Top 12 Principal Skills to Put on Your Resume
Crafting a striking resume matters. Show the skills that do the heavy lifting. When you spotlight the core strengths a principal needs—and show evidence—you give hiring teams fewer doubts and more reasons to call.
Principal Skills
- Leadership
- Budgeting
- Curriculum Development
- Conflict Resolution
- Strategic Planning
- Team Building
- Data Analysis
- Educational Technology
- Staff Evaluation
- Community Engagement
- Policy Implementation
- Student Counseling
1. Leadership
Leadership for a principal means rallying people around a clear vision, inspiring steady improvement, and protecting a school culture where every student and adult can do their best work.
Why It's Important
It shapes vision into action. It drives teaching quality, climate, and results. Strong leadership turns plans into progress and keeps momentum when things get messy.
How to Improve Leadership Skills
Keep learning, stay visible, and make trust your daily habit. Try these moves:
Sharpen communication: Set expectations plainly. Listen hard. Close loops fast.
Build culture on purpose: Celebrate wins, model inclusion, and protect time for collaboration and reflection.
Invest in growth: Read widely, seek coaching, observe other schools, and turn insights into small pilot tests.
Lead with consistency: Align words and actions. Own mistakes. Share credit freely.
Invite feedback: Use staff and student input to adjust course, not as a box-check.
Do this steadily and credibility compounds.
How to Display Leadership Skills on Your Resume
2. Budgeting
Budgeting is the discipline of aligning dollars with priorities, forecasting needs, and tracking spending so resources reach students and staff where they matter most.
Why It's Important
It keeps the school solvent, supports strategic goals, and ensures programs aren’t powered by hope alone. Smart budgets protect learning time and quality.
How to Improve Budgeting Skills
Treat the budget as a living plan, not a spreadsheet snapshot.
Set goals first: Tie spending to a small set of measurable academic and culture outcomes.
Engage stakeholders: Involve staff, families, and student voices so trade-offs reflect real needs. The Association of School Business Officials International (ASBO International) provides widely used practices worth mirroring.
Pick the right tools: Use budget and forecasting software for scenario planning and transparency. Compare options, test with real data, and train your team.
Monitor and adjust: Run monthly variance reviews. Reallocate when data or enrollment shifts. Follow Government Finance Officers Association guidance on midyear corrections.
Build capacity: Offer finance PD so department leads understand constraints, timelines, and the why behind decisions.
Clarity plus cadence equals control.
How to Display Budgeting Skills on Your Resume
3. Curriculum Development
Curriculum development is the design, alignment, and continuous refinement of what students learn, how they learn it, and how mastery is measured—so instruction meets standards and student needs.
Why It's Important
It keeps learning relevant, rigorous, and coherent across grades. Students get a fair shot at mastery; teachers get clarity and usable materials.
How to Improve Curriculum Development Skills
Make it iterative and anchored in evidence.
Align tightly: Map standards to units and assessments. Weight what matters most—critical thinking, writing, problem solving.
Co-create with stakeholders: Engage teachers, students, and families. Diverse input surfaces gaps you’ll miss alone.
Integrate technology wisely: Use tools that extend practice, feedback, and access. Follow the ISTE standards spirit: purposeful, student-centered, ethical.
Prioritize teacher learning: Provide training, model lessons, coaching cycles, and PLCs focused on the adopted materials.
Evaluate continuously: Use common assessments, student work protocols, and walk-through data to refine pacing and tasks.
Embed real-world skills: Tie projects to authentic audiences and local partners. The P21 framework (now part of Battelle for Kids) is a useful lens for transferable skills.
Keep flexibility: Build room for adjustments when standards or student needs shift midyear.
Think “prototype, test, refine,” not “set and forget.”
How to Display Curriculum Development Skills on Your Resume
4. Conflict Resolution
Conflict resolution is the art of moving people from friction to agreement through listening, clarity, and fair processes that protect dignity.
Why It's Important
Unresolved conflict bleeds time and trust. Effective resolution restores safety, keeps learning on track, and models the adult behavior students deserve to see.
