist Resume Objectives

It’s always better (and less embarrassing) to learn from others’ mistakes. Let’s take a look at what not to do when writing your student support specialist resume:

Kudos for being friendly, but that alone won’t get you the job.

This resume objective likely won’t earn much attention from employers because it doesn’t offer any specific (or even good) information about the candidate or their skills.

Instead, you want to write your resume objective to look a bit more like this:

While this candidate might not have professional experience, they make sure to describe their overall career goals and skills they already possess that would make them a great student support specialist.

They’re detailed, specific, and relevant, which are the three pillars of any good student support specialist resume objective! 

Just like organization and a friendly demeanor are the most important parts of being a student support specialist, the experience section is arguably the most important part of your resume.

Not only does it show that you have the skills necessary to be an effective student support specialist, but it also proves that you can apply those skills to the real world. That’s why it has to be perfect.

When a potential employer reads your experience section, they should be able to easily see all the important information about your previous experience:

• Work history
• Responsibilities
• Key accomplishments

The key to an effective resume experience section is to find a balance between providing enough detail and not boring the reader by going on and on. Keep it concise, to the point, and relevant to the job.

Need a little “support” for your resume’s experience section? Follow these tried-and-true tips:

• Customize your work experience to fit the job description
• Back up the information with concrete numbers and statistics
• Keep it short and concise
• Include keywords from the job description

For example, if the job description mentions you should have experience with Microsoft Office software, make sure you mention all the times you’ve used Word and Excel in previous jobs.

Potential employers will see you’ve used them in a professional setting before, making you even more qualified for the job.

The closer you can match your experience section to the job description, the more it’ll look like you’re the most obvious choice for the position.

A solid resume experience section is much more than a few bullets of the places you’ve worked.

It needs to be a bit more detailed than that. You’re going to be in charge of helping students find their way; that’s an important job! 

The best way to prove you’re up for the responsibility is to write a strong student support specialist resume experience section. 

To show you what not to do, here’s an example of a bad resume experience section:

Any potential employer who read this experience section would think, “Yeah… That’s what a student support specialist does.”

It’s nothing special, and it doesn’t provide any detail, responsibility, or skills that would make the candidate stand out.

When it comes to a student support specialist resume, the devil is in the details. Use specific numbers, stats, responsibilities, and achievements to show potential employers you have the stuff to get the job done.

Now, let’s check out a student support specialist resume experience section that won’t end up in a school trash can:

Specific details and concrete numbers. That’s the secret to any resume experience section. This applicant will no doubt be a student support specialist in no time!

Entry-Level Student Support Specialist Resume: Experience Section

Adding details and numbers are great and all, but only if you actually have experience. What about those looking for an entry-level student support specialist position? 

Just because you don’t have professional student support specialist experience doesn’t mean you don’t have any relevant experience at all!

Think about all the jobs you’ve had in the past. What skills have you picked up that would help make you the best student support specialist the world has ever seen?

For example, working at a retail store might not seem like experience you could show off on a student support specialist resume, but it likely taught you how to communicate with customers, coworkers, and managers, as well as how to assist customers in finding what they need.

Those sounds like student support specialist skills to me!

However, you can’t just put bullet points of your random jobs on your resume and hope for the best. Here’s a look at what a bad entry-level experience section might look like, just so you know what to avoid at all costs:

While you might earn a few points for honesty, this experience section won’t score you a job. Instead, try something that looks more like this example:

It might not be actual student support specialist experience, but working with customers, providing instructions, and staying organized are definitely skills that would apply to the job. 

Whether you have experience or not, always follow the same guidelines:

• Customize your work experience to fit the job description
• Back up the information with concrete numbers and statistics
• Keep it short and concise
• Include keywords from the job description

This entry-level experience section checked all the boxes.

The applicant might not have had professional experience, but there’s a good chance they’ll stand out from the pack and be considered for the job anyway.

While student support specialists don’t necessarily need a college degree, that doesn’t mean your education section is any less important. After all, you’re about to work in the education field! 

In general, potential employers want to know three key pieces of information about your education:

• Where you went to school
• The dates of attendance
• Whether you earned a diploma or degree

As long as you include these pieces of information, employers will be happy. If you want to include more than one school, be sure to list them in reverse-chronological order, with the most recent school at the top.

Student Support Specialist Resume Education Section

With all those juicy details in mind, take a look at what a good student support specialist resume education section might look like:

It’s not much, but it hits all the boxes potential employers want to see. Short, simple, and to the point. 

If you want to add a little extra “support” to your education section, you’re welcome to include your GPA—but only if it’s impressive!

Your experience and education sections say a lot, but as any good student support specialist knows, there’s always more support you can provide! 

Adding a skills section is a great way to give potential employers that extra push to hire you. Resume skills can be divided into two main categories:

• Hard skills – Specific, measurable skills
• Soft skills – Universal, harder-to-define skills

Both types of skills look good on a student support specialist resume, so be sure to include a nice mix. Here are some of the most common soft and hard skills to include on a student support specialist resume:

It’s always nice to show off your multitude of skills, but potential employers don’t have time to read through the thousands of bullets of qualifications you no doubt have. Instead, stick to only the most impressive and relevant to the position. 

Like with all aspects of resume-building, the shorter and more concise the better!

Is there really such a thing as too much support?

If you have even more you want to say about your qualifications or experience, you’re welcome to add other sections to your student support specialist resume.

Other sections are just as they sound. They’re simply additional sections that might not be considered “standard” on most resumes. 

Adding other sections is a great way to make your resume stand out from the other applicants. Because they’re not standard, there’s a chance nobody else will have them, giving you a better shot at getting hired!

But before you add other sections, make absolutely sure they’re relevant to the position. That’s really the secret to adding any information to your resume.

Student Support Specialist Resume Sample “Other” Sections

When it comes to other sections, the sky’s the limit. You’re welcome to add whatever sections you think will make your resume stand out to potential employers.

If you want a more visual example, here are some of the most common other sections seen on student support specialist resumes.

Awards

• Excellence in Support Services Award Winner

Right Here Community College (2021)

• Four-Time Employee of the Month

Mom and Pop Hardware Store (Nov & Dec 2016, Feb & March 2017)

Languages

• English (Native)
• Spanish (Fluent)

You’re ready to be the student support specialist everyone wants to go to for advice, but you first have to prove to potential employers that you can handle the responsibility with a killer resume. 

When putting together your student support specialist resume, keep in mind these proven tips that have helped tons of people score their dream jobs:

• Customize your resume to the job and school you’re applying to
• Make sure all experience and skills are relevant to the job you want
• Keep your formatting and layout professional
• Be specific about the skills you can bring to the classroom
• Use concrete numbers and figures to support your experience
• Save your resume as a PDF to prevent formatting issues

If you follow these tips, you’ll be ready to help students navigate the rough waters of the education system in no time! 

Now that you know what it takes to create a great student support specialist resume, it’s time to put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard?).

At ResumeGiants, we have dozens of resume templates just ready to be completed. Simply choose the one that fits your style, fill in your information, and you’re ready to start applying to jobs!

Even support specialists need a little support sometimes. Let ResumeGiants help you build the perfect resume to score the job of your dreams.