Top 12 Enrollment Advisor Skills to Put on Your Resume

In the crowded realm of academic advising, your resume needs spark and substance. Hiring teams skim fast. You’ve got seconds to show you can shepherd prospective students from curiosity to enrollment with clarity, care, and data-smart precision. These are the 12 skills that carry weight—and how to sharpen them so your application hums.

Enrollment Advisor Skills

1. Salesforce CRM
2. PeopleSoft
3. Banner
4. Zoom proficiency
5. Microsoft Office
6. Data analysis
7. Customer relationship management (CRM)
8. Conflict resolution
9. Bilingual communication
10. Time management
11. Active listening
12. Empathy

1. Salesforce CRM

Salesforce CRM is a cloud platform that organizes every interaction with prospective and current students, from first touch to enrollment and beyond. It corrals conversations, tasks, events, and outcomes into one reliable source of truth.

Why It's Important

It streamlines outreach, keeps leads from slipping through cracks, and powers personalized advising at scale. Better tracking. Faster follow-up. Clearer pipelines. Stronger yield.

How to Improve Salesforce CRM Skills

1. Model the lifecycle: Set up clear stages for inquiry → application → admit → enroll. Use record types and paths so steps are obvious and consistent.

2. Automate the grunt work: Build Flows for task creation, reminders, routing, and timely emails. Retire manual nudges; keep human effort for high-value conversations.

3. Design for the user: Trim page layouts, hide noise, add quick actions, and surface the fields advisors actually need. Speed wins.

4. Clean and guard data: Enable duplicate rules, validation, and field-level security. Respect FERPA and institutional policies. Trustworthy data is your advantage.

5. Report what matters: Create dashboards for conversions, velocity, melt, and advisor activity. Schedule them. Act on them.

6. Integrate smartly: Sync with SIS (e.g., Banner, PeopleSoft), calendaring, and marketing tools for a single, coherent view of each student.

7. Coach the team: Build short playbooks, do quick refreshers, and measure adoption. Tools don’t change outcomes—habits do.

How to Display Salesforce CRM Skills on Your Resume

2. PeopleSoft

PeopleSoft is an enterprise system that manages student data end to end—admissions, enrollment, advising, and financials—so advisors can view history, update records, and move processes forward with confidence.

Why It's Important

It centralizes information and workflows, reduces duplicate effort, and supports timely, accurate guidance. Students get answers faster. Advisors get a clearer picture.

How to Improve PeopleSoft Skills

1. Streamline the workspace: Use Fluid tiles, favorites, and personalized navigation to bring high-frequency pages front and center.

2. Lean on analytics: Build PS Query and dashboards for trend spotting—application flow, holds, time-to-decision, incomplete items.

3. Automate communications: Configure 3Cs (checklists, communications, comments) and letter generation to nudge students at the right moments.

4. Batch the busywork: Use run controls, scheduled processes, and templates so routine jobs fire without babysitting.

5. Tighten security: Apply least-privilege roles and audit updates; protect sensitive fields and adhere to privacy requirements.

6. Train in short loops: Offer micro-sessions for new features and collect feedback to squash friction spots quickly.

How to Display PeopleSoft Skills on Your Resume

3. Banner

Banner (Ellucian) is a student information system widely used in higher education to manage admissions, registration, records, financial aid, and advising workflows.

Why It's Important

It houses the canonical student record and powers day-to-day enrollment operations. Mastering Banner means quicker answers, cleaner data, fewer roadblocks.

How to Improve Banner Skills

1. Know the core pages: Admissions and student record forms, holds, registration, and note-taking screens—learn the fastest paths and common codes your campus uses.

2. Use Communication Management: Build rules, populations, and templates to trigger timely messages tied to status changes and milestones.

3. Schedule jobs, don’t chase them: Run processes through job submission, set recurring schedules, and monitor logs for errors before they snowball.

4. Integrate thoughtfully: Connect Banner with your CRM and reporting tools (via APIs or integration layers) to avoid double entry and stale data.

5. Audit and document: Track updates, standardize notes, and keep a quick-reference guide for common scenarios and exception handling.

