Questions to Ask in an Occupational Therapy Interview
Questions for an occupational therapist or OT assistant to ask the interviewer at a clinic, hospital, school or skilled nursing facility, for the moment the conversation is handed over to you. They follow the order the decision usually takes: caseload and productivity, documentation, mentoring and growth, the team and setting, then pay and the offer, with a last group for an OT school admissions interview. Each has a note on what a good or a worrying answer sounds like, or what to do with it.
The questions
Each question, and why to ask it
Caseload
What does a typical day look like for an occupational therapist here?
Why ask it
The usual opener, and a good one if you push for detail: what time the first patient or student is seen, when evaluations happen, where notes and lunch go. If the day described has no gaps at all, ask when family phone calls, equipment orders and team meetings happen.
How many patients or students would be on my caseload, and who sets that number?
Why ask it
The count means something different in each setting: visits a day in a clinic, a census on a hospital unit, a list of students spread over several schools. A reassuring answer comes with a cap and the name of the person who holds it. If you hear 'it depends on referrals' and no ceiling, ask what the highest number was last year and what was done about it.
What is the productivity expectation, and what counts toward it?
Why ask it
Get the figure first, then go through what is inside it. Writing up an evaluation, making a splint, training a caregiver, a care conference and the walk between units may or may not count, and that decides whether the number fits inside paid hours. If no figure is offered, ask how anyone tells a full day from a light one; there is usually a number behind that.
What does the caseload look like by age and diagnosis, and what would I rarely see?
Why ask it
Occupational therapy stretches from hand injuries to feeding, dementia care and handwriting, so 'a mix' is not an answer. Ask for last month's most common referrals. What you would rarely see matters too: a skill you want to keep, such as splinting or cognitive rehabilitation, fades in a job that never calls for it.
Who decides how often and how long a patient is seen: the treating therapist or someone else?
Why ask it
Where payment follows minutes or visits, this is the point at which clinical judgment and the budget meet. The answer you want is that the evaluating therapist sets frequency and duration and can explain them in the chart. Be wary if a manager, a software prompt or a corporate target is described as the starting point.
How much time is scheduled for an evaluation, including scoring and the write-up?
Why ask it
A standardized assessment has to be given, scored and turned into a report someone else can act on, and only the first part happens with the patient in the room. A sound answer books the evaluation longer than a treatment and leaves room for the report. If both get the same slot, expect to do the scoring at your kitchen table.
Are group or concurrent sessions expected, and who chooses when a patient goes into one?
Why ask it
Payers set their own rules on group and concurrent treatment, so ask how this facility applies them. A group chosen because three people are working on the same kitchen task is treatment. A set share of minutes that must come from groups is a staffing decision, and you would be the one signing the note.
Would I cover more than one building, school or unit, and does the travel count as work time?
Why ask it
A caseload split across sites loses time to driving, parking and finding the child or the chart. Listen for whether travel sits inside the paid day and the productivity figure, and whether mileage is repaid. A map of the sites and a sample week is the answer to ask for.
In a school post, is my load counted in students or as a workload that includes meetings, evaluations and consultation?
Why ask it
Two therapists with the same number of students can have very different weeks, depending on how many evaluations, plan meetings and teacher consultations come with them. A district that counts workload has looked at the whole job. One that quotes only a student count needs a follow-up on how many evaluations and meetings last year's therapist handled.
What happens when a family keeps missing sessions, and who has that conversation with them?
Why ask it
In outpatient work, and pediatrics above all, a missed session is often an empty hour that cannot be billed or filled. A written policy that the front desk applies protects your schedule and your relationship with the family. If the therapist is expected to make that call personally, ask how missed visits are treated in the productivity figure.
Documentation
Is documentation time built into the schedule, or does it come out of treatment and lunch?
Why ask it
Ask where on yesterday's schedule the charting happened. A real answer is a time of day, such as the last half hour before lunch and before close. Where the honest answer is that people chart over a sandwich or at home, you at least know the true length of the day before you compare offers.
