3 Simple Steps To Start Your Career As A Social Worker

Becoming a social worker is one of the most meaningful and rewarding careers you can pursue. You work with others to help people improve their lives. It’s definitely the right path to go down if you have a burning passion for helping people and want to make a difference to other people's lives.

Bearing that in mind, how do you pursue a career as a social worker? Well, you start by reading the tips below:

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Step 1: Gain The Correct Qualifications

The first step is understanding what qualifications you need to become a social worker. Mainly, you will need to get a degree in this field of work. To begin, you can get a DSW and become a Doctor of social work. This is the standard degree you need to pursue this career. Naturally, if you want to go one step further, you can get an MSW and become a Master of social work. With this, you may be able to find better jobs and have a better career as you’ve got higher qualifications. Either way, a degree is a must if you’re going down this career path. All employers will put either a DSW or MSW in their list of essential requirements.

Step 2: Develop The Right Skills

It’s important that you pursue this career with good knowledge of what skills are required. When you start looking for jobs, every employer will list a set of skills they want the ideal applicant to have. If you can’t run through these and say to yourself “yes, I’ve got all these skills,” then you may as well not bother with the application. Your degree in itself isn’t enough to show an employer you’re worthy of a social worker career, they need to know you’ve got the skills. So, you should start developing the required skills and provide examples of them in your application.

The skills you need include; exceptional communication, good people skills, the ability to empathize, excellent time management, brilliant patience, and fantastic problem-solving. There will probably be a few others, but these are the key ones you should develop and showcase.

Step 3: Get Some Experience

Employers are always looking for social workers with a little bit of experience behind them. This can be used to help show off your skills, and it also shows the employer you can handle social work jobs. Of course, how can you get experience if you’re still looking for your first job? It’s easy, do some unpaid volunteer work while you study. Your college might even help set you up with volunteer placements if you ask. This helps you gain the right experience and makes you stand out as the best candidate possible.

With these three steps, you will jumpstart your career as a social worker. You’ll have the right qualifications, skills, and experience to make yourself a great candidate for any roles. Now, it’s just a question of finding jobs and preparing for interviews. Be yourself and keep calling on your experience and education as it will help you prove your worth.

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