Find out the top 10 core skills you need to master as a counseling services director and what hard skills you need to know to succeed in this job.
A counseling services director has the primary responsibility for managing and overseeing counseling services in various levels of an individual such as academic, career, and personal counseling. He/she is assigned the role of providing consultation on psychological matters to staff as well as coordinating counseling activities with other departments.
Other tasks that he/she can handle include; planning, organizing and supervising all counseling services activities, establish relevant goals and objectives in relation to the counseling services, assist in policy development and implementation, delegate work to other counseling personnel, monitor work progress of the department, participate budget preparation, and handle any administrative tasks assigned and performing any other duty assigned to him or her.
Core Skills Required to be a Counseling Services Director
Core skills describe a set of non-technical abilities, knowledge, and understanding that form the basis for successful participation in the workplace. Core skills enable employees to efficiently and professionally navigate the world of work and interact with others, as well as adapt and think critically to solve problems.
Core skills are often tagged onto job descriptions to find or attract employees with specific essential core values that enable the company to remain competitive, build relationships, and improve productivity.
A counseling services director should master the following 10 core skills to fulfill her job properly.
Interviewing:
Interviewing is an essential skill in making a sound hiring decision that seeks to find out the candidate's background, work experience, skill level, general overall intelligence, enthusiasm, attitudes, etc.
A Counseling Services Director ought to be equipped with the right techniques to handle interviews whether they are face to face or telephone as they can be grueling and intimidating to the candidate; clarity and calmness of tone and the atmosphere are ideal.
Delegation:
Delegation is assigning responsibility or authority to another person a junior or subordinate to carry out specific activities while remaining accountable for the outcome.
A Counseling Services Director must be equipped with skills on how to make the delegation work correctly to save the organization time and money and to allow the subordinate make wise decisions, skills, and motivation to become better and grow the company.
Strategic Planning:
Strategic Planning is organizational management activity that is used to set priorities, focus energy and resources, strengthen operations while guaranteeing that employees and other stakeholders are working towards common goals.
A Counseling Services Director should be liable to develop the systematic tools to be used in the organization's processes that coordinate and align resources and actions with the mission, vision, and strategy throughout the organization.
Planning and Scheduling:
Planning and Scheduling are the act of establishing a plan for a set of tasks that needs to be completed and including when they should be done.
A Counseling Services Director needs creativity in balancing both planning and scheduling by clearing defining what and how activities will be carried out by when and who in particular to ensure there are a clear flow and accountability to every staff.
Enthusiasm:
Enthusiasm is an intense enjoyment or a lively interest in a certain thing with a zest and a strong belief that can be felt by those around you.
A Counseling Services Director ought to be enthusiastic as well as create a friendly atmosphere that makes the staff comfortable with the surroundings, with the other employees to create a less passive working place.
Evaluating Others:
Evaluating others is the capacity to see the individuality in others and recognize a person's unique point of view.
A Counseling Services Director must master the skills of evaluating others to help his staff members to identify their talents and match those talents to the proper job without trying to judge them by their actions that can create a misinterpretation of who they are.
Goal and Objective Setting:
Goal and Objective Setting is the strategic plan that is set and laid down identifying how goals should be accomplished, by who and by what time.
A Counseling Services Director must detect and schedule each employee's goals, strategy, and objectives and keep motivating them to ensure all of them are met within the set time bringing growth to both the company and the employee.
Organizational Skills:
Organizational Skills is the ability to make use of time, energy and resources available in the most efficient manner to achieve their goal.
A Counseling Services Director should organize the work for the employees to ensure overall organization, planning, time management, scheduling, coordinating resources and meeting deadlines is handled most efficiently by each employee for both personal and professional growth.
Analytical Skills:
Analytical Skills is the ability to collect and analyze information, solve problems and make decisions according to the policies and regulations of the business.
A Counseling Services Director should hire employees who use clear, logical steps and excellent judgment to understand an issue from all angles before executing an action depending on the objective and the methodical approaches to benefit a company's productivity.
Product Knowledge:
Product Knowledge is an essential sales skill to understand the features of your product allowing you to present the benefits compellingly and accurately to the customer.
A Counseling Services Director should ensure the teams understand the company's goods or services and can quickly take a client through them, therefore, instilling faith, trust and respect in the customers which in turn creates a positive customer experience.
Hard Skills Required to be a Counseling Services Director
Hard skills are job-specific skill sets, or expertise, that are teachable and whose presence can be tested through exams. While core skills are more difficult to quantify and less tangible, hard skills are quantifiable and more defined.
Hard skills are usually listed on an applicant's resume to help recruiters know the applicant's qualifications for the applied position. A recruiter, therefore, needs to review the applicant's resume and education to find out if he/she has the knowledge necessary to get the job done.
A counseling services director should have a good command of the following hard skills to succeed in her job.