6. Mind privacy: Enforce role-based access; never expose sensitive fields beyond what the job requires.

How to Display Banner Skills on Your Resume

4. Zoom proficiency

Zoom proficiency means running smooth, secure virtual meetings—screen sharing, breakout rooms, whiteboards, polls, recordings, the whole toolkit—so prospects feel seen and supported, even at a distance.

Why It's Important

Virtual-first isn’t going away. Clear, engaging sessions raise attendance, reduce no-shows, and keep the enrollment journey moving.

How to Improve Zoom proficiency Skills

1. Prep like a pro: Agenda sent. Registration enabled for group sessions. Waiting room on. Authentication set when needed.

2. Boost engagement: Use polls to surface needs, breakout rooms for Q&A, reactions to keep energy up, and the whiteboard to map next steps.

3. Get the tech right: Good mic, steady lighting, neutral background. Test audio/video and screen share before guests arrive.

4. Record responsibly: Ask permission, caption sessions, and store recordings where access is controlled and compliant.

5. Template your meetings: Saved settings for 1:1s, info sessions, and parent nights. Less clicking, fewer mistakes.

6. Keep secure: Use passcodes, lock meetings once all are present, and limit who can share.

How to Display Zoom proficiency Skills on Your Resume

5. Microsoft Office

Microsoft Office (now Microsoft 365) is the backbone suite—Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, plus Teams and OneDrive—for writing, analysis, presentations, communication, and secure file sharing.

Why It's Important

You’ll draft guides, analyze funnel metrics, build slide decks, and wrangle a sea of emails and appointments. Strong skills here save hours every week.

How to Improve Microsoft Office Skills

1. Speed up with templates: Standardize emails, offer letters, and advising summaries. Consistent tone, zero rework.

2. Level up Excel: PivotTables, XLOOKUP, data validation, conditional formatting, and Power Query for cleaning and merging lists.

3. Make slides reusable: PowerPoint Slide Master for branded, clean decks you can update in minutes.

4. Tame the inbox: Outlook rules, categories, Quick Steps, and shared calendars—turn chaos into rhythm.

5. Automate routine flow: Use Power Automate for reminders, status updates, and handoffs between email, Teams, and lists.

6. Share safely: OneDrive/SharePoint with version history and permissions. No more mystery files.

How to Display Microsoft Office Skills on Your Resume

6. Data analysis

Data analysis turns raw records into decisions—collecting, cleaning, segmenting, visualizing, and interpreting information to spot patterns and act with confidence.

Why It's Important

It sharpens recruitment strategy, reveals friction points, and boosts yield and retention. Evidence beats hunches.

How to Improve Data analysis Skills

1. Define your metrics: Inquiries, apps, admits, enrolls, yield, melt, response time, and channel performance. Write them down. Align on definitions.

2. Clean relentlessly: De-duplicate, standardize fields, and fix outliers before you analyze. Bad inputs, bad outputs.

3. Slice cohorts: Segment by program, geography, modality, term, or source to find where momentum surges—or stalls.

4. Visualize simply: Use clear charts in Excel or Power BI. Keep axes honest. Highlight the “so what.”

5. Experiment: A/B test subject lines, send times, and session formats. Track lift, keep winners, move on fast.

6. Predict carefully: Try basic models or scoring to prioritize outreach, and validate against real outcomes before scaling.

How to Display Data analysis Skills on Your Resume

7. Customer relationship management (CRM)

CRM is the strategy and system for managing every touchpoint with prospects and students—capturing history, timing outreach, and aligning teams around the student journey.

Why It's Important

It enables personalized communication at scale and ensures no one gets lost between steps. Conversion rises when follow-up is timely and relevant.

How to Improve Customer relationship management (CRM) Skills

1. Map the journey: Document stages, owners, and service levels. What happens, when, and why.

2. Segment and prioritize: Score leads by intent and fit. Allocate advisor time where it matters most.

3. Standardize touchpoints: Build message libraries and cadences for common scenarios, then personalize on top.

4. Orchestrate channels: Email, SMS, phone, chat, events—coordinate them so students don’t get duplicate or conflicting messages.

5. Measure and refine: Track open rates, replies, appointments booked, and conversions by sequence. Prune what underperforms.

6. Honor consent: Manage opt-ins, respect quiet hours, and store communication preferences transparently.

How to Display Customer relationship management (CRM) Skills on Your Resume

8. Conflict resolution

Conflict resolution means turning friction—about policies, timelines, eligibility, or expectations—into clarity and next steps that everyone can live with.

