Skills
Family and Consumer Sciences Professor Skills & Tools
The technical skills, people skills and tools employers look for in family and consumer sciences professors, and how to build and show them.
Family and Consumer Sciences Professors need technical skills such as human development, family studies, and nutrition basics, plus people skills like empathy and communication. They also use tools such as Learning management systems and Survey software.
Technical (hard) skills
- Human development
- Family studies
- Nutrition basics
- Consumer finance
- Research
- Teacher preparation
People (soft) skills
- Empathy
- Communication
- Mentoring
- Organization
Tools, equipment and technology
- Learning management systems
- Survey software
- Observation tools
- Food labs
- Budget simulations
- Presentation tools
Skills in action: common tasks
These step-by-step guides show how family and consumer sciences professors put their skills to work:
- How to teach a household budgeting simulation
- How to supervise students in a lab preschool
- How to partner with cooperative extension
How to show these skills on a resume
- Lead your skills section with the technical skills from the job posting, for example, “Human development” and “Family studies.”
- Prove soft skills with results: instead of listing “empathy,” describe a situation where you used it.
- List credentials such as Ph.D. near the top, with the issuing organization and date.
- Use the employer’s vocabulary. Our family and consumer sciences professor glossary covers the terms hiring managers expect.
How to build these skills
Formal training, supervised practice and certification are the most direct routes. Our Family and Consumer Sciences Professor training introduces each of these skills with plain-language lessons, procedures and a final knowledge check: a strong foundation before hands-on training or your first day.