Top 12 Academic Advisor Skills to Put on Your Resume

Crafting a standout resume as an academic advisor means showing, not just telling, how you guide, support, and propel students through winding academic paths. Spotlight skills that reveal you can foster academic momentum, juggle diverse needs, and help build a campus climate where students thrive and finish what they start.

Academic Advisor Skills

1. Banner (Ellucian)
2. DegreeWorks
3. PeopleSoft
4. Academic Coaching
5. FERPA Compliance
6. Student Retention Strategies
7. Career Counseling
8. Data Analysis (Excel)
9. CRM Systems (Salesforce)
10. Conflict Resolution
11. Time Management
12. Multicultural Competency

1. Banner (Ellucian)

Banner by Ellucian is a higher-ed ERP that ties together student information, registration, degree progress, and advising tools. Advisors tap it to view records, track milestones, and act fast during busy terms.

Why It's Important

It centralizes student data and advising workflows so you can see the full picture, intervene early, and keep students moving toward completion without guesswork.

How to Improve Banner (Ellucian) Skills

Make Banner work harder for you and your students:

1. Learn the essentials deeply: Use your institution’s training and vendor documentation. Know where data lives, what fields matter, and how processes flow during add/drop, holds, and graduation audits.

2. Tune the workspace: Save searches, favorites, and page layouts. Reduce clicks. Create reusable note templates and standardize tags so your team speaks the same data language.

3. Streamline communication: Configure alerts, holds, and automated outreach for key triggers (GPA dips, missed milestones, registration windows).

4. Level up reporting: Build dashboards that surface risk, progress, and course bottlenecks. Schedule recurring reports so insights arrive on time, every time.

5. Keep current: Read release notes, attend campus user groups, and partner with IT on upgrades and integrations.

6. Integrate smartly: Connect scheduling tools, advising notes, and messaging platforms approved by your IT/security teams to cut down on manual copy-paste.

Keep poking at features and refining workflows. Efficiency compounds.

How to Display Banner (Ellucian) Skills on Your Resume

2. DegreeWorks

DegreeWorks is a degree audit and advising platform that maps requirements, tracks progress, and helps plan out terms until the finish line.

Why It's Important

It clarifies exactly what’s left for a student, shortens advising sessions, and makes “what-if” exploration and term planning far less murky.

How to Improve DegreeWorks Skills

Sharper audits, fewer surprises:

1. Refine program rules: Ensure catalogs, substitutions, and exceptions mirror reality. Bad rules create bad audits.

2. Use Plans: Build multi-term plans that incorporate prerequisites, course rotations, and workload balance. Share templates for common pathways.

3. Integrate data flows: Work with IT so changes in the SIS reflect in DegreeWorks quickly. Real-time (or close) updates reduce confusion.

4. Polish the interface: Simplify block labels, use consistent naming, and hide noise. Make the audit scannable at a glance.

5. Build a feedback loop: Let advisors flag audit issues for rapid correction. Track fixes and patterns.

6. Train regularly: Short refreshers on exceptions, substitutions, and plan features keep everyone precise.

Accurate audits make advising faster and decisions sturdier.

How to Display DegreeWorks Skills on Your Resume

3. PeopleSoft

PeopleSoft powers student records, enrollment, advising tools, and more. Advisors use it to view histories, note interactions, and coordinate next steps.

Why It's Important

It’s a single, integrated system for records and workflows, which means cleaner data, better tracking, and fewer blind spots in advising.

How to Improve PeopleSoft Skills

Turn knobs that matter:

1. Simplify the UI: Use Fluid UI and Page and Field Configurator to surface what advisors use most and bury the rest.

2. Automate routine steps: Workflow (AWE), Activity Guides, and WorkCenters can move approvals, holds, and checklists without constant nudging.

3. Strengthen reporting: Lean on Query Manager, BI Publisher, and Kibana for quick insight into progress, risk, and course demand.

4. Integrate the stack: Integration Broker can connect PeopleSoft with your LMS, CRM, or appointment tools for fewer swivel-chair moments.

5. Right-size security: Roles and permissions should grant what’s needed and nothing more. Review regularly.

6. Invest in skills: Short trainings and tip sheets keep advisors from reinventing the wheel.

Small UI and workflow tweaks save hours over a term.

How to Display PeopleSoft Skills on Your Resume

4. Academic Coaching

Academic coaching blends strategy and support: study methods, time planning, metacognition, and follow-through. It’s personal, iterative, and anchored to goals that actually matter to the student.

Why It's Important

It builds agency. Students learn to plan, adapt, and recover after setbacks—skills that ripple beyond a single course or semester.

