LO
Social worker — skills, knowledge and links
Where this job sits in the official classifications, what those classifications say it demands, and what it connects to. Every block names its source: our own judgements, the U.S. Department of Labor's O*NET, or the U.S. Department of Education.
How it connects#
O*NET also lists (no page here yet): Healthcare Social Workers · Marriage and Family Therapists · Mental Health and Substance Abuse Social Workers · Rehabilitation Counselors · Social and Human Service Assistants · Social and Community Service Managers · Community Health Workers · Educational, Guidance, and Career Counselors and Advisors
In the official classification#
Child, Family, and School Social Workers
Fit with this page: covers part of this page
Job Zone 4: considerable preparation
See it on O*NET OnLine ↗What O*NET rates highest#
From O*NET 21-1021.00 (Child, Family, and School Social Workers). Ordered by O*NET's importance rating; the words are O*NET's own scale anchors.
Transferable skills
- Social PerceptivenessVery important
- Service OrientationVery important
- Judgment and Decision MakingVery important
- Complex Problem SolvingVery important
- CoordinationVery important
- PersuasionVery important
- NegotiationVery important
- Time ManagementVery important
Knowledge
- Customer and Personal ServiceVery important
- PsychologyVery important
- Therapy and CounselingVery important
- English LanguageVery important
- AdministrativeVery important
- Sociology and AnthropologyImportant
Work activities
- Establishing and Maintaining Interpersonal RelationshipsExtremely important
- Communicating with Supervisors, Peers, or SubordinatesExtremely important
- Getting InformationExtremely important
- Documenting/Recording InformationExtremely important
- Identifying Objects, Actions, and EventsExtremely important
- Communicating with People Outside the OrganizationVery important
Abilities
- Oral ExpressionExtremely important
- Oral ComprehensionVery important
- Problem SensitivityVery important
- Written ComprehensionVery important
- Written ExpressionVery important
- Speech ClarityVery important
Essential skills
- Active ListeningExtremely important
- SpeakingExtremely important
- Critical ThinkingVery important
- Reading ComprehensionVery important
- MonitoringVery important
Our task judgements#
O*NET says what this job demands. It does not say what automation is doing to it — that is what this site's 6 task judgements are for: 2 backed by a verified event, 4 platform inference. VOLO judgement
Sources and rules#
- Four kinds of source, and each block says which: this site's own judgements, O*NET, the U.S. Department of Education's CIP–SOC crosswalk, or something computed mechanically from those. Nothing on this page is a rating we made up.
- O*NET's importance ratings are used only to order and shorten the lists. They are never combined with this site's impact index or evidence counts.
- The fit between our page and an O*NET occupation is our judgement and is stated per code: same job, broader, part of it, or only the closest there is.
- O*NET 31.0 Database, August 2026 release, U.S. Department of Labor/Employment and Training Administration, CC BY 4.0. O*NET® is a trademark of USDOL/ETA. The translations of O*NET descriptors on this page are ours, not O*NET's.