Massage Therapy Resume

Preparing for a Massage Therapy Career

What Should be Included on Your Massage Therapy Resume?

If you’ll be completing your Massage Therapy Program soon – or have recently completed it – writing your resume can be challenging when you are seeking your first job with little professional experience. By formatting your resume correctly and adding pertinent information, you’ll have a resume capable of attracting the eye of the hiring manager and getting an interview.

• Start early.

The first thing you should do is contact First Institute’s Career Services Department in the early stages of your Massage Therapy Program. The professionals there can help you write an effective cover letter, explore job search strategies, practice interview techniques and explain the benefits of networking.

• Format effectively.

Hiring managers and business owners could potentially receive dozens of resumes for one position. Your resume should be attractive and informative, but to help it stand out, format it to make it easily scannable. Include these areas:

• Contact information –Include your name, address, cell phone and home phone numbers, and email address.
• Objective – Brief synopsis of your experience and what type of position you’re looking for.
• Strengths and Skills – Use a bulleted list to include the skills you’ve acquired in massage therapy classes and during an externship. Add soft skills, which are intangibles that can add value as an employee. They include things like attention to detail, communication skills, organizational ability, time management and collaboration.
• Qualifications – List your credentials and the modalities you are qualified to practice.
• Employment History – List your professional and work experience, beginning with the most recent and working backwards.  You can also include clinical hours you practiced during your program and any volunteer experience you may have, as long as it is with professional organizations.
• Education and Certifications – Include the name of the program, school, and date of completion, along with any professional certifications you may have earned.
• Awards and Memberships – List memberships in any professional association or awards that you’ve won.

• Limit your resume to one page.

Unless you have a lot of volunteer and work experience before going to massage school, a single page should be enough, especially for your first position.

• Use action words.

When outlining their experience, many applicants make the mistake of beginning sentences with “responsible for”. Instead, use strong verbs such as “executed,” “organized,” “and coordinated.”

• Keep your resume current.

Always update your resume and make it a point to take a look at it regularly. This will help you avoid mistakes that occur when you send a rushed resume when a position for which you’d like to be considered is open.

• Make sure it is error-free.

No one ever missed out on landing an interview because they had a mistake-free resume, but a typo or some other mistake has cost plenty of people interviews. Always proofread your resume and have one or two other people proofread it before sending it. Then proofread it again.

Prepare for a rewarding massage career.

First Institute can help you take the first step toward an exciting new career. Our Career Services Department can help you create a resume that can get you noticed by employers. We offer a Massage Therapy Program in Illinois at our Crystal Lake location. For more information, call 815-459-3500.