Occupational Therapist Resume Examples
An occupational therapist resume is read for certification, licensure and setting, in that order. NBCOT certification and a state licence are the gate; after that a clinic director is establishing whether your experience is acute care, inpatient rehabilitation, skilled nursing, outpatient, home health, school-based or mental health — because the daily work in each is genuinely different.
The number that calibrates you is caseload with the setting attached. "Twelve to fourteen patients a day in outpatient orthopaedics" and "a caseload of thirty-two across four schools" describe different jobs, and a reader is trying to work out which one you can pick up without a ramp.
Occupational Therapist resume example
A complete one-page example for a occupational therapist role. Every detail is fictional — copy the structure, not the facts.
Marguerite Oyelowo-Bright
Occupational Therapist (OTR/L) · Michigan Licensed
Ann Arbor, MI · (555) 288-6041 · [email protected] · linkedin.com/in/example
Professional summary
NBCOT-certified occupational therapist licensed in Michigan with six years in inpatient rehabilitation. Daily caseload of ten to twelve across stroke, orthopaedic and neurological admissions. Raised stroke discharge-to-home from 62% to 74% by introducing a pre-discharge home assessment.
Professional experience
Occupational Therapist — Inpatient Rehabilitation · Huron Valley Rehabilitation Hospital
Sep 2020 – Present
Ann Arbor, MI
- Carry a daily caseload of ten to twelve patients on a 28-bed inpatient rehabilitation unit, covering evaluation, treatment and discharge planning.
- Raised the stroke discharge-to-home rate from 62% to 74% over eighteen months by adding a structured home assessment before discharge rather than after.
- Fabricate custom splints including resting hand, wrist cock-up and dynamic extension for post-surgical and neurological patients.
- Supervise Level II fieldwork students — eleven across six years — and rebuilt the unit orientation packet they are trained from.
Occupational Therapist — Skilled Nursing · Washtenaw Care Center
Jul 2018 – Sep 2020
Ypsilanti, MI
- Carried a caseload of fourteen to sixteen residents a day at a 90% productivity expectation, with same-day documentation maintained throughout.
- Ran the facility falls-reduction programme, combining seating assessment, adaptive equipment and staff training; recorded falls fell 27% over a year.
- Completed MDS Section GG functional assessments on admission and discharge, coordinating scores with nursing and physical therapy.
Education
Master of Science in Occupational Therapy · Eastern Michigan University, Ypsilanti, MI
2018
Certifications
- OTR/L — National Board for Certification in Occupational Therapy, current
- Michigan occupational therapy licence
- BLS (American Heart Association)
Skills
- Assessment:
- Evaluation and plan of care · Home assessment · Seating and positioning · Cognitive screening
- Intervention:
- ADL and IADL training · Custom splinting · Neurological rehabilitation · Adaptive equipment
- Systems:
- Epic · PointClickCare · Microsoft Excel · Same-day documentation
Written for this occupation rather than adapted from a generic template. The sections below explain why it is built this way, and what to change first.
Occupational Therapist pay, demand and entry requirements
Before the resume, the market. These are the national figures for occupational therapists, and they matter because they tell you what you are competing for and how many other applicants are competing with you.
| Measure | Figure |
|---|---|
| Median annual wage | $100,330 (BLS OEWS, May 2025) |
| People employed nationally | 162,450 (BLS OEWS, May 2025) |
| Projected growth, 2024–2034 | Much faster than average (7% or higher) |
| Projected annual openings | 10,200 |
| Typical entry-level education | Master's degree (86% of employers) from an ACOTE-accredited programme |
| BLS SOC code | 29-1122 |
Figures are official US government data and are revised annually — check the current BLS release before quoting a number in an interview.
What the job actually involves
Hiring managers read a resume against the work, so it helps to be precise about what the work is. These are the task statements the US Department of Labor publishes for this occupation.
Read them as a checklist. Anything on this list you have genuinely done belongs on your resume in the language a recruiter already recognises, and anything you have not done should be left off rather than softened into something that sounds close.
- Test and evaluate patients' physical and mental abilities and analyze medical data to determine realistic rehabilitation goals.
- Complete and maintain necessary records.
- Plan, organize, and conduct occupational therapy programs in hospital, institutional, or community settings.
- Plan and implement programs and social activities to help patients learn work or school skills.
- Select activities that will help individuals learn work and life-management skills within limits of their mental or physical capabilities.
- Evaluate patients' progress and prepare reports that detail progress.
What makes a strong occupational therapist resume
Put OTR/L and the licensing state in the headline. Occupational therapy is licensed in every state and NBCOT certification is what most licences are built on, so the two together answer the eligibility question in one line.
Name the setting and the population. Paediatric school-based practice and adult inpatient rehabilitation share a credential and almost nothing else — the assessments, the documentation, the payer and the pace all differ, and an employer hiring for one screens for exposure to it.
Give caseload and productivity honestly. Skilled nursing and outpatient both run productivity expectations, and a therapist who states their numbers plainly reads as experienced rather than as reluctant. Same-day documentation is worth naming in its own right, because late notes are a recurring operational problem.
List the interventions that carry a certification or a real skill floor: custom splinting and orthotic fabrication, hand therapy, seating and positioning, driving assessment, low vision, lymphoedema. Each narrows the pool substantially, and generic "ADL training" does not.