What do you chart in, and was it set up with occupational therapy in mind?
Why ask it
The name of the system matters less than how it fits the work. Some are built around another discipline, so an OT ends up typing dressing, cooking and cognition goals into free-text boxes, which slows every note. Ask how long a routine daily note takes someone who has been here a year, and in a school whether plan documents and billing logs sit in two separate places.
Do you expect point-of-service documentation, and how do therapists manage it with the patients you see?
Why ask it
Typing during a session works for some visits and not while you are guarding a transfer or a child is halfway up a climbing frame. A thoughtful interviewer will say which parts of the note can be done in the room and which cannot. 'Everyone finds their own way' means the expectation was set without anyone testing it.
What is the deadline for finishing a note, and how many therapists are usually caught up by the end of the week?
Why ask it
The deadline is policy and the second half is reality. If most of the team is behind most weeks, the schedule does not hold the work, whatever the handbook says. Ask too whether a late note holds up billing or pay, because that is when the pressure arrives.
Which paperwork beyond daily notes would be mine: progress reports, recertifications, plan meetings, letters of medical necessity?
Why ask it
Occupational therapists write a lot that is not a treatment note, and a wheelchair or equipment justification can take an hour on its own. Have them list what lands on the therapist and what an office or a case manager prepares. For an assistant, the thing to pin down is which documents you draft and which the supervising therapist must write.
Who orders adaptive equipment and splinting supplies, and who deals with the funding paperwork?
Why ask it
A reacher is simple. A custom wheelchair, a bath lift or a mounting system can mean vendor visits, forms and weeks of follow-up calls. A named person or an equipment clinic is a good sign. If it all falls to the treating therapist, ask which hours of the week are set aside for it.
If I found I was regularly finishing notes after hours, how would you want me to raise it?
Why ask it
This asks about the culture without accusing anyone. A manager who says they would go through your schedule with you has probably done it before. Rules on pay for charting done outside scheduled hours differ by place and by contract, so find out how that time is logged here and whether anyone is paid for it.
If I were asked to change a code, a note or a plan of care and did not agree, who would I take it to?
Why ask it
Give your reason first: your name and license sit on every note. A steady answer names a compliance contact and a way to say no that costs you nothing. If the question is met with defensiveness, or a joke about how things work in the real world, give that weight, and put the same question to a staff therapist if you get the chance.
Mentoring and growth
Do you hire new graduates, and what would my first month look like?
Why ask it
A place that has done it before can describe the weeks: system training, shadowing, shared evaluations, a first solo day. If they have never hired a new graduate, that is not a no, but you would be writing your own orientation, so ask who would own it.
Who would my mentor be, and is their own schedule lightened to make room for me?
Why ask it
Mentoring that depends on a busy colleague's goodwill disappears in the first hectic week. Listen for a name, a standing meeting time and some relief on the mentor's caseload. Ask to meet that person before you accept, because their interest in teaching is the whole benefit.
How many patients a day would I start with, and on what date would I carry the full load?
Why ask it
A starting number and a date make a plan you can hold someone to. 'We will see how you go' can be kindness or can mean every slot booked within two weeks, so ask what happened with the last new hire. Write the answer down and ask for it in the offer letter.
When would I do my first evaluation alone, and who decides I am ready?
Why ask it
For many new clinicians the evaluation is where the gap between school and work shows first. A good setting has you watch several, lead some with a senior therapist in the room, then go solo with the report reviewed. If the answer is your first morning, ask who reads your early reports before they go out.
Would I be the only occupational therapist in the building, and who would I call with a clinical question?
Why ask it
Schools, small nursing facilities and rural clinics often have one OT on site. That can suit an experienced therapist. For a first job, find out how quickly a senior OT answers the phone and how often you would be in the same room. A rehab director from another discipline can help with a schedule, but probably not with a splint that will not sit right.
Which skills do you expect me to arrive with, and which would you teach: splinting, feeding, wheelchair seating, physical agent modalities?
