Resume Keywords for a Respiratory Therapist (ATS Skills List)
Respiratory Therapist keywords determine whether your resume clears ATS screening on platforms like Workday, iCIMS, and Taleo before a hiring manager reads it. Systems filter for RRT and NBRC credentials, ventilator and airway competencies, and charting platforms, so echoing the posting’s language matters. The categories below map the terms most requested across ICU, ED, neonatal, and acute-care RT roles.
Top ATS Keywords for a Respiratory Therapist Resume
Most employers store applications in an applicant tracking system (Workday, Greenhouse, Taleo, iCIMS). The system parses your file into plain text, and a recruiter then searches that text for terms from the posting. These are the terms recruiters search for this role — work in the ones you can honestly claim.
Core Hard Skills
Mechanical ventilationVentilator weaningAirway managementArterial blood gas (ABG) analysisNon-invasive ventilation (BiPAP/CPAP)Aerosol and bronchodilator therapyPulmonary function testingPatient-driven protocols
Tools, Systems & Software
Epic EMRVentilators (Servo, Puritan Bennett)Capnography monitoringPulse oximetryHigh-flow oxygen systemsBlood gas analyzers
Certifications & Licenses
RRT (NBRC)State RT licenseBLSACLSPALSNRP
Soft Skills ATS Scans For
Critical thinkingCommunicationTeamworkComposure under pressureAdaptabilityPatient education
Why These Keywords Matter for Respiratory Therapists
| Keyword | Why recruiters & ATS weight it |
|---|---|
| RRT | The NBRC Registered Respiratory Therapist credential is a required field on most acute-care RT requisitions. |
| Mechanical ventilation | The defining ICU competency employers filter for to confirm critical-care readiness. |
| ABG | Arterial blood gas analysis signals the diagnostic skill that drives ventilator and oxygen adjustments. |
| Ventilator weaning | Demonstrates protocol-driven care that improves outcomes and reduces length of stay. |
| BiPAP | Non-invasive ventilation competency is frequently screened for in ED and acute-care postings. |
| ACLS | Advanced life support is often a mandatory certification for critical-care and code-response RT roles. |
| Airway management | Confirms intubation-assist and emergency airway skills central to rapid-response duties. |
| Epic EMR | Named documentation-system proficiency is a common required field in hospital RT roles. |
The systems, equipment and standards these postings actually name
Respiratory therapist requisitions are unusually specific about hardware. The charge therapist drafting one names the ventilator platform on their unit, the analyser in their blood-gas lab and the charting module the department documents in, because someone who has run that exact kit needs less orientation. Recruiters then search the parsed resume text for those product names, and “ventilator experience” does not match a search for “Servo-u”. Name manufacturer alongside model, so both spellings are searchable.
Invasive ventilator platforms
Getinge Servo-iServo-uPuritan Bennett 840Puritan Bennett 980Dräger Evita V500Hamilton-G5GE Carescape R860Vyaire AveaAPRVHFOV (3100A/3100B)
Non-invasive and high-flow
Philips Respironics V60Trilogy 100 / EvoResMed AstralAVAPSVapotherm Precision FlowFisher & Paykel AIRVO 2OptiflowBiPAP S/THeated high-flow nasal cannula
Blood gas and point-of-care
Radiometer ABL90 FLEXRadiometer ABL800Werfen GEM Premier 5000Abbott i-STATSiemens RAPIDPointCO-oximetryTranscutaneous CO₂Microstream capnographyAnalyser QC and calibration
Charting and documentation
EpicEpic Respiratory Care flowsheetEpic RoverCerner / Oracle HealthMEDITECH ExpanseAllscripts / VeradigmBarcode charge captureEMR superuser
Diagnostics and specialty therapy
Vyaire VyntusMGC DiagnosticsBody plethysmographyDLCOMethacholine challengeSix-minute walk testINOmax (inhaled nitric oxide)HelioxAerogen / AeronebMetaNebBronchoscopy assistECMO circuit support
Protocols, bundles and standards
AARC Clinical Practice GuidelinesThe Joint CommissionCMS Conditions of ParticipationVentilator-associated event (VAE) bundleSAT/SBTABCDEF bundleRapid response teamCode blue responseGOLD COPD guidanceN95 fit testing
Only claim the kit you have touched: a manager running Hamilton units will ask a Hamilton question in the first ten minutes. “Servo-u and PB 980 daily; cross-trained on Hamilton-C6 during transport rotation” beats six platforms listed flat that you cannot describe the screen of.