How to Improve Conflict Resolution Skills
Slow down to go fast later.
Listen actively: Paraphrase, probe, and separate feelings from facts before proposing fixes.
Show empathy: Acknowledge perspectives and impact. People cooperate when they feel seen.
Negotiate interests, not positions: Look for win-win options that satisfy core needs on both sides.
Use clear processes: Establish steps, timelines, and documentation so all parties know what’s next.
Strengthen culture: Teach restorative practices, norms for discourse, and preventative routines.
Consistency beats charisma in tough moments.
How to Display Conflict Resolution Skills on Your Resume
5. Strategic Planning
Strategic planning means setting a long-range direction, choosing a few high-leverage goals, and turning them into actions, owners, and timelines that actually happen.
Why It's Important
It aligns people and resources. It prevents initiative overload. It builds a throughline from classroom practice to student outcomes.
How to Improve Strategic Planning Skills
Make strategy simple, visible, and measurable.
Define SMART goals: Specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, time-bound—then cut anything that doesn’t serve them.
Engage stakeholders: Co-create the plan and pressure-test assumptions with teachers, families, students, and partners.
Run a SWOT: Name strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats. Use it to pick fewer, better bets.
Translate to action: Build 90-day plans with clear owners, milestones, and check-ins. Think scorecards people actually use.
Review rhythm: Hold monthly data reviews. Adjust quickly when indicators drift.
Communicate often: Share progress publicly. Celebrate movement, not just endpoints.
Champion continuous improvement: Encourage pilots, reflections, and iterate without blame.
Plans don’t fail for lack of ideas—only for lack of follow-through.
How to Display Strategic Planning Skills on Your Resume
6. Team Building
Team building strengthens trust, communication, and coordination so staff can solve problems together and move faster with less friction.
Why It's Important
Schools run on teams. When teams hum, students feel it: smoother routines, better instruction, stronger support.
How to Improve Team Building Skills
Design for connection and clarity.
Open the channels: Hold regular, purposeful meetings with norms and outcomes. Create safe ways to surface concerns.
Set shared goals: Align teams around a small set of targets and metrics they can influence.
Build collaboration muscles: Use protocols for looking at student work, co-planning, and peer observation.
Recognize often: Catch people doing the right things. Make praise specific and public.
Grow together: Offer team-based PD and time to practice. Make learning social.
Model the way: Show up prepared, curious, and accountable. Your behavior sets the bar.
Belonging drives performance.
How to Display Team Building Skills on Your Resume
7. Data Analysis
Data analysis is turning numbers and evidence into decisions—finding patterns, testing hypotheses, and acting on what you learn.
Why It's Important
It reduces guesswork. It spots inequities. It guides resource allocation and instructional shifts that move achievement.
How to Improve Data Analysis Skills
Keep it practical and people-centered.
Raise data literacy: Train staff to read, question, and interpret data responsibly. Demystify terms and methods.
Use the right tools: Try Looker Studio (formerly Google Data Studio), Tableau, or your SIS dashboards to visualize trends and compare cohorts.
Build a data culture: Make data conversations routine in PLCs. Focus on student work, not just charts.
Chase actionable insights: Start with a question, not a report. Decide in advance what decisions the data will inform.
Learn continuously: Tap webinars, micro-courses, and peer networks to keep methods fresh.
Collect less, use more. That’s the aim.
How to Display Data Analysis Skills on Your Resume
8. Educational Technology
Educational technology is the smart use of digital tools to expand access, personalize learning, and make instruction more engaging and efficient.
Why It's Important
It opens doors for students, supports differentiation, speeds feedback, and strengthens home-school communication—all while preparing kids for a digital world.
How to Improve Educational Technology Skills
Lead with pedagogy, not gadgets.
Prioritize PD: Provide training and coaching on integrating tech into core instruction, not as an add-on.
Strengthen infrastructure: Reliable devices, secure networks, and responsive support keep learning uninterrupted.
Engage families: Offer tech orientations and multilingual guides so caregivers can support learning at home.
Adopt adaptive tools: Use platforms that adjust to student needs and provide clear data for teachers.
