Transferable Skills For Physiotherapists 

Over the past year, after starting my website, I came across various physiotherapy career paths in India, both clinical and non-clinical. We truly can do a lot more than patient care! If you want to change your career to take on an offbeat clinical career path or non-clinical roles, your resume should highlight transferable skills. So in this article today we are going to take a look at transferable skills for physiotherapists. 

What are transferable skills?

Transferable skills are the set of skills or talents that can be used for multiple jobs even if you change your career paths. These are the skills you acquired and nurtured in your previous job roles.

Based on these skills, you can vouch for yourself to your new employer. Hiring managers want to know why they should hire you, What you bring to the table.  You can highlight these skills on your resume to explain how you are a good fit for the new role. 

Transferable skills can be drawn from your past work experience, your internships, and your voluntary work. Some skills are the hard skills that are teachable and quantifiable such as your knowledge of statistics. While others are difficult to quantify soft skills such as communication and time management. 

Who needs transferable skills?

Anyone who is looking to change career paths should look for transferable skills in their previous roles. Adding transferable skills to your resume is particularly important in this case since you will be applying for a totally different job role. You will need to justify your case in every way to explain why you are a good fit. 

One of the common resume mistakes by physiotherapists is using the same resume when applying for clinical and non-clinical roles. Hiring teams for both types of job roles are looking for different sets of skills. If you are applying for non-clinical roles for the first time, calling attention to transferable skills becomes even more essential. 

How do transferable skills work?

To figure out your transferable skills as a physiotherapist you need to take into account your past experience. This includes everything from internships, physiotherapy observership, past jobs, and volunteer work. 

Once you have that in mind, read the job description for the new role you are applying for. Try and understand what work you will need to accomplish if you take that job. Think about the challenges you may face.

List down skills mentioned in the job description and additional skills you think might be needed for the new role. This could be academic qualifications or hard skills as well as soft skills. Once you have the list ready, look for the skills that you can transfer from your experience to your new role. Remember to include them in your new resume. 

Transferable skills for physiotherapists 

Consultation  

When talking about transferable skills for physiotherapists, consultation is one of the top ones! Let’s face it, this is our bread and butter! Right from educating patients about their condition to teaching exercises and home programs, we are sharing our knowledge. 

But this is just the tip of the iceberg. We break down complex medical language into understandable chunks of information. In our clinical jobs, we are constantly simplifying information for our patients, juniors, and students. 

The cherry on top is that we do all of this with a smile. This makes us an important asset for different job roles. The same skills can be translated to roles such as sales associate, health writing, ergonomic consultant, medical advisor etc. 

Empathy

As physiotherapists, we don’t just listen to our patients, we try to understand what they mean. We step in their shoes and see the world from their standpoint. Additionally, we take into account the concerns of the patient’s family and caregivers.

When setting goals, we set goals based on what our patient wants for themselves. Throughout the process, we literally and figuratively hold their hands to help them achieve their goals. 

Even though a soft skill, empathy grows as you nurture it. It is one of the top skills many employers are looking for. Having empathy makes you not just an excellent team player but also a charismatic leader. So in your next job interview, be sure to talk about how your experience of working with patients and practicing empathy makes you an ideal candidate for the new role. 

Problem-solving

Early on in our college days, we learned that there is no one size fits all approach for our patients. When working as clinical physiotherapists we do not prescribe the same set of exercises to all of our patients. We know all our patients are unique and we write treatment plans tailor-made for them. 

However, this is just touching upon what we do as a physiotherapist. Many times we need to change our treatment plans based on the response from the patient. Just because our initial treatment plan did not work, we don’t discharge our patients. 

We revisit the treatment plan. Tweak some things, maybe add or delete some exercises and try again. As clinical physiotherapists, we are constantly solving problems and addressing unforeseen hiccups in our daily lives.

Problem-solving is an important skill that is required for many other corporate roles such as claims manager, telerehab consultant, strategy manager, etc. So if your new job demands you to possess problem-solving skills, be sure to add it to your resume.

People skills

As PTs we are always working with people. We work with patients, caregivers, and families to provide value-based care. Moreover, we collaborate with our colleagues, employer, and manager to ensure the smooth running of our daily operations. Apart from that, we reach out to other health professionals such as orthopedic surgeons, neurologists, dieticians, etc to improve the quality of care. 

Many times during these interactions we face difficult-to-navigate situations. Over a period of time, through experience, we groom ourselves to handle these situations gracefully and courteously.

We already know how to work with people. For that matter, as a PT we have always been surrounded by people. We know nobody can go too far just by being on their own. Given that we have been polishing our people skills all throughout our professional lives, we may be cut out for the roles that require us to have them!

Are these the only transferable skills for physiotherapists?

Absolutely not! I just covered the most common ones.

I am ready to launch my career, where can I find more help? 

Well, I am here to help you every step of the way. From making a resume, and cover letter to interview prep and salary negotiations. Sign up for my one-on-one consultations for more guidance!