---
title: "Residential Advisor"
description: "Coordinate activities in resident facilities in secondary school and college dormitories, group homes, or similar establishments. Order supplies and…"
canonical: "https://nuecareer.com/careers/residential-advisor"
last-updated: "2026-10-09T10:57:55.138Z"
---

# Residential Advisor

**Category:** Personal Care and Service · **SOC code:** 39-9041 · **O\*NET-SOC code:** 39-9041.00

Coordinate activities in resident facilities in secondary school and college dormitories, group homes, or similar establishments. Order supplies and determine need for maintenance, repairs, and furnishings. May maintain household records and assign rooms. May assist residents with problem solving or refer them to counseling resources.

Also advertised as: Hall Coordinator; Residence Director; Residence Hall Director; Residence Life Coordinator; Residence Life Director; Resident Advisor; Resident Assistant; Resident Director.

## At a glance

- **Median annual wage:** $42,240 (BLS OEWS, May 2025)
- **Median hourly wage:** $20.31/hr
- **Wage range (10th–90th percentile):** $29,870 to $61,060, with the middle half between $35,510 and $49,920
- **Total US employment:** 84,760
- **Typical entry education:** High school
- **Preparation required:** Some preparation — O\*NET rates this "Job Zone Three: Medium Preparation Needed"
- **Projected growth:** +3.5% over 2025–2035 (BLS EP, 2025–2035)
- **Annual job openings:** 16,500 openings a year
- **AI-resilience score:** 49/100 — 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 84,760 US jobs.

| Percentile | Annual wage |
| --- | --- |
| 10th | $29,870 |
| 25th | $35,510 |
| 50th (median) | $42,240 |
| 75th | $49,920 |
| 90th | $61,060 |
| Mean (average) | $43,990 |

### 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 |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| NH | $49,010 | $47,050 | 420 |
| MN | $48,770 | $49,452 | 3,410 |
| WA | $48,640 | $45,452 | 1,810 |
| ND | $48,590 | $54,621 | 260 |
| NY | $48,380 | $44,829 | 6,150 |
| MA | $48,190 | $45,567 | 5,120 |
| MT | $47,230 | $49,902 | 350 |
| OR | $47,160 | $45,626 | 840 |
| MD | $46,950 | $44,732 | 2,640 |
| CA | $46,650 | $42,133 | 8,120 |
| AK | $46,180 | $45,116 | 380 |
| NE | $45,980 | $51,030 | 230 |
| RI | $45,280 | $44,271 | 460 |
| CO | $44,750 | $43,425 | 760 |
| VT | $44,710 | $45,642 | 170 |

37 more states with published wage data are omitted here. The full table for all 52 states is at https://nuecareer.com/careers/residential-advisor/salary-by-state, or as JSON at https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/residential-advisor.

## Outlook

BLS projects employment to move from 94,100 in the 2025–2035 base year to 97,400 by the end of the cycle — a gain of 3,300 jobs, or +3.5%. About as fast as average: 3.5% against 3.5% projected for all occupations over the same cycle. About 16,500 openings a year are expected on average, counting openings from growth as well as from workers leaving the occupation permanently. Source: BLS EP, 2025–2035.

## How to get in

- **Typical entry education:** High school diploma or equivalent (BLS Employment Projections).
- **Preparation level:** Some preparation — O\*NET's preparation band for this occupation is "Job Zone Three: Medium Preparation Needed".
- **Related work experience typically required:** None.
- **Typical on-the-job training:** Short-term on-the-job training.

### 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 |
| --- | --- |
| Some College Courses | 50.3% |
| Bachelor's Degree | 31.3% |
| Less than a High School Diploma | 7.3% |
| Doctoral Degree | 6.3% |
| Master's Degree | 3.4% |
| High School Diploma or the equivalent (such as a GED) | 1.5% |

## What the work involves

- Determine the need for facility maintenance and repair, and notify appropriate personnel.
- Mediate interpersonal problems between residents.
- Communicate with other staff to resolve problems with individual students.
- Observe students to detect and report unusual behavior.
- Make regular rounds to ensure that residents and areas are safe and secure.
- Provide emergency first aid and summon medical assistance when necessary.
- Order supplies for facilities.
- Enforce rules and regulations to ensure the smooth and orderly operation of dormitory programs.

## Skills and knowledge

### Essential skills

- Active Listening — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Speaking — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Monitoring — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Critical Thinking — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Reading Comprehension — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Writing — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Learning — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Learning Strategies — importance 2.8 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 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Coordination — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Negotiation — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Service Orientation — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Time Management — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Persuasion — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Complex Problem Solving — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Judgment and Decision Making — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Knowledge areas

- Customer and Personal Service — importance 4.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Administration and Management — importance 4.2 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Public Safety and Security — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Education and Training — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- English Language — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Sociology and Anthropology — importance 3.7 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Abilities

- Oral Comprehension — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Oral Expression — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Problem Sensitivity — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Speech Clarity — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Speech Recognition — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Written Comprehension — importance 3.4 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 | 5.28 |
| C — Conventional | 4.63 |
| E — Enterprising | 3.81 |
| R — Realistic | 2.82 |
| I — Investigative | 2.37 |
| A — Artistic | 2.25 |

### 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) |
| --- | --- |
| ESFJ | 87.7 |
| ISFJ | 74.2 |
| ESFP | 71.2 |
| ENFJ | 68.7 |
| ESTJ | 68.0 |

Best-fitting types: ESFJ.

## Related occupations

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

- [Social and Community Service Manager](https://nuecareer.com/careers/social-and-community-service-manager) — median $80,390
- [Rehabilitation Counselor](https://nuecareer.com/careers/rehabilitation-counselor) — median $46,850
- [First-Line Supervisor of Personal Service Workers](https://nuecareer.com/careers/first-line-supervisor-of-personal-service-workers) — median $48,590
- [School Social Worker](https://nuecareer.com/careers/school-social-worker) — median $59,550
- [Educational, Guidance, and Career Counselor and Advisor](https://nuecareer.com/careers/educational-guidance-and-career-counselor-and-advisor) — median $64,330
- [Social and Human Service Assistant](https://nuecareer.com/careers/social-and-human-service-assistant) — median $45,930
- [First-Line Supervisor of Entertainment and Recreation Workers, Except Gambling Services](https://nuecareer.com/careers/first-line-supervisor-of-entertainment-and-recreation-workers) — median $48,560
- [Patient Representative](https://nuecareer.com/careers/patient-representative) — median $50,290
- [Recreation Worker](https://nuecareer.com/careers/recreation-worker) — median $36,560
- [First-Line Supervisor of Housekeeping and Janitorial Workers](https://nuecareer.com/careers/first-line-supervisor-of-housekeeping-and-janitorial-workers) — median $49,100

## Sources

- **O\*NET** — O\*NET 31.0 Database, August 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, 2025–2035. https://www.bls.gov/emp/
- **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 31.0 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/residential-advisor