Why ask it
Fieldwork leaves every graduate strong in some areas and blank in others, and employers know it. Say plainly which ones are thin for you and see how they react. Some techniques need extra training or sign-off under local rules, so ask how that is handled here before you are asked to use one.
If my certification exam result or license is still pending, how does that change my start date, duties and pay?
Why ask it
Rules for working before a full license are local, and employers differ in how they use them. Ask what title, tasks and rate you would start on. Then raise the case nobody likes to mention: a result that does not go your way the first time, and whether the job waits for you. A calm answer means they have been through it with someone before.
Is there money and paid time for continuing education, and do I owe anything back if I leave?
Why ask it
Ask what the therapists actually attended last year, since a budget that nobody has the days to spend is not a benefit. Check whether license and certification renewal fees come out of the same pot. Repayment terms for a funded course belong in writing before you enroll.
Would the caseload here support a specialty, such as hand therapy, feeding, low vision or driving rehabilitation?
Why ask it
Specialty credentials usually ask for experience in the area as well as coursework, and the certifying body sets the terms, so check them yourself. What the employer can tell you is whether those referrals arrive and whether anyone on staff already holds the credential. Ask who on the team earned one after being hired; if nobody has, the caseload or the schedule may not allow it.
Do you take fieldwork students, and when would I be expected to supervise one?
Why ask it
Taking students keeps a department explaining why it does things, and a new hire benefits from that habit too. Who may supervise fieldwork, and after how long in practice, is set by the program and its accreditor, so ask how this site handles it. Be cautious if students are described mainly as extra hands.
Team and setting
Is this a new position or a replacement, and how long did the last person stay?
Why ask it
A new post means building referrals and explaining your role from scratch. A replacement means inheriting a caseload, and how long the last therapist stayed tells you whether it was livable. Two short tenures in a row deserve a direct question about what each of them said on the way out.
How many OTs and OTAs are on staff, and how long have most of them been here?
Why ask it
Head count tells you who covers your patients when you are out and whether there is anyone to learn from. Length of stay is the nearest thing to a reference the department can give you. If nearly everyone is in their first year, ask who left and what reasons they gave.
Who would I report to, and is that person an occupational therapist?
Why ask it
Rehab directors come from every discipline, and some have no clinical background. That works when there is a senior OT to take clinical questions and have a say in your review. If your work would be judged only by someone outside the profession, ask what they look at besides productivity.
What would you look at in my first review besides the productivity figure?
Why ask it
Productivity is easy to count, so it can end up being the whole review unless something else is written down. Hopeful signs are charts audited by another OT, patient outcomes, feedback from families or teachers, and goals you had a hand in setting. Ask when the review happens and whether a raise depends on it.
What is the department finding hardest at the moment: staffing, referrals, a new records system, something else?
Why ask it
Offering a few choices makes it easier for the interviewer to pick one than to say everything is fine. Whatever they name, ask what is being done about it and by when. A vacancy that has stood open for months means the people still there are carrying its caseload, and you may be too.
How do OT, PT and speech divide the work on shared patients?
Why ask it
The edges overlap: transfers, cognition, feeding, the upper limb. A team that has talked about it will describe co-treatments and who takes the lead on what. If the summary is that OT does arms and PT does legs, you have learned how the role is seen, and you can ask whether there is room to widen it.
How does supervision between OTs and OTAs work here, and how many assistants does one therapist oversee?
Why ask it
The minimum is set by regulators and payers and varies by place, so you are asking how this employer applies it. A therapist should hear how co-signing and re-evaluations appear on the schedule. An assistant should hear whether the supervising OT is on site, reachable the same day, and familiar with the patients.
How well do the nurses, teachers or referring doctors here understand what occupational therapy is for?
Why ask it
You can hear the answer in the referrals. Requests for help with dressing after a stroke, a classroom seating problem or a safe discharge home mean the role is understood. If OT is called mainly for handwriting, or when the other therapists are full, part of the job will be explaining the job.
What space and equipment would I have: a kitchen, a bathroom setup, splinting materials, a sensory gym?
