Occupational Therapist Job Description Template

Recruiting the right individual to your organization is a process that requires time and great job description writing skills. Without either, the likelihood of the individual you hire not meshing well with your company is high. To prevent yourself from wasting resources, you need to revamp your job description writing skills so they can do most of the work during the recruitment process. Here is a great Occupational Therapist sample job description for you to use as a reference while you are creating future employment ads.

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Occupational Therapist Summary

You’ll work with patients to develop treatment plans and goals for patients to work towards during their rehabilitation. You’ll provide ongoing emotional, mental and physical support while implementing various therapies and treatments to improve patient disabilities. You’ll meet with doctors, patients, caregivers and other medical personnel on a daily basis.

Occupational Therapist Job Responsibilities and Duties:

Establish patient goals and care needs by assessing their medical history and performing evaluations and interviews
Develop occupational therapies that align with the recommendations of physicians
Work with patients to help them to regain physical and mental capabilities
Enable patients to adjust to disabilities by providing them with instruction that makes their lifestyle and daily activities easier to manage
Promote patient independence
Support patients mentally and emotionally so they become more confident, engaged and able to manage and provide for themselves
Develop plan of action for patients to follow so they may return to work
Monitor and record results of occupational therapies and make adjustments as needed to improve patent outcome
Follow all admission and discharge protocol
Coordinate all care and recommendations with nurses, doctors, case managers and other health care personnel to improve patient care and outcome
Assist in securing therapeutic equipment for inpatient and outpatient use
Protect patient privacy and confidence by adhering to all HIPAA and hospital regulations and local, state and federal laws
Maintain a safe and clean work environment
Check equipment regularly to ensure proper function
Maintain and increase knowledge and skills by regularly attending continuing education, workshops, seminars and other events

Occupational Therapist Skills and Qualifications

Master’s Degree in Occupational Therapy or closely-related field
State License
NBCOT Certification
3 years of experience in mental health setting
Valid driver’s License and acceptable driving history

Company Profile

LiGo Health was founded in 1995 and is located in Jacksonville, Florida. We are determined to be the best healthcare organization possible that is committed to the needs of its patients. As a testament to our vision, we provide preventative health and occupational health services, fitness, wellness and education programs to help improve the lives of the individuals in the communities we serve.

Writing a Job Description Best Practices

Although the above job description is a great one for you to use, you may not always have access to it when you need it. Below are some tips and advice for you to use when you are writing job descriptions in the future.
Do create a job title that appeals to the type of candidate you want to attract.
Do include a brief snapshot of essential skills and qualifications job seekers should possess. Add a few nonessential ones as well.
Do end your job descriptions with some kind of call to action. Ask job seekers to apply and they will comply.
Do focus on engaging candidates from the start. That means you’ll need to pay extra attention to every aspect of your job descriptions.
Don’t forget to identify any special skills and to clarify if the position you are recruiting for is a niche one.
Don’t use abbreviations. Job seekers often use whole words while they are screening job postings. Using abbreviations can result in your postings being overlooked.
Don’t keyword stuff. Even if there are plenty of alternative words that can be used in your job descriptions, you should only use a small portion of them. Decide which keywords are most searched for and incorporate three to five of them into your job descriptions accordingly.
Don’t forget to include a small paragraph describing your company. Candidates need to have a good idea of what your organization is about so they can decide if it is a good fit with their beliefs and work ethics.
The above Occupational Therapist sample job description is a good example of how your job descriptions should appear. Start working on your job description writing skills now so you can start attracting the right individuals to your organization much sooner.

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Occupational Therapist Job Responsibilities

Occupational therapists need a lot of education and experience. Therefore, they are highly sought after in the medical field. As a hiring manager, you need to convince these therapists to accept a position at your company by writing a first-class occupational therapist job description. This includes listing all pertinent information, such as the location of the business, a summary of the position and the main responsibilities of the job.

As you are thinking about all the occupational therapist job responsibilities, you will likely come up with numerous duties. No matter how long your list is at first, you want to narrow it down to around the six or eight most common duties. There is no need for the job responsibilities section to be excessively long. In fact, most jobseekers only spend about one minute reading a description before deciding if they even want to apply. You need to catch people’s attention immediately with a description that stands out and demands attention.

Below are some examples of responsibilities that could go on an occupational therapist job description. On your own job listing, you would also want to format everything in a bulleted list.

Test patients’ mental and physical abilities and develop rehabilitative plans based on acquired information
Evaluate patients’ progress and evaluate goals periodically
Assist patients with improving their home and business lives
Maintain patient records and provide information to other healthcare professionals

Occupational Therapist Job Specifications

There are some basic occupational therapist job specifications you would want to include. For example, you would want to make sure to include the type of education you want out of candidates in the job qualifications and skills section. You may also want to include a certain number of years of experience to further narrow down your pool of applicants.

Before posting your occupational therapist job description, it is a good idea to have other people review it first. This is good for catching any typos or grammatical errors you might have missed. You want to make a good first impression on jobseekers. However, this step is also good for seeing if there are other beneficial skills to include. You may end up discovering that a certain qualification is more important than you initially realized.

One final tip is to list the qualifications from most important to least important. Most jobseekers naturally assume this when reading through descriptions, so you want to follow the same format. Here are some samples that would be good for an occupational therapist job description.

Master’s degree
State OT certification
Minimum of five years of experience
Experience with managing financial and personnel resources
Capable of training staff members