When you start looking for a job as an ABA therapist, you’ll need a stellar resume that highlights your experience, skills, and education.
Your resume is the first impression a hiring manager gets of you. The key to a successful job search is to do your best and stand out in a crowd of hundreds of other job applicants.
But how do you do that? You write your ABA Therapist resume in a way that summarizes your career accomplishments in alignment with the job description of the position you are seeking to fill.
Read on to learn what should go on your ABA Therapist resume.
What does an ABA Therapist do?
Applied behavior analysis therapists work primarily with children on the autism spectrum. These patients present very different behavioral problems. They find these behaviors difficult to control and need someone to guide them. ABA therapists interview each patient, her parents, and sometimes even teachers to find out as much as possible about the behaviors.
Once the analysis portion is complete, the ABA therapist develops a treatment plan to improve their patient’s skills in areas such as communication, social skills, and managing problem behaviors. The therapist not only guides his patient through the program, but also educates parents, teachers, and caregivers on the plan to ensure that the patient receives comprehensive care no matter where they are.
What is the difference between an RBT and an ABA therapist?
An RBT is known as a registered behavior therapist. RBT’s position is as a professional working under the ABA Therapist. The ABA therapist is required to be board certified while the RBT is not. However, RBTs work directly with clients. People often choose the RBT role simply because it is easier to break into than the ABA Therapist role.
The Behavior Analyst Certification Board (BACB) decided to create a non-board-certified role to give low-income families easier access to a professional.
How to Build Your ABA Therapist Resume
Now that you know the difference between the positions, it’s time to write your resume for your new job.
Many people make the mistake of creating a resume that only contains a list of the jobs they’ve had with the corresponding responsibilities. Other people try to include everything they have done during their careers.
The word resume means summary. Focus on your experience, education, and skills in a way that allows the hiring manager to know precisely what you bring to the table.
Put enough information so they know what you’ve accomplished, but leave room for them to ask you questions. If a hiring manager wants to know more about your career, then they will call you in for an interview. If you put everything you’ve done, there’s no need to ask questions, so you’re less likely to be called for an interview.
PRO TIP:
You can make your resume speak specifically to the new company’s job by using relevant keywords from the job description.
Your resume should have a minimum of five sections:
- Contact information
- Race Summary
- Abilities
- Experience
- Education
Choose the right format
Before you can start putting pen to paper, or in this case tapping the keyboard, to write your resume, you need to choose the right format.
There are three widely accepted formats: reverse chronological, hybrid, and functional. For your ABA therapy resume, the reverse chronological format will serve you best. This format focuses on your experience in relation to the job you want. Plus, it’s what hiring managers expect to see.
contact section
The main thing to know about your contact section is that it is no longer customary to include your full address. All you need for this section is your name, city, state, zip code, email address, and the link to your LinkedIn profile. However, you should only link to your LinkedIn profile if your profile is properly optimized.
Race Summary
The career summary section contains the title of your resume and a summary paragraph. You should always write the title so that it reflects the description of the job you are applying for. The summary paragraph should have three to five sentences that talk about your experience and skills. You want to include at least one achievement in this paragraph.
Abilities
The skills section is literally a list of words or phrases that represent the skills you offer. The items you include in this section should contain a solid mix of hard and soft skills.
Experience
The beauty of the reverse chronological resume format is that it explains exactly how to format your resume, in reverse chronological order. This means that you start with your current or most recent experience and work backwards. Limit yourself to detailing between 10 and 15 years of experience. While previous experiences helped shape you in your career, they are no longer entirely relevant.
If there are significant achievements from more than 10 years ago, you can include a section called Early Career Highlights. If you choose to add this section, include it after the experience section, but before the education section. Include three to five bullet points detailing the main professional experiences you want an employer to know about.
Education
This section can be called Educationor you can title it Education and Credentials if you have licenses you want to include.
The most important thing to know about the education section is that if you’ve been out of school for more than a year, you should exclude your graduation dates and any additional details such as school affiliations or school projects. Once you start getting relevant professional experience under your belt, your experience trumps education. Hiring managers and recruiters still want to know if you have a degree, but they’ll care less about what activities you participated in while you were in school.
This is what it all looks like
Being told what each section should contain is one thing, but since most people are visual learners, here is an ABA Therapy resume example.
________________________________________________________________
FIRST LAST
New York, NY 12345 * (111) 222-3333 * [email protected] * LinkedIn URL
APPLIED BEHAVIORAL HEALTH (ABA) THERAPIST
Compassionate and empathetic therapist with 6 years of experience teaching people with developmental disabilities how to thrive. Consistently deliver one-on-one ABA program initiatives and make autonomous decisions in support of intervention goals. Known for shaping the minds of early childhood children through the development of personalized treatment plans. Possess the ability to work independently or within a large group of like-minded colleagues.
ABILITIES
autism | Center-Based Therapy | Individual Therapy | Therapeutic Goals | Query | Reliable | Regulatory compliance | Documentation | Reports | Security | Mentor | strong | work ethic | Organized | collaborative
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
Beginning Talkers, LLC | Newark, NJ
ABA Therapist | 05/2018-Present
- Maintain neutrality when interviewing a multicultural patient population.
- Create, manage, and monitor behavior therapy plans for up to 12 patients per week.
- Act as an advocate for the family by providing comprehensive education on treatment plans.
- Document patient changes to ensure the most accurate and up-to-date patient files.
State University | Boston, MA
Registered Behavioral Technician (RBT) | 06/2013-4/2018
- He worked 1:1 with patients in a clinical program to provide therapy for autism and other developmental disabilities.
- Employed advanced knowledge of electronic medical records to record and update charts.
- Created a safe and nurturing environment, allowing patients to progress through treatment plans without trial.
- Mentored 2 other RBTs with effective training resulting in better patient success rates.
EDUCATION AND CREDENTIALS
top tier university
- Master of Science in Applied Behavior Analysis
- Bachelor of Science in Psychology, Applied Behavior Analysis
LICENSES AND CERTIFICATIONS
________________________________________________________________
This resume works great because it contains the right keywords and a good mix of hard and soft skills.
Top skills to consider for your ABA Therapy resume
The main function of your role will be to work with people and each person you work with will require something different.
Evaluation
This is the first step in determining how you will help your patients. You have to know what they are going through to guide them through treatment. By making an in-depth assessment of your environment and behavior, you are in a better position to develop a personalized plan.
Training
Just because you don’t have the floor Coach in your headline, it doesn’t mean you have to leave it off your resume. In fact, he trains many people as an ABA therapist, including patients, families, and teachers, on how to implement behavior therapy tactics for the best results.
Communication
To fulfill your passion to make a difference in someone’s life, you need to be able to communicate with them. Of course, your patient must understand the goals of his treatment plan, but he must also take notes to complete the medical care records.
Modeling
In the spirit of practicing what you preach, you have to model the behavior that you want your patient to perform. It is not good for an ABA Therapist to become impatient if he is trying to get his client to exercise impulse control.
In addition to these abilities, ZipRecruiter indicates that the top 3 skills Listed on both resumes and job descriptions are ABA, behavior analysis, and autism. These “keywords represent 49.21% of the total set of top… keywords.”
In conclusion
Choosing the right career is one of the most important decisions you will make in life. Writing your ABA Therapy resume should be something you invest in, whether your investment is time or money.
Don’t let a lackluster ABA Therapist resume keep you from landing your next position. The TopResume team of professional resume writers you’re armed with the right keywords and ready to help.
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