How to Improve Academic Coaching Skills

Make coaching stick:

1. Listen hard: Use active listening and empathetic questioning to uncover root causes, not just symptoms.

2. Set sharp goals: Co-create specific, time-bound goals and define what success will look like in concrete terms.

3. Build an action map: Break goals into small, calendar-ready steps. Assign deadlines. Agree on accountability check-ins.

4. Leverage tools: Calendars, habit trackers, and learning apps can nudge progress when motivation dips.

5. Reflect often: Short reflections after exams or projects help students spot patterns and pivot strategies.

6. Normalize help-seeking: Connect students to tutoring, writing support, accessibility resources, and wellness services early.

7. Promote a growth mindset: Frame effort and strategy—not innate talent—as the levers of improvement.

8. Keep learning yourself: Regular PD on coaching methods keeps your toolkit fresh.

Consistency beats intensity. Small wins, repeated, change trajectories.

How to Display Academic Coaching Skills on Your Resume

5. FERPA Compliance

FERPA requires safeguarding student education records, sharing only with those who have a legitimate educational interest, and honoring students’ rights to access their records.

Why It's Important

Trust and legality. Students’ privacy stays protected, and the institution meets federal obligations without missteps.

How to Improve FERPA Compliance Skills

Operate with privacy-by-default:

1. Know the rules: Understand directory vs. non-directory information, consent requirements, and exceptions.

2. Secure the data: Use strong passwords, MFA where available, and lock screens. Keep physical records under control.

3. Share carefully: Verify identity, confirm legitimate educational interest, and avoid unencrypted channels for sensitive details.

4. Document consent: Store written permissions. Log disclosures when required.

5. Standardize processes: Clear procedures for record requests, parent inquiries, and third-party access reduce errors.

6. Train often: Brief refreshers for advisors, student workers, and faculty who handle records. Include real scenarios.

7. Audit and improve: Periodic spot checks of practices and access logs help catch drift.

When in doubt, pause and verify. Speed never beats accuracy with privacy.

How to Display FERPA Compliance Skills on Your Resume

6. Student Retention Strategies

Retention strategies are the playbook for keeping students enrolled and engaged—addressing academic obstacles, financial strain, belonging, and clarity of purpose.

Why It's Important

Students persist and complete more often when support is proactive, timely, and personal. Institutions benefit, but students benefit most.

How to Improve Student Retention Strategies Skills

Think early, often, and coordinated:

1. Flag risk early: Use early alerts, attendance signals, and midterm indicators to reach out before problems calcify.

2. Personalize advising: Tailor plans to strengths, life constraints, and goals. One size fits no one.

3. Drive engagement: Connect students with study groups, tutoring, supplemental instruction, and skill-building workshops.

4. Foster belonging: Promote clubs, peer mentoring, and affinity groups. Community anchors retention.

5. Clarify career pathways: Tie coursework to careers through shadowing, internships, and labor-market-informed guidance.

6. Support finances: Demystify aid, scholarships, emergency grants, and budgeting. Money stress derails progress fast.

7. Prioritize wellbeing: Normalize mental health care and reduce stigma. Make referrals warm, not cold.

8. Close the loop: Track interventions and outcomes. Improve what works; drop what doesn’t.

Retention is everyone’s job—coordinated effort beats siloed heroics.

How to Display Student Retention Strategies Skills on Your Resume

7. Career Counseling

Career counseling helps students align studies with purpose—spotting interests, testing options, and plotting concrete next steps toward work they’ll value.

Why It's Important

When students see the “why,” motivation climbs. Course choices sharpen, and detours shorten.

How to Improve Career Counseling Skills

Make advice actionable and current:

1. Listen for fit: Surface strengths, values, and constraints. The right path fits the person, not the other way around.

2. Use assessments wisely: Interpreting results beats handing out reports. Translate insights into plans.

3. Stay market-aware: Track hiring trends, in-demand skills, and internship pipelines across sectors.

4. Teach networking: Show students how to build relationships, conduct informational interviews, and follow up gracefully.

5. Leverage campus tools: Job boards, career fairs, alumni mentors, and micro-internships create momentum.

6. Build portfolios: Encourage projects, certifications, and artifacts that prove skills—not just say they exist.

Clarity plus small, repeated actions beats grand plans without motion.

How to Display Career Counseling Skills on Your Resume

8. Data Analysis (Excel)

Excel turns raw data into signals you can act on—tracking performance, spotting risk, and measuring the impact of advising efforts.

Why It's Important

Good analysis makes interventions targeted and timely. You stop guessing and start prioritizing.

