Therapist and counselor resume keywords

We counted the skills in 299 open therapist and counselor job postings from 9 employers, including Lyra Health, Equinox and SonderMind. The ones employers ask for most are behavioral health (80% of postings), social work (61%) and billing (59%). 46% of the postings mention AI, though often in the company's description rather than as a skill the job needs.

Top skills and tools in therapist and counselor postings

#	Keyword	Share of postings
1	behavioral health	80%
2	social work	61%
3	billing	59%
4	telehealth	39%
5	marketing	18%
6	patient care	18%
7	hospitality	18%
8	CPT	18%
9	payments	16%
10	admissions	12%
11	HR	12%
12	EMR	9%
13	IT support	7%
14	counseling	5%
15	data privacy	4%
16	quality control	4%
17	claims processing	4%
18	QA	3%
19	clinical research	2%
20	onboarding	2%
21	partnerships	2%
22	reconciliation	2%
23	Apache Spark	2%
24	care coordination	2%

Share of the 299 postings whose description names the skill (plurals and common spellings, such as “JS” and “JavaScript”, count as one).

Soft skills employers mention

communication · 42%documentation · 36%collaboration · 23%decision making · 17%leadership · 16%work independently · 9%attention to detail · 4%reporting · 4%coaching · 3%

Show these through results in your bullets (“led a team of six”) rather than listing them as adjectives.

Languages

bilingual · 8%Spanish · 2%

How to use these keywords on your therapist and counselor resume

Start with the posting, not this list. These are averages across 299 jobs; the one you're applying for has its own priorities. Use this page to spot common gaps, then match the specific posting.
Name skills the way employers do. If you use “behavioral health”, “social work” and “billing”, write those exact words. Applicant tracking systems and recruiters search for them, and a close synonym can be missed.
Put each skill in a bullet that shows a result. Naming telehealth inside a bullet about what you achieved with it, with a number where you can, is stronger than listing it alone in a skills section.
Add only what's true. If you've worked with “telehealth”, “marketing” and “patient care” but your resume doesn't say so, add it. If you haven't, leave it out: interviews expose padded resumes quickly.

More about therapist and counselor jobs

Resume keywords for other jobs

How these numbers are calculated

Every figure comes from open therapist and counselor job postings on MANY Hired, imported from employers' own career pages. For each posting we pick out the skills, tools, certifications and qualifications its description names, then count how many postings ask for each one. A job counts as therapist and counselor by its title. Updated November 8, 2026.