Decide with data: Evaluate tools based on usage, outcomes, and cost-effectiveness—not hype.
Teach digital citizenship: Embed safe, ethical, and responsible use of technology into the curriculum.
Pursue creative funding: Seek grants and partnerships to stretch budgets and expand access.
Tech should make great teaching easier, not louder.
How to Display Educational Technology Skills on Your Resume
9. Staff Evaluation
Staff evaluation is the structured review of performance—observations, evidence, and feedback—aimed at growth, support, and accountability.
Why It's Important
Clear expectations and timely coaching strengthen instruction, retain talent, and raise student outcomes.
How to Improve Staff Evaluation Skills
Make it fair, frequent, and formative.
Set crisp expectations: Define rubrics, exemplars, and goals for each role. No surprises.
Use multiple measures: Combine observations, student results, artifacts, self-reflection, and peer feedback for a fuller picture.
Give regular feedback: Short, actionable notes beat annual monologues. Follow up and support practice.
Fuel professional learning: Link feedback to PD, coaching, and collaboration. ASCD-aligned approaches work well.
Hold reflective conversations: Ask teachers to analyze evidence, set goals, and plan next steps. Listen first.
Leverage platforms: Use evaluation systems to track goals, evidence, and timelines consistently.
Growth sticks when support meets standards.
How to Display Staff Evaluation Skills on Your Resume
10. Community Engagement
Community engagement means building strong, two-way relationships with families, local organizations, and neighbors to boost student success and school improvement.
Why It's Important
When the community is a partner, students get more opportunities, schools gain trust, and initiatives land with support.
How to Improve Community Engagement Skills
Invite, inform, and involve.
Host meaningful events: Open houses, cultural nights, showcases, and student-led conferences that highlight learning and invite dialogue.
Use social channels wisely: Share stories, wins, and reminders consistently. Celebrate students and staff.
Send clear newsletters: Short, multilingual, actionable updates that families actually read.
Create involvement pathways: Volunteer roles, parent advisory groups, mentorships, and classroom partnerships.
Collect feedback: Surveys, forums, and listening sessions—then show how you acted on what you heard.
Partner locally: Work with businesses, nonprofits, and libraries to expand resources and real-world learning.
Respect people’s time and they’ll keep showing up.
How to Display Community Engagement Skills on Your Resume
11. Policy Implementation
Policy implementation is turning written policy into daily practice—clear steps, training, monitoring, and adjustment.
Why It's Important
Policies only matter if they live in classrooms and hallways. Good implementation ensures compliance, consistency, and impact.
How to Improve Policy Implementation Skills
Clarity first, then capacity.
Communicate purpose and process: Explain the why, what, who, and when in plain language. Repeat often.
Engage stakeholders early: Involve teachers, students, and families to surface barriers and build buy-in.
Provide training and tools: Offer scenarios, checklists, and practice so staff can carry policies out confidently.
Monitor and refine: Track implementation with walkthroughs and feedback loops. Adjust when evidence says so.
Implementation is a process, not an event.
How to Display Policy Implementation Skills on Your Resume
12. Student Counseling
Student counseling supports academic, social, and emotional needs through direct services, prevention, and coordination with staff and families.
Why It's Important
Well-being fuels learning. Counseling helps students manage stress, make decisions, and stay connected to school.
How to Improve Student Counseling Skills
Increase access, quality, and trust.
Make services easy to reach: Clear referral paths, student self-referrals, and simple scheduling options.
Invest in training: Ongoing PD on trauma-informed care, crisis response, and current youth mental health trends.
Normalize help-seeking: Campaigns, peer leadership, and teacher scripts that reduce stigma.
Blend technology thoughtfully: Offer vetted digital resources and, where appropriate, secure virtual counseling options.
Partner with families and providers: Coordinate with caregivers and local mental health organizations to extend support beyond school walls.
Evaluate impact: Track goals, utilization, and outcomes. Use student feedback to improve services.
Safe students learn more. Simple as that.
How to Display Student Counseling Skills on Your Resume