Why ask it
Occupational therapy needs places to practice real tasks, and a shared gym full of parallel bars is not one. Ask to see where a patient would practice getting into a tub or making a meal. In a school, find out whether you get a room or a corner of the hallway, and where your materials live between visits.
When I need an assessment kit or a piece of equipment you do not have, how do I get it?
Why ask it
Standardized assessments come with kits and record forms that cost money every year. A budget line and a simple request form suggest it has been thought about. Therapists paying for their own supplies, or working from an outdated edition of a test, tells you where the department sits in the spending order.
Does the facility employ its therapists directly, or does a contract company run the department?
Why ask it
With a contractor, the people setting your targets may never enter the building, and a change of contract can change your employer overnight. Direct employment has its own limits, often on pay. Either way, ask who the interviewer answers to and whether the arrangement has changed in the last few years.
How are families and caregivers brought into treatment here?
Why ask it
Much of what an occupational therapist achieves depends on the person at home doing the transfer or the morning routine the same way. Listen for caregiver training built into visits, time counted for it, and how it works when relatives can only come after hours. Silence on this suggests therapy stops at the gym door.
Pay and offer
What is the pay range for this position, and is it hourly, salaried or per visit?
Why ask it
The structure matters as much as the figure. Hourly pay can stop when the patients do, a salary can hide long weeks, and per-visit pay tends to put cancellations and travel on you. Ask which applies, then work out what a slow week and a heavy week would each pay.
Is this post full-time, part-time or as-needed, and which benefits come with that status?
Why ask it
Hours can sit just under an employer's line for health cover or paid leave, and as-needed work commonly trades benefits for a higher hourly rate. Ask where the line is here, and what happens to your status if your hours drift above or below it for a few months.
Does the offer promise a set number of paid hours, and how often were therapists sent home early in the last few months?
Why ask it
When the census falls, hourly therapy staff are often the first cost to go. The number of low-census days in a recent stretch is a fact they can look up, so ask for it. Then ask what staff do about the lost pay: pick up hours at a sister site, go home unpaid, or draw down vacation.
How is paid time off earned, and does taking it change what I am expected to produce?
Why ask it
Start with the accrual rate, then ask about the part people forget. In some places the productivity target ignores vacation and in others it does not, so have them walk through a week with two days off in it. Who treats your patients while you are away is the other half of the answer.
How does the weekend and holiday rotation work, and is that time paid differently?
Why ask it
Hospitals and nursing facilities usually need therapy cover outside weekdays. The fair version is a posted rotation that everyone shares, senior staff included. Ask how often your turn comes, whether you get a weekday off in exchange, and whether a weekend therapist works alone.
In a school job, am I paid through the summer and breaks, and which salary scale am I on?
Why ask it
Districts and contract agencies handle this in different ways, and one annual figure can mean ten months of pay spread over twelve or nothing at all in July. Ask which calendar you work, whether extended school year services are optional, and how your experience is placed on the scale.
Is there a sign-on bonus, relocation help or loan assistance, and what would I owe if I left early?
Why ask it
Money offered up front nearly always comes with a period you must stay. Ask for the repayment schedule in writing and whether it shrinks month by month or stays whole until the last day. If the job turns out differently from what was described, that clause is what keeps you in it.
Is there a clinical ladder, and what does an OT or OTA have to do to move up a step?
Why ask it
A ladder with written criteria lets you earn more without leaving patient care for management. Ask how many people moved up last year. For an assistant, ask as well whether the employer helps with a bridge program to become a therapist, and what it expects in return.
Could I shadow for a couple of hours or talk with one of the OTs before I decide?
Why ask it
The floor shows what an interview cannot: how long sessions really run, where notes get written, whether anyone stops for lunch. If they agree at once, that tells you something too. Privacy rules may limit what you can observe, but they do not stop a ten-minute talk with a staff therapist.
Can I take the contract home before I answer, including any non-compete or required notice period?
