How To Make a Good Massage Therapist Resume?

Have you ever had trouble making a resume? It’s hard work explaining your skill set in the perfect way to catch the attention of an employer. You could always take a class or scour the internet for resources, but most resume guides correlate directly to administrative positions. It’s rare to find an outline for massage therapists or anyone else in the health and wellness industry to find an outline that will assist them on their search.

The “professional world” tends to lean into and center administrative and other office jobs. This pattern may leave health care professionals and basically any other fields in the dark when it comes to trying to advance and build a business repertoire. After all, business is business, whether it involves flying a plane, filling out paperwork, or massaging a client.

If you’re lost on how to make the perfect resume as a massage therapist, here is a guide that will teach you something new regardless of your skill level. If you have a blank document open in front of you or a dozen old resumes that just aren’t doing it for you, let’s find out new ways to make a good massage therapy resume and impress your employer!

Aesthetic in Resumes

When it comes to the design of your resume, it is important to make it look nice and professional but not to border on showy. It’s possible to show off and still be professional at the same time. You can go online and research where to find a good resume template to start off. There are a slew of free options, but if you feel like splurging on a design you love then feel free to because resumes are worth the while. What is spending $5 to $10 on a resume that can make you a stable salary?

In terms of color scheme, stick to neutral tones. If you are going to go bold, make sure you toggle with the hue of the colors and get them to be a bit muted. A bright yellow or gaudy red may give the employer the wrong impression of your gregariousness as opposed to a mint green or baby blue.

When choosing a font, once again make sure your font is professional and legible. Sizing should be no smaller than 11 point font and the font style itself needs to not be too zany. An example too zany would be something like comic sans. Times New Roman, Arial, or Helvetica are perfect go-to’s when it comes to choosing a font.

Content in Resumes

Content in your resume is arguably what employers seek out first, the issue is, if your aesthetic is off, then it’s hard to focus on the content. When you do get around to adding in content to your resume you start with all of your personal information.

Now, many think they have to include their exact home address, but that is not necessary in this era of job hunting. A simple city and zipcode will suffice for your exact coordinates. Along with your area of living, be sure to add your email address and phone number. Side note: please make sure your email address is professional. When making resumes, sometimes, people like to include a label under their name such as “content creator” or “digital marketer”, in this case you would add “Massage Therapist” if that interests you. It’s said that this can tighten up loose knots and show employers that you are a career driven employee and not just hopping around from job to job.

After your information is put in, a quick blurb should be included in your resume. This can either be a mission statement (sometimes referred to as an objective) and/or a biography. A mission statement highlights your career goals and normally starts off with words like “looking to” and “seeking”. This implies that you are headed towards a goal and explaining that to your employer. Your biography is a short blurb about you and your history which on the other hand should explain how you are credible to reach your mission statement or in some way ready to reach those goals with this employer. The goal with the two is to show that you are the best candidate for the position.

Again just to clarify: an objective or mission statement sets your goals up and a biography explains how you are qualified to reach said goals. If you can somehow incorporate those two themes into one blurb then that is okay as long as the two themes are apparent.

Job History in Massage Resumes

The meat of your resume is always in the job history portion. Employers want to see how your past has driven you to applying for the position you are applying for. Job history sections indicate important qualities in a candidate such as implied skill sets, professionalism, and credibility depending on which institutions you have worked for.

Now, adding in your job history can be a bit tricky if you just graduated from massage school (side note: be sure to add your education and degree or certification). If this is the case be sure to add any internship or volunteer hours you’ve done along with your class work. If school is your only job history in massage then expand on that with all you got. Topics like “150 hours of volunteer work on outside clients” and anything else you did during your externship work. Be sure to expand as much as you can since you are using your volunteer hours in place of a job. This is also a great time to consider going on a volunteer event with your school or offering your services to a company. That way, you can add more volunteer work on your job history and it will look great if it is with a credible company. Employers just want to get the sense that you have a grasp of massage therapy and you’re ready to apply your skills with them. Whether your job history is expansive or not, you need to make it work how you can with key words that amplify your skills and work you’ve done (free or not).

How Do You Talk About Your Skills

Your skill set is a list of assets that you can use to your advantage that will give you those extra points amidst all the other candidates. Most people put the basics that they learned in this column such as medical sports massage and russian massage but you can go the extra mile and inform your potential employer that you are skilled in things like myofascial release, lymph drainage and pregnancy massage. This is where you can show off a bit and list everything in your bag that can show that you are fit for the job.

Sometimes, if you are applying for a big company, they scan through resumes in an automated fashion. With this in mind, be sure to make sure you are including keywords that your employer is looking for. Be sure to look at the job description; there you can find buzzwords that will key you in to what they’re looking for. They may mention adjectives of an employee like “team player” and “communicative” or they may even go into what massage skills they’re looking for like “trigger point therapy”. Try to mimic the job description so you can be the best candidate. Let them know that you have exactly what they are looking for.

Finalizing Your Resume

Below is a checklist of what should be included in a resume:

• Aesthetically appropriate design
• Information about yourself
• Mission statement and/or biography
• Job History
• Education
• Skill Set

Once you have all of this included in your resume, double check it to see if you have everything right. If you have a friend or peer that can look it over, ask them to give it a look because a fresh pair of eyes can give you a new perspective. Be welcoming of all advice, but remember, your massage therapy resume tells employers what kind of therapist you are so make sure if it reflects you in a positive light. Stay tuned for more updates!