How to become a Mental Health Counselor: education, training and skills.
What workers in the job actually report about their education, experience and training, the skills to build first, and the stepping-stone roles that lead in.
- 89% Master's Degree
- 7% Post-Master's Certificate
- 4% First Professional Degree - awarded for completion of a program that: requires at least 2 years of college work before entrance into the program, includes a total of at least 6 academic years of work to complete, and provides all remaining academic requirements to begin practice in a profession.
Most mental health counselors report needing a master's degree (89% of workers surveyed by O*NET). O*NET places the job in Job Zone 5 of 5 (extensive preparation). The most common answer for related work experience was “over 2 years, up to and including 4 years” (36%). For on-the-job training, “over 1 month, up to and including 3 months” and “over 2 years, up to and including 4 years” were reported equally often (25% each).
Six steps to becoming a Mental Health Counselor
Data Steps 1 to 5 summarise O*NET data for the role; step 6 is advice.
- EducationPlan for a master's degree
89% of workers report it as required.
- TrainingExpect on-the-job training
Tied: over 1 month, up to and including 3 months and over 2 years, up to and including 4 years (25% each).
- ExperienceRelated experience
Most common: over 2 years, up to and including 4 years (36% of workers).
- SkillsBuild the core skills
Social Perceptiveness, Active Listening, Speaking are rated most important.
- ToolsLearn the tools
Microsoft Access, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Office software.
- CredentialsCheck licensing where you live
Many occupations need a state license or certification. Requirements vary by state, so confirm with your state's licensing board.
What workers report
Data Share of workers giving each answer, O*NET.
O*NET Job Zone 5 (Extensive Preparation Needed): Extensive skill, knowledge, and experience are needed for these occupations. Many require more than five years of experience. For example, surgeons must complete four years of college and an additional five to seven years of specialized medical training to be able to do their job.
Related roles that need less preparation
Data O*NET related occupations in a lower Job Zone with a skill match of 65% or more.
How this page is built
Education, experience, training and Job Zone come from O*NET 31.0 survey data for the occupation. O*NET answers with low-precision estimates are not shown, and an answer is called the most common only when no hidden answer could be larger. Stepping-stone roles use our skill-match score: Skill match is the cosine similarity of the two occupations' skill profiles: for each of 35 O*NET skills (10 essential, 25 transferable) we multiply importance by level and subtract the average across all occupations, then compare the direction of the two profiles. 100 means identical shape; 0 means unrelated or opposite (negative values are shown as 0). Only occupations that O*NET itself lists as related are compared.
- Licensing rules in your state.
- Requirements at a specific employer.
- How long the path will take you personally.
- O*NET 31.0 Database, U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA), used under the CC BY 4.0 license. TryHired selected, ranked and combined the data; O*NET is not responsible for these pages.
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025 estimates (public domain).
How TryHired builds this data: sources, methods and downloads. Spotted an error? Report a correction.
More for Mental Health Counselors
What the job is, skills, tools, pay and related roles.
Open →SalaryMental Health Counselor salaryPay by percentile, state and metro, with a negotiation script.
Open →ResumeMental Health Counselor resumeKeywords, bullet formulas and the skills to prove.
Open →Free toolCheck your resumeParsed text, evidence per bullet, fixes first.
Open →