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Resume example

Physical Therapist resume example

Gets people moving again after injury, surgery, or illness. Below is a complete physical therapist resume, written the way one has to be written to survive a first screen, with every bullet explained underneath.

Alex Moreno

Physical Therapist

alex.moreno@example.com · +1 555 0134 · Portland, OR

Summary

Physical Therapist with six years of experience. Treated a caseload of 12 patients a day in an outpatient orthopaedic clinic. Looking for a physical therapist role with more responsibility and steady hours.

Experience

Physical Therapist, St. Aldate's Regional Medical Center

2022 - Present

  • Treated a caseload of 12 patients a day in an outpatient orthopaedic clinic.
  • Returned 85% of post-surgical knee patients to full function within their target timeline.
  • Built the home exercise programme that lifted patient adherence from 45% to 78%.

Physical Therapist, Parkview Care Group

2019 - 2022

  • Covered Treatment planning day to day at a 200-bed regional hospital, and trained my replacement before I left.
  • Became the person the team came to on Manual therapy.

Skills

Patient evaluation · Treatment planning · Manual therapy · Therapeutic exercise · Outcome measures · Documentation

Education

Associate of Applied Science, Health Sciences, 2016

A sample, not a real person. The name, the employers, and the figures are invented to show the shape of a strong page - use the structure and put your own evidence in it.

How to read this physical therapist resume example

The sample above is not a template to copy word for word - copied resumes read as copied. It is here to show the shape of a page that gets past a first screen: one column, standard headings, and bullets that end in an outcome rather than a duty. Licence, caseload, and functional outcomes your patients actually reached.

  • Every bullet opens with a verb and carries a number. That is the pattern, not a coincidence.
  • The summary makes a claim and then supports it in the first bullet underneath.
  • Skills are named tools, not adjectives, and each one appears again in the experience section.
  • The earlier role is short. Recent work carries the weight of the page.

The numbers in a physical therapist resume

The most common thing missing from a physical therapist resume is a number. Not because the work had none, but because nobody wrote them down at the time. These are the measures a physical therapist can usually reach for, and the example uses them.

  • Treated a caseload of 12 patients a day in an outpatient orthopaedic clinic.
  • Returned 85% of post-surgical knee patients to full function within their target timeline.
  • Built the home exercise programme that lifted patient adherence from 45% to 78%.

Before and after: rewriting a weak bullet

Most physical therapist resumes are one edit away from being much stronger, and the edit is the same every time: replace the description of the job with the result of doing it. The pairs below are the same work, written twice.

  • Weak: "Responsible for patient evaluation and related tasks." Strong: "Treated a caseload of 12 patients a day in an outpatient orthopaedic clinic."
  • Weak: "Worked on treatment planning projects across the team." Strong: "Returned 85% of post-surgical knee patients to full function within their target timeline."
  • Weak: "Helped improve processes and supported physical therapist initiatives." Strong: "Built the home exercise programme that lifted patient adherence from 45% to 78%."

Adapting the example to your own history

Work backwards from the posting. Find the two or three things it actually screens for, then make sure the top third of your page answers them. Everything below that is supporting evidence.

  • Reorder your bullets so the one closest to the posting comes first in each role.
  • Rewrite the summary for the specific job. It is the only part a human reliably reads.
  • Cut any skill you would not want to be asked about for ten minutes.
  • Keep Patient evaluation, Treatment planning, Manual therapy visible in context, not stranded in a list.

FAQ

Can I copy this physical therapist resume example?
Copy the structure, not the sentences. The layout, the ordering, and the shape of the bullets all transfer. The content does not: a recruiter who reads twenty resumes for the same role notices identical phrasing quickly, and the numbers in this sample are illustrative rather than anyone's real history.
What if I do not have numbers like these?
Most people have more than they think. Look for volume, frequency, time, cost, error rate, or a before-and-after on anything you touched. Where the number genuinely does not exist, say what changed and who noticed - "the process that used to need a weekly meeting now does not" is a real outcome without a metric.
How long should a physical therapist resume be?
One page up to about eight years of experience, two pages beyond it. This example is one page. Length signals scope, so a long page with small-scope bullets reads worse than a short one.
Will this format pass an applicant tracking system?
Yes. One column, real text, standard headings, and no graphics or tables is the format parsers handle reliably. Most parsing failures come from multi-column layouts, text inside images, and headings the parser does not recognise.
Should the example change for a more senior physical therapist role?
The structure stays. What changes is the scope in the bullets: more ambiguity you resolved yourself, more decisions with a tradeoff, and more effect on work that was not directly yours. Licence, caseload, and functional outcomes your patients actually reached.

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