Where you have evidence of outcomes, use the measures the setting actually reports. Functional independence gains, length of stay, falls, discharge-to-home rate and goal attainment are all tracked, and a therapist who moved one has a contribution a director can point at.
Adapting this occupational therapist example
Caseload appears in the summary with the setting and the diagnoses attached, because those three together are how a rehabilitation director decides whether you can start on their unit next month. Ten to twelve patients a day on a 28-bed inpatient rehab unit describes a specific pace and a specific documentation load; "experienced occupational therapist" describes nothing a director can schedule around.
The discharge-to-home bullet is the one to study. It uses a measure inpatient rehabilitation is genuinely scored on, gives a before and after, and names the mechanism — a structured home assessment before discharge rather than after. Discharge destination is tied to reimbursement and to how the unit is evaluated, so moving it is a contribution the director already reports upward, which is a different order of usefulness from a description of treatment technique.
Splinting is listed with the actual splints fabricated rather than as a competence. Custom orthotic fabrication is one of the few OT skills with a real floor — it takes practice, not everyone does it, and naming resting hand, wrist cock-up and dynamic extension tells a reader the range you can cover. This is where specificity is worth far more than breadth: a long undifferentiated intervention list dilutes exactly this kind of claim.
Fieldwork supervision is quantified and tied to an artefact. Eleven Level II students is a number, and the rebuilt orientation packet is something that outlived the applicant — together they say the department can grow its own pipeline around this therapist. Most OT resumes mention supervision as a duty; almost none attach a count or an output, which is why it distinguishes.
Every detail in the document above is invented. Never send an example with placeholder facts left in it.
Keywords an applicant tracking system will look for
Most employers of occupational therapists screen applications through software before a person reads them. The scan is looking for the vocabulary of the job, so the terms below are worth using where they are true of you — and worth leaving out where they are not, because the human read that follows will catch the difference.
- OTR/L · NBCOT · ACOTE · state OT licence · activities of daily living · ADL · IADL · evaluation and plan of care · home modification · adaptive equipment · splinting · orthotics · hand therapy · CHT · cognitive rehabilitation · sensory integration · school-based practice · IEP · skilled nursing · productivity · caseload · discharge planning · durable medical equipment · seating and positioning · documentation
Systems and software worth naming if you have used them: eClinicalWorks EHR, Microsoft Office, Microsoft Excel, FileMaker Pro.
Certification, licensing and what employers verify
A master's or doctoral degree from an ACOTE-accredited programme. BLS reports 86% of employers citing a master's degree, so it is the effective floor rather than a differentiator.
NBCOT certification, which confers the OTR credential and is what most state licences are issued against. Say whether it is current, since it carries a renewal cycle.
A state occupational therapy licence, named with the state. Licensure by endorsement between states is routine but not instant, so a candidate relocating should state where the application stands.
Specialty certification where you hold it — Certified Hand Therapist, assistive technology, driving rehabilitation, low vision. These are narrow, verified and disproportionately valuable to the employers who need them.
Setting-specific requirements: school-based practice frequently needs a state education credential in addition to the OT licence, and early intervention often needs its own registration.
Mistakes that cost occupational therapists interviews
- Writing "occupational therapist" with no setting. It forces a director to guess, and the guess is rarely generous — outpatient hand therapy and skilled nursing are not interchangeable.
- Describing evaluations and treatment plans generically. Every OT evaluates and plans; the page should carry which assessments you administer and what you build from them.
- Omitting productivity when applying to skilled nursing or outpatient. It is the defining operational tension in both, and silence reads as inexperience rather than as discretion.
- Listing every intervention ever performed. A long undifferentiated list dilutes the two or three that would actually distinguish you, and it invites a question you may not want.
- Leaving documentation systems unnamed. WebPT, Casamba, Raintree, Epic and PointClickCare each carry real onboarding cost, and naming the ones you have run removes it.
Where this role leads next
Clinical depth is the most common route — hand therapy, neurological rehabilitation, paediatrics, low vision or assistive technology — each with its own certification and a narrower, better-paid market.
Rehabilitation management runs through lead therapist, rehab director and area manager, and hires on staffing, productivity, referral conversion and payer mix rather than on treatment skill.
Home health and travel work pay a premium and value autonomy, documentation discipline and comfort with a caseload that is geographically dispersed rather than clinically narrow.
Academic and fieldwork education roles value documented supervision. Naming how many Level I and Level II students you have taken, and from which programmes, is concrete and rarely written down.
Frequently asked questions
OTR/L with NBCOT certification, the licensing state, and the setting you have practised in. School-based paediatrics and adult inpatient rehabilitation share a credential and almost nothing else, so the setting is the second gate after eligibility.
Yes for skilled nursing and outpatient, where it is the defining operational tension. Stating your numbers plainly reads as experienced; silence tends to read as inexperience rather than discretion.
The ones with a real skill floor — custom splinting, hand therapy, seating and positioning, driving assessment, low vision. A long undifferentiated list dilutes the two or three that would actually narrow the field in your favour.
Use the measures the setting reports: discharge-to-home rate, length of stay, falls, functional independence gains. Give a before and after and the mechanism, or the improvement reads as something that happened around you.
The BLS OEWS May 2025 median annual wage for occupational therapists is $100,330, against national employment of about 162,450. O*NET projects growth of 7% or higher for 2024–2034, with roughly 10,200 annual openings.