Keywords by specialisation and seniority
“Respiratory Therapist” is one title covering work that barely overlaps — a NICU therapist and an LTACH weaning therapist share a credential and almost nothing else in their day. That gap is measurable: in our study of 3,910 real job postings, two postings carrying the same job title at different employers shared a median of only 25% of their named requirements, against 11.1% for postings with different titles. Same title, three quarters of the requirement list still changes. Work out which row below the posting describes, then move those terms into your summary and most recent role.
| If the posting is really about… | Lead with these terms — and demote the rest |
|---|---|
| Adult ICU / critical care | Mechanical ventilation, ARDS and lung-protective strategy, APRV, prone positioning, SAT/SBT-driven weaning, ABG interpretation, arterial lines, intubation assist, ECMO support, ACCS. |
| Emergency dept / rapid response | Code blue and rapid response team, difficult airway assist, BiPAP initiation for COPD exacerbation and acute pulmonary oedema, trauma resuscitation, ACLS, PALS, i-STAT. |
| Neonatal / NICU | NRP, S.T.A.B.L.E., surfactant administration, HFOV/HFJV, nasal CPAP and NIPPV, INOmax, umbilical line gases, delivery-room attendance, NPS, transcutaneous CO₂. |
| Pediatric / PICU | PALS, weight-based dosing, paediatric airway sizing, croup and status asthmaticus protocols, continuous albuterol, heliox, NPS, family-centred education. |
| Critical-care transport / flight | Transport ventilators, portable analysers, autonomous protocol practice, interfacility handoff, altitude physiology, secured-airway transfer, ACLS/PALS/NRP stacked. |
| LTACH / vent weaning unit | Long-term ventilator weaning, tracheostomy care and tube changes, speaking valve trials, decannulation protocol, secretion management, weaning-outcome tracking. |
| Sleep lab / polysomnography | Polysomnography, CPAP and BiPAP titration, AHI scoring, NBRC SDS or RPSGT, split-night studies, home sleep apnoea testing, mask fitting. |
| PFT lab / pulmonary diagnostics | Spirometry, body plethysmography, DLCO, lung volumes, bronchoprovocation, six-minute walk test, ATS/ERS acceptability criteria, CPFT or RPFT, biologic controls. |
| Home care / DME | Home ventilator and BiPAP setup, oxygen concentrators and liquid oxygen, caregiver training, compliance downloads and insurance documentation, on-call rotation, driving record. |
| Pulmonary rehab / asthma education | AE-C, inhaler technique teaching, asthma action plans, exercise tolerance testing, smoking-cessation counselling, COPD self-management, group class delivery. |
| Travel or per-diem contract | Licences held, named by state; EMR and ventilator platforms; shortest orientation you have needed; float and cross-unit coverage; night and weekend availability. |
| Lead / clinical coordinator | Shift staffing and assignment, protocol development, competency validation, preceptor ownership, quality metrics, equipment evaluation, headcount covered. |
| Educator / manager / director | CoARC support, simulation lab, curriculum and competency design, students precepted per year; then budget and FTE responsibility, productivity targets, Joint Commission readiness, department size. |
Turning a keyword into a bullet someone will believe
A keyword gets you read; the sentence around it decides whether you are called. Each rewrite below improves for one of three reasons only — a number, a named system, or a duration. A rewrite adding none of those three has added adjectives, and adjectives do not survive a manager who read forty resumes this morning.
| Weak line | Stronger rewrite | What changed |
|---|---|---|
| Managed patients on ventilators. | Managed a 6–8 patient vent assignment in a 24-bed medical ICU on Servo-u and PB 980 platforms, 12-hour nights. | Number + system |
| Performed ABGs. | Drew and ran roughly 25 arterial samples per shift on a Radiometer ABL90 FLEX, including daily QC and monthly proficiency testing. | Number + system |
| Helped wean patients off the ventilator. | Ran therapist-driven SAT/SBT weaning, moving long-stay patients to trach collar in a median of nine days on the weaning unit. | Duration + protocol |
| Experienced with EMR charting. | Charted therapies and vent checks in the Epic Respiratory Care flowsheet; unit superuser through go-live, training 14 staff therapists. | System + number |
| Responded to emergencies. | Carried the code and rapid-response pager for a 300-bed campus, first-responding to about 12 activations a month and holding the airway until anaesthesia arrived. | Number + scope |
| Trained new staff. | Precepted 9 new-graduate therapists over two years, cutting typical ICU orientation from 8 weeks to 6 by rebuilding the vent competency checklist. | Number + duration |
Where the numbers come from: no audited statistics needed. Bed count, assignment size, samples per shift, campus size, therapists precepted and orientation length are figures you already know. Round them honestly and write “about” where you are estimating.