How to Improve Data Analysis (Excel) Skills

Work smarter with modern Excel:

1. Use current functions: Prefer XLOOKUP over VLOOKUP, learn INDEX(MATCH), and take advantage of dynamic arrays.

2. Master PivotTables: Summarize by cohort, course, or term in seconds. Slice and drill without breaking formulas.

3. Clean before you compute: Power Query for imports, de-duplication, standardization, and reshaping saves hours.

4. Visualize clearly: Use charts that match the message—lines for trends, bars for comparisons, heatmaps for hotspots. Keep labels crisp.

5. Automate the boring: Templates, named ranges, and simple macros reduce repetitive work.

6. Add basic stats: Averages, medians, standard deviation, simple regressions—enough to separate signal from noise.

Document your logic. Future-you (and colleagues) will thank you.

How to Display Data Analysis (Excel) Skills on Your Resume

9. CRM Systems (Salesforce)

CRMs track relationships at scale. In higher ed, Salesforce (including Education Cloud and Student Success Hub) helps advisors manage outreach, cases, appointments, and student journeys.

Why It's Important

Centralized notes, coordinated campaigns, and timely nudges mean no student falls through the cracks unnoticed.

How to Improve CRM Systems (Salesforce) Skills

Make Salesforce your command center:

1. Customize thoughtfully: Custom objects, fields, and page layouts focused on advising use cases—nothing extra, nothing missing.

2. Automate flow: Use Flows for reminders, escalations, and follow-ups. Reduce manual pinging.

3. Integrate the essentials: Sync with your SIS, LMS, and calendar/booking tools. One record of truth.

4. Standardize communication: Templates for common scenarios (probation outreach, registration opens, graduation checks) keep tone consistent and fast.

5. Measure what matters: Dashboards for caseloads, response times, engagement rates, and outcomes. Review them in team huddles.

6. Train continuously: Short Trailhead-based learning plans and office hours prevent drift and superstition-driven usage.

Governance matters—own your data model and naming conventions.

How to Display CRM Systems (Salesforce) Skills on Your Resume

10. Conflict Resolution

Conflict resolution turns friction into forward motion. Advisors mediate misunderstandings, align expectations, and preserve relationships that matter for learning.

Why It's Important

Unresolved conflict derails focus. Good resolution restores trust and clears the path.

How to Improve Conflict Resolution Skills

Stay calm, get curious, and structure the conversation:

1. Listen first: Let each party share uninterrupted. Summarize back to confirm understanding.

2. Name the issue: Clarify facts versus perceptions. Define the specific problem to solve.

3. Seek interests, not positions: Ask what each side needs and why. Options emerge.

4. Agree on next steps: Document actions, owners, and timelines. Follow up.

5. Reflect and learn: After resolution, note what you’d do differently next time.

Neutrality, empathy, and clarity—your trio of tools.

How to Display Conflict Resolution Skills on Your Resume

11. Time Management

Advisors juggle caseloads, appointments, notes, reports, and campus projects. Time management is how the work gets done without spilling over.

Why It's Important

Students get timely guidance, and you protect energy for deep work and crisis moments.

How to Improve Time Management Skills

Control the calendar before it controls you:

1. Time-block: Reserve blocks for appointments, email triage, notes, and project work. Defend them.

2. Triage with intent: Urgent vs. important—decide fast and schedule the rest.

3. Batch tasks: Group similar work (recommendation letters, early alerts, probation outreach) to maintain flow.

4. Automate scheduling: Use self-service booking, buffers, and reminder messages to cut back-and-forth.

5. Limit multitasking: Single-task for quality. Short breaks (Pomodoro-style) keep focus sharp.

Templates and checklists reduce cognitive load. Use them shamelessly.

How to Display Time Management Skills on Your Resume

12. Multicultural Competency

Multicultural competency means advising across differences with respect and effectiveness—recognizing how culture, identity, and lived experience shape student needs.

Why It's Important

Inclusive advising increases trust, access, and success. Students feel seen, so they engage.

How to Improve Multicultural Competency Skills

Commit to growth, not checklists:

1. Keep learning: Ongoing training on equity, identity, and culturally responsive practices.

2. Reflect regularly: Examine assumptions, language, and advising habits. Adjust with intention.

3. Offer access: Provide language support, inclusive forms, and varied meeting options (in-person, virtual, asynchronous).

4. Co-create solutions: Ask students what support would be most helpful. Don’t overprescribe.

5. Partner widely: Collaborate with cultural centers, TRIO, veteran services, disability resources, and community groups.

6. Gather feedback: Use short surveys and listening sessions. Measure and iterate.

Humility, curiosity, and follow-through are your compass.

How to Display Multicultural Competency Skills on Your Resume