Why ask it
The answer should be yes without hesitation. Read the notice period, any limit on where you can work afterwards and anything about repaying training costs. How far a clause like that binds you is a local legal question, so take it to a lawyer or your professional association, not to the person offering the job.
What happens after today, and when should I expect to hear from you?
Why ask it
Therapy hiring can add a skills check, a working interview, reference calls and license verification, so ask which are still to come. A date gives you a reason to follow up without seeming impatient. If a second employer is waiting on your answer, tell them the date.
OT school
What kind of student does well in this program, and what kind struggles?
Why ask it
Admissions interviewers hear 'what makes your program special' all day. This version gets a description of the workload and the teaching style instead of a brochure line. If the picture of the student who struggles sounds like you, ask what support that student gets.
How are Level I and Level II fieldwork placements arranged, and how far do students travel for them?
Why ask it
Fieldwork is where you find out which kind of occupational therapist you are, and programs differ in how much choice students get. Ask how many sites they hold agreements with in the practice area you want, such as pediatrics or mental health, and what happens when a placement falls through late.
How do your graduates do on the certification exam, and what help is there for someone who has to retake it?
Why ask it
Pass rates are usually posted publicly, so arrive knowing them. The interview is for the story: what changed in a year the rate dipped, and how the program spots a student who is heading for trouble. An answer that includes the people who did not pass first time is more useful than a polished number.
How large is each cohort, and how many of the students who start finish on schedule?
Why ask it
Size shapes how well the faculty know you and how hard fieldwork sites are to come by. The second number is the one programs volunteer less readily. Ask why people fall behind or leave, whether it is grades, money or fieldwork, and whether a student who fails one course waits a full year to repeat it.
How much of the teaching is hands-on lab work, such as transfers, splinting and assistive technology?
Why ask it
Nobody learns to fit a splint or guard a transfer from slides. Find out how large a lab group is and whether the rooms stay open for practice after class. For a hybrid program, ask how often students come to campus and for how long.
Which practice areas are the faculty strongest in, and which do students say get less time?
Why ask it
Every program leans somewhere: pediatrics, physical rehabilitation, mental health, older adults. Naming the thinner area takes some candor, and it is a good sign when an interviewer does. If it is the one you want, ask which fieldwork sites and electives make up for it.
What does the capstone or final project involve, and how do students find a site or mentor for it?
Why ask it
This applies most to doctoral programs, though many master's programs have a final project too. Hear two or three recent examples. Students left to arrange their own site and mentor can lose months, so ask how many in the last cohort had theirs settled by the start of the final year.
Can students realistically hold a part-time job, and what happens to it during full-time fieldwork?
Why ask it
Better put to current students if you meet any, since they know how many hours people actually manage. Full-time fieldwork can be in another city and leave no room for paid work. Ask how students have covered rent in those months and whether any placements come with housing or a stipend.
For an OTA program: do your graduates go on to bridge to an OT degree, and is there a route from here?
Why ask it
Skip this unless you are applying to an assistant program. Some schools have agreements that carry credits forward and some leave graduates to start over, and which applies depends on the schools involved. Ask where recent graduates who wanted the therapist route went, and how long they worked first.
Is there anything in my application you would like me to speak to before we finish?
Why ask it
Admissions committees often discuss a weak spot after you have left the room: a low grade in a prerequisite, thin observation hours, a change of career. This lets you address it in person. Keep the reply short and factual, and if they say no, ask when decisions go out and how the waitlist works.
How to use your questions in an OT interview
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
Before the interview
Know where the setting pinches
Each setting has one thing that decides whether the job is livable. In a skilled nursing facility it is usually the productivity figure and who sets treatment minutes. In a school it is how many buildings and how the load is counted. In outpatient pediatrics it is cancellations and report writing, and in a hospital it is weekends and low-census days. Put the question that matches your setting first, in case it is the only one you get to ask.
Find out who the employer is
Therapy departments in nursing facilities and schools are often run by a contract company, and the name on the building is not always the name on the paycheck. The posting or the recruiter can usually tell you. Knowing it beforehand lets you ask the manager how the arrangement works day to day, which is more useful than asking whether it exists.
