---
title: "Educational, Guidance, and Career Counselor and Advisor"
description: "Advise and assist students and provide educational and vocational guidance services."
canonical: "https://nuecareer.com/careers/educational-guidance-and-career-counselor-and-advisor"
last-updated: "2026-08-23T15:56:39.581Z"
---

# Educational, Guidance, and Career Counselor and Advisor

**Category:** Community and Social Service · **SOC code:** 21-1012 · **O\*NET-SOC code:** 21-1012.00

Advise and assist students and provide educational and vocational guidance services.

Also advertised as: Academic Advisor; Academic Counselor; Admissions Counselor; Career Counselor; College Counselor; Elementary School Counselor; Guidance Counselor; School Counselor.

## At a glance

- **Median annual wage:** $64,330 (BLS OEWS, May 2025)
- **Median hourly wage:** $30.93/hr
- **Wage range (10th–90th percentile):** $45,020 to $104,770, with the middle half between $51,270 and $82,870
- **Total US employment:** 353,310
- **Typical entry education:** Master's
- **Preparation required:** Considerable preparation — O\*NET rates this "Job Zone Five: Extensive Preparation Needed"
- **Projected growth:** +3.5% over 2024–2034 (BLS EP, 2024–2034)
- **Annual job openings:** 31,000 openings a year
- **AI-resilience score:** 29/100 — a NueCareer heuristic over O\*NET work activities and context, not a BLS or O\*NET figure

## Pay

National wage distribution, BLS OEWS, May 2025, across 353,310 US jobs.

| Percentile | Annual wage |
| --- | --- |
| 10th | $45,020 |
| 25th | $51,270 |
| 50th (median) | $64,330 |
| 75th | $82,870 |
| 90th | $104,770 |
| Mean (average) | $71,430 |

### Pay by state

The 15 highest-paying states, by median annual wage. The cost-of-living-adjusted column divides the state median by that state's BEA Regional Price Parity, so the columns answer different questions: the first is what the job pays there, the second is what that pay buys there.

| State | Median annual wage | Cost-of-living adjusted | Employment |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| CA | $86,500 | $78,125 | 45,140 |
| AK | $82,900 | $80,989 | 540 |
| WA | $82,670 | $77,252 | 6,610 |
| DC | $80,470 | $73,220 | 1,690 |
| MA | $79,930 | $75,579 | 11,460 |
| NJ | $77,910 | $71,605 | 8,190 |
| NM | $77,880 | $84,458 | 1,780 |
| MD | $75,820 | $72,238 | 6,600 |
| RI | $75,000 | $73,328 | 1,340 |
| DE | $74,070 | $74,212 | 1,700 |
| CT | $73,910 | $71,335 | 3,370 |
| NY | $71,610 | $66,354 | 23,380 |
| NH | $71,080 | $68,238 | 1,650 |
| TX | $67,900 | $69,959 | 31,730 |
| VA | $67,660 | $66,921 | 9,450 |

38 more states with published wage data are omitted here. The full table for all 53 states is at https://nuecareer.com/careers/educational-guidance-and-career-counselor-and-advisor/salary-by-state, or as JSON at https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/educational-guidance-and-career-counselor-and-advisor.

## Outlook

BLS projects employment to move from 376,300 in the 2024–2034 base year to 389,600 by the end of the cycle — a gain of 13,300 jobs, or +3.5%. About as fast as average: 3.5% against 3.1% projected for all occupations over the same cycle. About 31,000 openings a year are expected on average, counting openings from growth as well as from workers leaving the occupation permanently. Source: BLS EP, 2024–2034.

## How to get in

- **Typical entry education:** Master's degree (BLS Employment Projections).
- **Preparation level:** Considerable preparation — O\*NET's preparation band for this occupation is "Job Zone Five: Extensive Preparation Needed".
- **Related work experience typically required:** None.
- **Typical on-the-job training:** None.

### Education people in this job actually hold

O\*NET surveys incumbents, so this distribution describes who is in the job today and can differ from the BLS entry requirement above.

| Education level | Share of workers |
| --- | --- |
| Bachelor's Degree | 56.3% |
| Master's Degree | 40.7% |
| Associate's Degree (or other 2-year degree) | 2.5% |
| Post-Master's Certificate | 0.5% |

## What the work involves

- Attend meetings, educational conferences, and training workshops, and serve on committees.
- Counsel students regarding educational issues, such as course and program selection, class scheduling and registration, school adjustment, truancy, study habits, and career planning.
- Prepare students for later educational experiences by encouraging them to explore learning opportunities and to persevere with challenging tasks.
- Counsel individuals or groups to help them understand and overcome personal, social, or behavioral problems affecting their educational or vocational situations.
- Provide students with information on topics such as college degree programs and admission requirements, financial aid opportunities, trade and technical schools, and apprenticeship programs.
- Maintain accurate and complete student records as required by laws, district policies, and administrative regulations.
- Refer students to outside counseling services.
- Refer students to degree programs based on interests, aptitudes, or educational assessments.

