How to Put OJT Experience on Your Resume — Complete Guide

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OJT is the abbreviated form for “on-the-job training”.

This kind of traning is typically done by recently employed graduates or employees new to a certain field.

This helps people to get real-world experience in a particular area while working, hence “on-the-job”.

How can you include this experience on a resume in the best way?

 

How to list OJT on your resume?

OJT should be listed in the experience section. This section will allow you to expand on relevant responsibilities. Do not include OJT on a resume once you have attained relevant “real” experience. At that point, it is best to describe work experience without referring to the training at all.   

 

Should you include OJT on a resume?

The skills gained from OJT should always be included on a resume in one form or another, but which form depends on how much experience you have. Because OJT is often part of a job, it can be redundant to list both the job and the OJT as different sections. 

In the case of experienced professionals who are long past the point of their OJT, it should not be specified on a resume.

If financial record-keeping skills were learned during the OJT, simply list these skills or responsibilities without mentioning they were learned as part of OJT. 

If OJT was recently completed at a workplace for a secondary department with a new skillset, then it may be specified. Take this example for instance:

An employee has been working in the education industry as an ed-tech. The school decides to expand their special needs department and asks an employee to complete a 6-week OJT pertaining to special needs. 

In this case, listing the training in the experience section is appropriate and impressive.

Just remember to remove the training and replace that point with actual experience once enough time has passed. 

 

How to format OJT in the experience section

When including OJT in the experience section, it should be listed as a bullet point or line of text beneath a job.

OJT should never be listed as its own job, because it would be redundant and strange not to credit the specific employer. 

You do not need to list the dates of OJT specifically, only include the date you started the job itself and the date finished (or “Present” if this work is still ongoing).

If you wish, you may specify how long the OJT was by the number of weeks. 

When formatted correctly, the experience should look like the following:

Experience

ABC Technical School (12-2014) – (Present)

• Led classes of up to 25 students in various subjects
• Planned and participated in after-school events, facilitating student involvement
• Completed a 6-week OJT training for the instruction of special needs students

Note: Writing out the phrase “on-the-job” is not wrong, but it takes up a lot of space on a resume. It is best written out as its abbreviation “OJT”. 

 

How to include OJT on a resume after you have gained experience

Once you have experience beyond the on-the-job training, it is not necessary to specify the training. 

Think about it, which would an employer rather see on a resume? 

“Two years of experience with Java and C++”

 or 

“Completed a 4-week OJT in Java and C++” 

 

The OJT was an invaluable part of your growth as an employee, but it does not need to be pointed out after you have the relevant experience.

You may re-structure an education experience like the following:

 

ABC Technical School (12-2014) – (Present)

• Led classes of up to 25 students in various subjects
• Participated in after-school events, facilitating student involvement
• Planned and instructed daily classes of students with Autism, Asperger’s, and other learning disabilities 
  • Assisted in the development of the special needs program, resulting in an average increase of 10% in reading and math scores

Achievements will always speak louder than tests or trainings.

Be sure to include results where possible, and always update your resume once you have developed as a professional in the field. 

 

If my OJT was a part of my education, may I list it in the education section?

Some students, especially in the medical field, need to complete some form of training in order to complete their educational requirements.

This is often referred to as a job shadowing experience, an internship (this includes unpaid internships), or a residency. 

These experiences are required in order to graduate, therefore it is possible to list them in the education section under specific circumstances. 

It is not recommended to call these experiences “OJT”, rather call them what the education program specifies ex: residency, internship, etc.

After a brief sentence, you may expand on this training later in the experience section. For example:

Education

Bath Pharmacy School (March 2016-Present)

• Master’s program in Pharmacy 

• Pharmacy Residency at ABC Hospital in progress

 

Then you can expand on your tasks and responsibilities:

Experience

ABC Hospital – Pharmacy Residency (September 2018-Present)

• Accepted and entered new prescriptions from patients into the hospital database
• Screened incoming prescriptions against patient profiles for possible drug interactions

 

What is the difference between OJT and training?

OJT is always done at the same location as the job. An employee will work and earn salary at the jobsite while learning the specifics of the job. OJT may last about 6 weeks, and then the employee will have completed their OJT and will continue working at the same location. 

Training may be located on-site or off-site. Every new employee will have to go through some sort of training, but regular training may involve a series of videos, tests, and simulations.

It may be less hands-on than OJT, which requires employees learn while working.

Make sure that you do not accidentally include “OJT” as “training” as it is obvious that any job requires training, and it seems odd to specify it.

OJT may be included specifically, but it must be formatted properly to prevent you from looking like a novice in the field. 

 

Conclusion

The biggest takeaway is that once you can stop calling it OJT and start calling it experience, do so.

It is far more impressive to an employer this way and does not come with the connotation of someone being “in-training”.