Read the local rules first
Supervision of assistants, what a new graduate may do before a full license, and who may use certain techniques are set by the regulator where you will work. Look them up on the regulator's own site before the interview. Then your question becomes 'how do you apply this here?', and you will notice if the answer does not fit what you read.
Choose five and rank them
You may get five minutes at the end and no more. Take one from each group that applies to you, lead with whichever answer would decide the job for you, and hold the others for a second conversation, a shadow visit or the offer call.
Write down your limits
Before you go in, decide what you would not accept: a number of evenings spent charting, a caseload with no cap, a first job with no other OT to call. It is easy to wave a concern away when you like the people across the table. Limits set at home, on paper, hold up better than ones invented in the room.
Which questions for which person
The recruiter
A recruiter knows the pay range, the hours, the benefits and who the employer of record is, and can say how a pending license affects a start date. Those are most of the Pay and offer questions. A recruiter usually cannot tell you where notes get written or what the mentor is like, so do not spend a clinical interview on what a phone call could settle.
The rehab director or manager
This is the person for the Caseload, Documentation and Mentoring and growth groups, and for most of Team and setting. Ask for figures and write them down in front of them: the productivity number, the note deadline, the starting caseload. A manager who is comfortable being quoted is telling you the figures are real.
A staff OT or OTA
If you get time with someone who treats there, ask the same two or three questions you asked the manager: what time charting is actually done, how the last new hire was brought on, what they would change. Where the two accounts agree you can rely on them. Where they differ, trust the account of the person who treats there every day.
Once there is an offer
The contract, repayment terms and anything promised about a gradual start or a mentor belong to this stage. Ask for the promises that mattered to you to be written into the offer. People change jobs, and what a manager said in an interview is hard to rely on once they have left.
New graduates, assistants and applicants
If this is your first job
Give the first seven questions under Mentoring and growth the most room. The habits of a first year, in evaluation, in documentation and in asking for help, are built beside whoever is around, so it matters who that is. Ask to meet the mentor, and say honestly which skills you have not practiced yet. An employer's reaction to that sentence tells you a good deal.
If you are an OTA
Your working life depends on the therapist who supervises you. Ask who that would be, whether they are in the building on your days, and how you would reach them when a patient is not doing what the plan expected. The supervision, clinical ladder and paperwork questions on this page are written with both roles in mind.
If you are changing settings
An experienced therapist moving from, say, a hospital to a school is new in everything except the profession. Borrow from the Mentoring and growth group without embarrassment: ask for orientation to the documents, the meetings and the law that governs the new setting, and who would walk you through your first few.
If this is an OT school interview
Use the OT school group and pick two or three, since time for your questions is short. Leave out anything the program's website states plainly. If students are available, put the workload and money questions to them. The job questions earlier on the page are worth a read too: an applicant who understands caseloads and charting can talk about the profession as it is practiced, which is what a 'why OT' question is testing.
Answers worth a second look
A target nobody will put a number on
'We are flexible about productivity' is pleasant to hear and impossible to plan around. Ask once more for the figure and what happens below it. If it still does not come, ask a staff therapist what number they are held to.
Support described in adjectives
'Very supportive team' and 'great culture' are not answers to a question about mentoring. Ask for the name, the meeting time and what the last new hire's first month looked like. A real program can be described in days and people.
No time with anyone who treats there
A manager who cannot find ten minutes for you to talk with a staff OT may simply be busy. A second refusal, or a chat that only happens with the manager present, is worth weighing against everything else you heard.
Pressure to accept on the spot
A good offer survives a few days and a careful reading. Being pushed to sign before you have seen the contract, the benefits summary or the building during treatment hours is a reason to slow down, however much you need the job.
Judging the job on one reply
One awkward answer can be a tired interviewer. Look at the run of them: whether the specifics were there when you asked for numbers, and whether what you were told matched what you saw on the floor.