Occupational Therapist Resume Examples & Writing Guide

This is a mid-career OT working in an inpatient rehabilitation facility with some acute care coverage. The name and the hospitals are made up. Notice how early the license, NBCOT registration, setting and caseload appear. A rehab manager reads in that order because it tells them whether you can take a full caseload next month.

Rehab departments hire against an open caseload and a productivity target. The manager wants to know how fast you can carry that caseload alone, and whether your documentation will hold up when the payer looks at it.

• License status in that state. Say it is active and give the renewal year. If you are applying across state lines, say where your endorsement or licensure by reciprocity application stands.
• NBCOT certification. Write 'NBCOT certified OTR' and the year. It is the national credential behind every state license.
• Setting and population. Acute care, inpatient rehab, skilled nursing, outpatient, home health, school-based and early intervention are different jobs. Name yours and the diagnoses you see.
• Caseload and productivity. Patients per day and your productivity percentage. In skilled nursing and outpatient these are the numbers the manager is measured on.
• Outcomes. Discharge destination, goal achievement, length of stay, falls, IEP goals met. One real outcome beats a paragraph of philosophy.
• Documentation systems. Epic, Cerner, Casamba, Net Health, WebPT, MatrixCare, PointClickCare. Naming the system saves them training time.

“Tell me the setting, the caseload and one outcome, and I can picture you on my unit. Most OT resumes give me a values statement and a list of interventions instead. Eight to ten patients a day at eighty-eight percent productivity with seventy-one percent home discharges tells me more than a whole page of adjectives.”

In the US you need a degree from an ACOTE-accredited program, a passing NBCOT exam score, and a license from the state where you practice. Everything above that is optional and belongs on your resume only if you hold it.

• Degree: a master's (MOT or MSOT) or a doctorate (OTD) from an ACOTE-accredited program, with the year.
• NBCOT: passing the exam makes you an Occupational Therapist Registered (OTR), renewed with continuing competency activity.
• State license: required in every state, each with its own renewal period and continuing education hours. Check your state board.
• AOTA board certifications in Gerontology, Pediatrics, Physical Rehabilitation and Mental Health, each requiring years of practice plus a portfolio review.
• AOTA specialty certifications such as School Systems, Low Vision, Feeding, and Driving and Community Mobility.
• Certified Hand Therapist (CHT), awarded by the Hand Therapy Certification Commission after several years of practice and thousands of direct hand therapy hours.
• Program certifications: LSVT BIG, Certified Stroke Rehabilitation Specialist, sensory integration and seating courses.
• BLS or CPR for healthcare providers, required by almost every hospital on day one.

Three or four lines under your credentials. Setting, population, caseload, one outcome, one certification. Skip the philosophy of practice; save that for the cover letter and the interview.

OT resumes tend to describe the profession rather than the person. 'Provided occupational therapy services' is true of every OT alive. Add the diagnosis group, the number, the tool or the result.

Group the list by evaluation, intervention and systems, and put the posting's terms first. A hospital hiring for hand therapy and a school district hiring for handwriting want completely different lists.

• Evaluation: ADL and IADL assessment, manual muscle testing, goniometry, sensory processing and cognitive screening, and standardized measures such as the COPM, Berg Balance Scale and Nine Hole Peg Test
• Adult intervention: neurorehabilitation after stroke and brain injury, task-specific training, tone management, serial casting and orthotic fabrication, energy conservation, fall prevention
• Pediatric intervention: sensory integration, fine motor and handwriting programs, feeding skills, self-regulation, play-based intervention, IEP goal writing
• Equipment: adaptive equipment selection, wheelchair seating and positioning, home modification recommendations, assistive technology and switch access
• Documentation: Epic, Cerner, Casamba, Net Health, WebPT, PointClickCare, Section GG scoring, plan of care and progress notes
• Professional: fieldwork student supervision, interdisciplinary rounds, caregiver and family training, discharge planning, delegating to and co-treating with a COTA
• Practice knowledge: Medicare Part A and Part B basics, the IEP process in schools, documentation that supports medical necessity

Leave out 'compassionate' and 'client-centered'. Occupational therapy is client-centered by definition, so the words take up space without adding information.

This is the most searched version of the OT resume, and the fix is simple: your fieldwork is your experience. Two Level II placements are roughly six months of supervised clinical work, so write them like jobs.

1. 1Put your degree, graduation month and NBCOT exam date at the top. Managers plan start dates around the exam and the license.
2. 2List each Level II placement as its own entry: facility type, setting, dates, and what your caseload had grown to by the end.
3. 3Quantify the fieldwork. Patients per day, evaluations completed, plans written, groups run, students or staff you educated.
4. 4Include Level I placements only if they add a setting your Level II work does not cover.
5. 5Add your capstone or doctoral project with what it produced and who used it.
6. 6Keep prior jobs that show clinical exposure: rehab aide, OT aide, home health aide, caregiver, direct support professional.
7. 7State your license plan in plain words: which state, application filed, temporary permit if your state offers one.

Rewrite the top third for each setting you apply to. The summary, the first three bullets and the skills order should match the job you want.

• Acute care: medical complexity, lines and precautions, early mobility, fast evaluation turnaround and discharge recommendations.
• Inpatient rehabilitation: diagnosis groups, Section GG scoring, discharge destination and family training.
• Skilled nursing: caseload, productivity percentage, Medicare Part A and Part B, restorative programs and falls reduction.
• Outpatient orthopedics and hand therapy: post-surgical protocols, orthotic fabrication, grip and pinch measurement, DASH scores and visits per day.
• Home health: independent scheduling, home safety assessment, caregiver training, OASIS familiarity and travel radius.
• School-based: student caseload, IEP and 504 goal writing, teacher consultation and the number of schools you cover.
• Early intervention: birth to three practice, coaching parents in the home, IFSP goals and families on your caseload.
• Mental health: group programming, functional skills training, safety planning, and the diagnoses and age groups you cover.

One page for two to eight years of practice, two pages beyond that or for a new graduate with two full placements to describe. Plain single-column layout, no photo, no skill bars. Hospital systems run applicant tracking software that reads plain text.

• Write your credentials as a phrase the system can match: 'OTR/L', 'MOT', 'OTD', 'NBCOT certified'.
• Mirror the posting: 'ADL', 'IADL', 'plan of care', 'Section GG', 'productivity', 'IEP', 'sensory integration', 'orthotic fabrication', 'caseload', and the electronic record they name.
• Give the setting in each job title line, not only in the bullets: 'Occupational Therapist, Inpatient Rehabilitation Unit (42 beds)'.
• Use month and year dates. Travel and PRN work is normal in this field; label it rather than leaving a gap.
• Put license and BLS status where a recruiter can see it without scrolling, and update the renewal dates before you send it.

Read the top back as if you were the manager with an open line on a stroke unit next month. If setting, license status and caseload are not clear by line five, move them up.