Graduating This Year? How to Find Your First OT Role
Graduating This Year? How to Find Your First OT Role
Congratulations on reaching the end of your degree. After years of study and placements, you are close to starting work as an occupational therapist, and that is a big achievement.
The next step is finding your first role, and timing matters more than many graduates realise. Many employers slow their hiring over the summer holidays, so the weeks before Christmas are a good time to get organised. Here is what I would focus on now.
1. Apply for registration early
You need to be registered with the Occupational Therapy Board of Australia before you can work as an OT. You don’t have to wait until you graduate to apply. AHPRA accepts graduate applications up to 90 days before you expect to finish all your course requirements, including placements.
AHPRA starts assessing your application before your results arrive, but it can’t finalise your registration until it has your graduate results from your university, your identity check and your criminal history check. Once your results come through, AHPRA aims to finalise your application within two weeks. It receives about 37,000 graduate applications during the end-of-year peak, so the sooner yours is in, the better.
The AHPRA graduate registration page has two practical tips that are easy to miss:
- Use a personal email address for your AHPRA portal rather than your university email, because you may lose access to your university email after you graduate.
- Complete your identity check as soon as the link arrives. You have 30 days, and if you miss that window your application is withdrawn and you have to start again.
Employers will often ask when your registration is expected, so it helps to be able to answer that question with confidence.
2. Know where graduate roles are advertised
Graduate roles turn up in a few different places:
- Public health services, which often run structured graduate programmes with set application windows
- Private practices, many of which run their own graduate programmes, while others hire new graduates as a need arises
- NDIS providers and community organisations
- Niche job boards such as OT Jobs Australia, where you can browse the Graduates category to see roles open to new graduates
Some graduate programmes, particularly in the public sector, recruit months ahead, so if one appeals to you, check its dates now. Other roles can come up at any time of year, which is why it pays to keep watching.
3. Ask about supervision before you accept
When I owned a private practice, the graduates who settled in best were the ones who had asked good questions about support before they started. Supervision will shape your first year more than almost anything else, so it is worth asking about in every interview.
Questions you could ask include:
- Who will supervise me, and how often will we meet?
- Is supervision scheduled, or is it arranged as needed?
- Will I have a reduced caseload while I settle in?
- What professional development support do you offer graduates?
- Who can I go to with a question on a day when my supervisor isn’t available?
A good employer will be happy to answer these questions. If the answers are vague, take that into account when you weigh up the offer.
If you would like help preparing, my post on OT interview questions in Australia and how to answer them covers the questions you are likely to be asked.
4. Compare how each role supports new graduates
Graduate programmes aren’t limited to one type of employer. Public health services, many private practices and some community organisations run them, and other employers take on new graduates in a standard role with supervision built in. The setting tells you less than the structure of the support on offer.
A structured graduate programme usually includes regular supervision, a planned approach to building your caseload and professional development designed for new graduates. Some programmes also offer rotations across different areas or a group of other graduates to learn alongside. Places in these programmes can be limited, so applications are often competitive.
A role without a formal programme can still offer excellent support, but the quality varies more from one employer to another. The questions in the previous section will help you find out what you would actually receive.
Think about the kind of support you want in your first year and the area you would like to work in, and let that guide your choice.
If pay is part of your decision, my guide to graduate OT salaries in Australia may help you compare offers.
5. Keep your application simple and specific
Employers reading graduate applications are looking for evidence that you can apply what you have learned. Tailor your cover letter to each role, and refer to your placements and what you did on them rather than listing every subject you studied. Keep your resume to two pages if you can, and ask someone you trust to read it before you send it.
6. Set up a profile and job alerts
You don’t need to check job sites every day to stay on top of new roles. If you set up a free profile on OT Jobs Australia, you can turn on job alerts and receive new roles in your inbox each week. When you are ready, you can also let employers know you are available for work.
If you haven’t set up a profile before, this step-by-step guide walks you through it.
Wishing you well
Your first role is the start of your career, not a decision you are locked into forever. Choose a workplace that will support you, ask plenty of questions, and give yourself time to settle in. I wish every one of you the very best as you begin working as an OT.
Once you have accepted an offer, What to Expect in Your First OT Job covers what comes next.
Robyne
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