Why It's Important

It protects trust, preserves momentum, and reflects well on the institution. Problems handled well often deepen commitment.

How to Improve Conflict resolution Skills

1. Start with calm: Breathe, de-escalate, and acknowledge emotions before diving into facts.

2. Listen for interests: Ask what the student needs beneath the surface. Clarify, reflect, and summarize often.

3. Name constraints: Be transparent about policies and where flexibility exists. No false promises.

4. Co-create options: Offer choices that meet the goal—alternate timelines, comparable programs, or documented exceptions when allowed.

5. Agree on action: Who does what, by when. Put it in writing and share it.

6. Follow up: Check back to confirm the plan worked—or adjust quickly if it didn’t.

How to Display Conflict resolution Skills on Your Resume

9. Bilingual communication

Bilingual communication is the ability to connect clearly in two languages—accurately, respectfully, and with cultural awareness.

Why It's Important

It expands access, reduces misunderstandings, and fosters belonging. Families feel welcomed when they can speak in the language that feels natural.

How to Improve Bilingual communication Skills

1. Build fluency with purpose: Practice daily, expand advising-specific vocabulary, and rehearse common enrollment scenarios.

2. Mind culture, not just words: Learn norms, forms of address, and sensitive topics so your tone lands as intended.

3. Use glossaries: Standardize translations for key terms (transcripts, transfer credit, deposits) to avoid drift.

4. Review translations: Have a second reader check critical materials. Accuracy beats speed.

5. Offer interpreters when needed: Especially for complex financial aid or accommodations discussions.

6. Simplify: Short sentences, plain language, and visuals help across languages and literacy levels.

How to Display Bilingual communication Skills on Your Resume

10. Time management

Time management is the craft of prioritizing, batching, and scheduling work so advising stays high-touch without burning out the clock.

Why It's Important

Faster response times, fewer missed follow-ups, steadier pipelines. Students feel cared for; you feel in control.

How to Improve Time management Skills

1. Time-block your day: Calls in batches, email windows, advising sessions, admin sprints. Protect focus.

2. Prioritize by impact: Urgent and important first; low-value tasks later—or not at all.

3. Template everything: Common emails, checklists, and notes. Click, tweak, send.

4. Use a simple board: A personal Kanban or task list with limits. Too many “in progress” items? You’re stuck.

5. Automate scheduling: Share availability and let students book time. Add buffers to prevent overload.

6. Review weekly: Scan upcoming deadlines, stale tasks, and key students. Reset before the week resets you.

How to Display Time management Skills on Your Resume

11. Active listening

Active listening is full-focus attention—hearing content and emotion, reflecting it back, and checking understanding before you advise.

Why It's Important

Students feel respected and understood, and you avoid misfires. Better rapport, better guidance, better decisions.

How to Improve Active listening Skills

1. Be present: Silence notifications, make eye contact, and keep your pace slow enough to really hear.

2. Reflect and clarify: Paraphrase what you heard and ask, “Did I get that right?” Small loop, big payoff.

3. Notice the unsaid: Tone, pauses, hesitations—signal worries you can address directly.

4. Label feelings: “It sounds like you’re overwhelmed by the timeline.” Naming reduces pressure.

5. Close with a summary: Capture needs, options, and next steps in a quick recap. Add it to your notes so nothing drifts.

How to Display Active listening Skills on Your Resume

12. Empathy

Empathy is the muscle that lets you feel a student’s stress, hopes, and barriers—and respond with care and useful help.

Why It's Important

Trust grows when students feel seen. With trust, tough conversations get easier and commitments stick.

How to Improve Empathy Skills

1. Practice perspective-taking: Ask yourself, “What might this feel like from their seat?” Then check your assumption.

2. Normalize the jitters: Acknowledge anxiety about cost, fit, and timelines. Reduce shame; invite questions.

3. Use inclusive language: Avoid jargon. Reflect identities and family structures respectfully.

4. Hold healthy boundaries: Be warm and clear while staying within policy. Reliability is care.

5. Offer options, not ultimatums: Choice restores agency. Agency reduces stress. Progress follows.

How to Display Empathy Skills on Your Resume