## Skills and knowledge

### Essential skills

- Active Listening — importance 4.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Speaking — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Reading Comprehension — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Writing — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Critical Thinking — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Learning — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Learning Strategies — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Monitoring — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Transferable skills

These are the skills that carry into other occupations, and they drive the related-occupation and career-change rankings on this site.

- Social Perceptiveness — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Service Orientation — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Complex Problem Solving — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Coordination — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Persuasion — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Instructing — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Judgment and Decision Making — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Negotiation — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Knowledge areas

- Customer and Personal Service — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- English Language — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Therapy and Counseling — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Education and Training — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Psychology — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Administrative — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Abilities

- Oral Comprehension — importance 4.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Oral Expression — importance 4.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Written Comprehension — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Written Expression — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Problem Sensitivity — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Deductive Reasoning — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

## Who it suits

O\*NET rates every occupation on the six Holland (RIASEC) interest areas, on a 1–7 scale. This occupation's strongest areas are Social (S), Conventional (C), Enterprising (E).

| Interest area | Score (1–7) |
| --- | --- |
| S — Social | 7.00 |
| C — Conventional | 4.09 |
| E — Enterprising | 3.92 |
| I — Investigative | 3.30 |
| A — Artistic | 3.13 |
| R — Realistic | 1.00 |

### Personality fit

These scores are **derived by NueCareer**, not published by any government agency: they are cosine similarities between a personality type's trait profile and this occupation's O\*NET interest and work-style ratings, expressed 0–100. Treat them as a starting point for exploration, not as evidence that a type belongs in a job.

| Type | Fit score (0–100) |
| --- | --- |
| ENFJ | 80.0 |
| ESFJ | 75.5 |
| ESFP | 71.2 |
| ENFP | 67.4 |
| INFJ | 61.2 |

Best-fitting types: ENFJ, ESFJ.

## Related occupations

O\*NET's primary related occupations, in its own ranked order.

- [Rehabilitation Counselor](https://nuecareer.com/careers/rehabilitation-counselor) — median $46,850
- [School Psychologist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/school-psychologist) — median $95,990
- [Instructional Coordinator](https://nuecareer.com/careers/instructional-coordinator) — median $77,440
- [Education Teacher, Postsecondary](https://nuecareer.com/careers/education-teacher-postsecondary) — median $75,350
- [School Social Worker](https://nuecareer.com/careers/school-social-worker) — median $59,550
- [Special Education Teacher, Kindergarten](https://nuecareer.com/careers/special-education-teacher-kindergarten) — median $67,170
- [Social and Human Service Assistant](https://nuecareer.com/careers/social-and-human-service-assistant) — median $45,930
- [Special Education Teacher, Elementary School](https://nuecareer.com/careers/special-education-teacher-elementary-school) — median $67,170
- [Career/Technical Education Teacher, Middle School](https://nuecareer.com/careers/career-technical-education-teacher-middle-school) — median $65,030
- [Health Education Specialist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/health-education-specialist) — median $64,070

## Sources

- **O\*NET** — O\*NET 30.3 Database, May 2026. https://www.onetcenter.org/database.html
- **BLS OEWS** — BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025. https://www.bls.gov/oes/
- **BLS EP** — BLS Employment Projections, Table 1.2, 2024–2034. https://www.bls.gov/emp/
- **BLS OOH** — BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook, 2024–2034 edition. https://www.bls.gov/ooh/
- **BEA RPP** — BEA Regional Price Parities by State, 2024. https://www.bea.gov/data/prices-inflation/regional-price-parities-state-and-metro-area

---

This bank includes information from the O\*NET 30.3 Database by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA). Used under the CC BY 4.0 license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). O\*NET® is a trademark of USDOL/ETA. NueCareer has transformed the data by joining it to BLS wage and projection data and deriving facet, personality-fit and AI-resilience scores. BLS and BEA data are public domain (17 U.S.C. §105).

O\*NET content is used under [CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). How these figures are sourced and derived: https://nuecareer.com/careers/methodology

JSON representation of this page: https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/educational-guidance-and-career-counselor-and-advisor