Occupational Therapist Resume Example & Writing Guide
Use this Occupational Therapist resume example and guide to improve your career and write a powerful resume that will separate you from the competition.
Occupational therapists are highly skilled professionals who help people across all ages and abilities find meaningful ways to work and play. They use their clinical expertise to assess clients’ abilities and needs, and then create individualized plans to help them reach their fullest potential.
If you’re interested in pursuing a career as an occupational therapist, you’ll need to build a resume that highlights your unique skillset and experience. Here are some tips to follow plus an example resume to look at when writing yours.
How to Write an Occupational Therapist Resume
Here’s how to write an occupational therapist resume of your own.
Write Compelling Bullet Points
Bullet points are the most effective way to showcase your experience and qualifications. But rather than simply listing your responsibilities, you can make your resume much more interesting by using bullet points to describe the results of your work.
For example, rather than saying you “provided occupational therapy services to patients with disabilities,” you could say that you “provided occupational therapy services to patients with disabilities, resulting in improved motor skills and increased independence in daily living activities.”
The second bullet point is much more specific and provides more detail about what exactly you did and the results of your work.
Related: What Is an Occupational Therapist? How to Become One
Identify and Include Relevant Keywords
When you apply for a job, your resume is typically scanned by an applicant tracking system (ATS) for certain keywords. These programs look for specific terms related to the job opening in order to determine whether your skills and experience are a match. If your resume doesn’t have enough of the right keywords, your application might not make it past the initial screening stage.
The best way to make sure you have the right keywords on your resume is to read through a few job postings and take note of the terms that appear most frequently. Then, you can try to include some of those same words in your resume.
Here are some common occupational therapy keywords:
- Occupational Therapy
- Mental Health
- Rehabilitation
- Healthcare
- Inpatient Care
- Psychotherapy
- Clinical Research
- Mental Health Counseling
- Healthcare Management
- Healthcare Information Technology (HIT)
- Working with Adolescents
- Clinical Supervision
- Pediatrics
- Group Therapy
- Program Development
- Hand Therapy
- Mental Health Issues
- Clinical Education
- Stroke Rehabilitation
- Community Outreach
- Inpatient Rehabilitation
- Physical Therapy
- Neurology
- Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (CPR)
- Early Intervention
- Hand Rehabilitation
- Spinal Cord Injury
- Adaptive Equipment
- Pediatrics Rehabilitation
- Brain Injury
Showcase Your Technical Skills
As an occupational therapist, you rely on a variety of technology to help you provide care to your patients. Programs like Microsoft Office Suite, Google Suite, and social media platforms like LinkedIn and Twitter are commonly used by occupational therapists. Additionally, occupational therapists often use specific software programs and systems to track patients’ progress and to manage their caseloads. So it’s important to list any relevant technical skills you have on your resume.
Related: How Much Does an Occupational Therapist Make?
Remember The Basics
As you’re writing your resume, you’ll want to keep a few basic guidelines in mind.
Make Your Resume Easy to Scan
There are a few things you can do to make your resume easier to read and understand quickly. Aligning everything to the left, using a standard font type and size, and keeping bullets under 2 lines will help make your resume more skimmable. You should also try to leave some white space on the page to help the recruiter easily scan through your information.
Be Concise
A resume should typically be one or two pages long, depending on the amount of experience you have. A one-page resume is great for recent graduates or people with less than 10 years of experience. If you have more experience than that, a two-page resume is a better option. When trimming down a resume, remove any irrelevant information, filler words, or unnecessary details.
Proofread
Proofreading your resume is important in order to make sure it looks professional and error-free. Spell checking is a must, as are punctuation and grammar checks. It is also helpful to have someone else proofread your resume for you, as they may catch mistakes that you have missed. Beware of easily confused words, and make sure that your tense is consistent throughout the resume.
Consider Including a Summary
A resume summary statement is an excellent way to introduce yourself to a potential employer. It can highlight your most relevant skills and experiences, and explain how you see your experience translating into the role you’re applying for. When composing your summary, be sure to play up your best traits and skills, and to clearly state what you’re hoping to do next. If you can manage to do all of that in just a couple of sentences, you’re sure to make a great impression.
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