A physical therapist job description that actually works

Most physical therapist job descriptions are interchangeable, which is why they get read and not answered. There are 288,413 licensed physical therapists in the US, almost all employed. A posting that could describe any job gives none of them a reason to read the second paragraph.

The requirements section

Short, and there is no room for creativity in it. A US physical therapist needs a Doctor of Physical Therapy degree, a passing NPTE score, and a licence in the state where the work happens. That last one is the constraint people forget: a therapist licensed in Ohio cannot start in Indiana on Monday.

Most employers also want current CPR or BLS. Specialty certifications belong under preferred, not required — every fake requirement removes candidates who would have done the job well. If you will sponsor, say so here rather than burying it; physical therapists sit on the Schedule A shortage list, which changes what that involves (covered here).

The duties section

Five headings cover the work. The specifics under each are what make it readable.

1. Evaluation and plan of careInitial examination, diagnosis within the physical therapy scope, measurable goals, and the discharge criteria. Say who signs off and how often the plan is reviewed.
2. TreatmentManual therapy, therapeutic exercise, modalities, gait and balance training. Name the ones this role actually uses; a list of everything reads as a list of nothing.
3. DocumentationNotes, authorisations and billing. This is the duty candidates ask about first and job descriptions mention last. Name the EMR and say whether documentation time is scheduled or expected after hours.
4. Direction of support staffWhether the therapist directs physical therapy assistants and aides, and how many. It changes the job and it changes the pay expectation.
5. CollaborationWho else is in the room: referring physicians, case managers, families. In home health and SNF this is most of the difficulty and it rarely appears in the posting.

The four facts that decide it

This is what a working therapist scans for, and most postings answer none of it.

What to put in the pay range

Pay for the same role moves a long way by state, so a national average is no use when writing one posting. The market estimate and licensed count per state sit on the state pages — California and Texas are the largest markets. Whatever range you publish is read against those numbers, because candidates look them up.

Why the description is not the hard part

In a typical month roughly three physical therapists in a thousand file a change of practice address. The population that reads job postings at all is a sliver of the profession, and everyone hiring in your metro competes for that same sliver.

The posting's real job is to convert someone already reached — it is the page a therapist lands on after a message or a referral, and where a promising conversation dies if the setting, caseload and pay are missing. Write it for that reader. To see who is actually out there before you write it, the free market probe gives the count and pay context for a role and city in about a minute.