ATS Keywords
Occupational Therapist ATS Keywords: What Recruiting Software Scans For
Most hospitals, school districts, and therapy staffing agencies now route occupational therapist applications through an applicant tracking system before a human ever reads them, screening specifically for licensure terms, clinical documentation skills, and population-specific experience. Miss the right keywords and a qualified OT with years of hands-on caseload experience can be filtered out before a hiring manager sees the CV. This guide breaks down exactly which terms, phrases, and formatting choices help an occupational therapist CV clear that first automated screen.
Optimize Your CVATS Optimisation
Must-Have Keywords
Include these keywords in your CV to improve your ATS score.
Strengthen Your CV
Power Phrases
Use these multi-word phrases to strengthen your CV.
Avoid These
Words to Avoid
Remove these overused or weak words from your CV.
ATS Score
Before & After ATS Optimization
Before
Missing Keywords
After
Added Keywords
Formatting
ATS-Friendly Format Tips
Use standard section headers, such as Experience, Education, Licensure & Certifications, and Skills, since ATS parsers rely on these labels to categorize your content correctly.
Avoid tables, text boxes, and multi-column layouts for your licensure or skills section, since many parsers scramble or drop content placed inside them.
Spell out each credential in full at least once, such as Occupational Therapist Registered, Licensed (OTR/L), before using the abbreviation elsewhere, so the parser matches both forms.
Save and submit your CV as a text-based PDF or .docx file, never a scanned image or a heavily designed graphic PDF, which most ATS software cannot read at all.
List your licensure state or country, license number, and expiration date on a dedicated line, since many healthcare ATS platforms query this field directly during screening.
Use standard fonts like Calibri, Arial, or Times New Roman, and keep critical details out of headers and footers, which some parsers skip entirely.
Mirror the exact phrasing from the job posting: if the listing says pediatric occupational therapy, use that full phrase rather than just pediatrics or peds.
FAQ
Frequently Asked Questions
Yes. Hospitals, school districts, and therapy staffing agencies widely use ATS platforms to pre-screen applications, and a CV missing licensure terms or population-specific keywords can be filtered out before a recruiter ever opens it.
Include your certification status and expiration date; you can save the exact number for the application form or reference check, but naming NBCOT certification explicitly on the CV itself is essential for ATS matching.
List Level I and Level II fieldwork placements exactly like professional roles, with setting, population, and specific skills applied, such as ADL retraining or sensory-integration planning, since ATS systems and hiring managers both treat structured fieldwork as real clinical experience.
It can. Some parsers only match the full term or only the abbreviation, so use both: spell out Occupational Therapist (OT) on first mention and then use either form consistently afterward.
Work your core keywords naturally into real accomplishment statements rather than listing them in a block; a CV with 15-20 well-integrated clinical terms across the experience and skills sections reads as credible, not stuffed.
Modern ATS platforms match on the specific population terms you use, so a CV that clearly states pediatric occupational therapy or geriatric/home health OT will rank higher for population-specific postings than one that only says occupational therapy experience.
Check Your ATS Score Now
Build ATS-Optimized CVRelated