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How to tailor your resume for a Occupational Therapist role

A screener on an Occupational Therapist posting checks setting and population first, schools, acute rehab, hands, because the title covers too much ground without it. Tailoring means matching your setting and population to the posting's wording and moving caseload numbers above mission-style language.

Four moves for this posting
  1. Match your setting and population to the posting's exact wording, pediatric clinic, inpatient neuro rehab, and lead with it; OT is too broad a title to screen without this.
  2. State evaluations and treatments per day above general duty bullets, matching any productivity language in the posting; staffing questions get answered by numbers, not descriptions.
  3. List specialty credentials, like hand therapy or feeding certifications, matching anything the posting names; one credential line outweighs a paragraph about your approach to care.
  4. Name the documentation system you charted in when the posting mentions one; system match trims the training runway a hiring manager is already worried about.
The fact behind this

The claim that ATS systems auto-reject 75 percent of resumes traces to a 2012 marketing claim, not research. (traced to a 2012 vendor marketing claim)

Before you tailor anything

Start with the version a recruiter opens right now, then make these moves against it.

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