Certifications worth naming — and what each one signals
Not every card in your wallet earns page-one space. Credentialing fields in applicant tracking systems are often structured, so a requisition filters on a short list and the rest is context for the human reader. Write acronym and issuing body in plain text, with expiry dates where the credential lapses.
| Credential | Issuer | When it earns page-one space |
|---|---|---|
| RRT | NBRC | The baseline registered credential on acute-care requisitions. Put it in the headline beside your name, not in a block at the bottom. |
| CRT | NBRC | Accepted in some outpatient, home-care and sleep settings. Holding CRT while targeting ICU work? Say whether the RRT exam is scheduled. |
| ACCS | NBRC | Adult Critical Care Specialty. Rarely mandatory, often listed as preferred on ICU and trauma-centre postings — a genuine tie-breaker. |
| NPS | NBRC | Neonatal/Pediatric Specialty. Close to essential for NICU and PICU postings; largely noise on an adult ICU application. |
| CPFT / RPFT | NBRC | Pulmonary function credentials. Lead with these for diagnostics-lab roles; demote them elsewhere. |
| SDS / RPSGT | NBRC / BRPT | Worth the line when the posting mentions polysomnography, titration or a sleep centre. |
| AE-C | NAECB | Certified Asthma Educator. Strong for outpatient, asthma clinic, pulmonary rehab and community-health roles. |
| BLS / ACLS / PALS | American Heart Association | Commonly hard requirements. List each separately — a filter searching “PALS” will not match “life support certifications”. |
| NRP / S.T.A.B.L.E. | AAP / S.T.A.B.L.E. programme | Delivery-room and neonatal transport work. Name them for NICU, labour-and-delivery cover and transport postings. |
| State RCP or RT licence | State licensing board | Name each state held and its status. For travel and multi-state systems, among the first things screened. |
What to leave off a respiratory therapist resume
Most guides only add. Removal helps too — partly because parsers mangle certain constructs, partly because a clinical reviewer reads some inclusions as a judgement problem rather than a formatting one.
- Patient-identifying detail. No names, MRNs, dates of service, or a case described precisely enough to identify someone. A privacy lapse on the resume is the loudest possible signal about how you would treat the chart.
- Skill bars and star ratings. “Mechanical ventilation ★★★★☆” parses as a stray word and tells a reviewer nothing. Show the level in a bullet instead.
- Your licence number in the header or footer. Parsers frequently drop those regions, and the number is not needed until offer stage. State and status in the body is enough.
- Lapsed certifications. An expired ACLS listed without a date invites the question at the worst moment. Renew it, or write “renewal scheduled”.
- Routine in-services. Keep continuing education that maps to the posting — ECMO, difficult airway, PFT interpretation — and drop the annual mandatories each therapist completes.
- Hospital-internal shorthand. In-house protocol names and unit nicknames mean nothing outside the building and match nothing in a search. Translate them.
- Student clinical rotations, once you are two or three years qualified. They belong on a new-graduate resume and crowd out real practice.
- Category words standing in for products. “Various ventilators” and “multiple EMR systems” match nothing a recruiter types into the search box.
Fastest way to see the gap: paste your resume and the exact posting into the free checker. It returns the required terms from that posting that are missing from your file, so you can tell whether the gap is the ventilator platform, the specialty credential, or a section heading the parser could not read.
How to Place Keywords So the ATS Reads Them
- Mirror the exact wording from the job posting (both the acronym and the spelled-out term, e.g. “CRM (Salesforce)”).
- Put your strongest keywords in your summary and your two most recent roles — ATS weights recent experience.
- Add a dedicated Skills section, but also weave keywords into your bullet points so they read naturally.
- Use standard section headings (“Work Experience”, “Skills”) and avoid tables, text boxes, or headers/footers that ATS parsers drop.
- Never keyword-stuff or use white text — modern parsers and recruiters both catch it.
Put These Keywords Into Strong Bullets
Keywords get you past the filter; quantified bullets win the interview. See Respiratory Therapist resume bullet examples to see these terms in action.
Frequently Asked Questions
Which keywords help an RT resume pass ATS?
RRT and NBRC credentials, competencies like mechanical ventilation, ABG, and ventilator weaning, plus life-support certifications such as ACLS are the keywords ATS platforms weight most heavily.
How should I list my RRT credential for ATS?
Write RRT (NBRC) in plain text near the top of the resume and in a skills line, avoiding graphics or tables that Workday, iCIMS, and Taleo parsers can misread.
Do I need to list every life-support certification?
List the certifications the role requires, such as ACLS, PALS, or NRP, since acute and neonatal postings often screen for them, but only include credentials you currently hold.
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