FlightWay / Careers / Recreational Therapists

Healthcare

Recreational Therapists

Plan, direct, or coordinate medically-approved recreation programs for patients in hospitals, nursing homes, or other institutions.

Sector: Healthcare
Preparation: Zone 4 — considerable preparation needed
O*NET code: 29-1125.00

What you'll actually do

The activities O*NET rates highest for this occupation, most important first. Numbers are out of 100.

Assisting and Caring for Others

central to the job — rated 97/100 for importance.
Thinking Creatively

central to the job — rated 87/100 for importance.
Establishing and Maintaining Interpersonal Relationships

central to the job — rated 86/100 for importance.
Communicating with Supervisors, Peers, or Subordinates

central to the job — rated 86/100 for importance.
Documenting/Recording Information

a major part of the work — rated 83/100 for importance.
Getting Information

a major part of the work — rated 82/100 for importance.

Plan, direct, or coordinate medically-approved recreation programs for patients in hospitals, nursing homes, or other institutions. Activities include sports, trips, dramatics, social activities, and crafts. May assess a patient condition and recommend appropriate recreational activity.

What it takes

Two numbers per line: the level the work expects, and how important it is to doing the job well. Both are O*NET ratings, already on a 0–100 scale.

Skills

Service Orientation

Needed at a high level (61/100), and rated 78/100 for importance.
Social Perceptiveness

Needed at a solid working level (59/100), and rated 75/100 for importance.
Active Listening

Needed at a solid working level (57/100), and rated 75/100 for importance.
Speaking

Needed at a solid working level (57/100), and rated 75/100 for importance.
Coordination

Needed at a solid working level (55/100), and rated 75/100 for importance.

Knowledge

Psychology

Needed at expert level (85/100), and rated 89/100 for importance.
Therapy and Counseling

Needed at expert level (82/100), and rated 88/100 for importance.
Customer and Personal Service

Needed at expert level (75/100), and rated 86/100 for importance.
Education and Training

Needed at a high level (74/100), and rated 79/100 for importance.

Abilities

Oral Comprehension

Needed at a solid working level (59/100), and rated 75/100 for importance.
Oral Expression

Needed at a solid working level (57/100), and rated 75/100 for importance.
Speech Clarity

Needed at a solid working level (50/100), and rated 75/100 for importance.
Deductive Reasoning

Needed at a solid working level (57/100), and rated 72/100 for importance.

How people get in

O*NET places this occupation in Zone 4 — considerable preparation needed. That is a statement about what employers typically require, not a rule about you.

Education

A four-year bachelor's degree is the usual entry ticket.

Experience

Two to four years of related work, internships or research on top of the degree.

Training

Most of the learning happens before you are hired, not after.

What it pays

These are typical healthcare compensation bands by employer tier — sector-level figures, not a measured salary for Recreational Therapists specifically. Treat them as the shape of the market, then check a real posting for the number.

Mayo Clinic · Johns Hopkins

$130k – $300k

Regional Health Systems

$100k – $180k

Clinics & Private Practice

$80k – $130k

How the work tends to run

Each line below is read off a single O*NET activity rating for this occupation — named, so you can disagree with it.

The work is physical — you are on your feet and handling things, not sitting still.From “Performing General Physical Activities”
You are in front of the public, so the job is partly performance.From “Performing for or Working Directly with the Public”
Long-running relationships carry the work; the same people come back.From “Establishing and Maintaining Interpersonal Relationships”
Part of the job is other people’s output, not only your own.From “Coordinating the Work and Activities of Others”
There is real room to invent — the answer is not in a manual.From “Thinking Creatively”

How FlightWay scores your fit against this

No black box. Here is the whole method, factor by factor.

1. You answer a short quiz: Your answers build a profile across the same 161 O*NET dimensions this page is describing — skills, knowledge, abilities and work activities. Same axes, so the comparison is like-for-like.
2. We correlate the two profiles: Fit is a mean-centered cosine — a correlation between the SHAPE of your profile and the shape of Recreational Therapists. Centering matters: raw similarity between any two occupations sits at 0.70–0.85 because all work shares a common profile, so without it every career would look like a match.
3. The number you see is personality fit only: "Would I want this work" and "am I ready for this work" are different questions, and averaging them answers neither. So readiness — what your résumé, coursework and projects prove — is scored separately and shown next to fit, never blended into it.
4. Every factor is visible: You can open any match and see which dimensions pushed it up and which pulled it down. If you disagree with the number, you can see exactly where it came from.

More in Healthcare

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Occupational data on this page comes from the O*NET 30.3 Database, published by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA). O*NET is a registered trademark of USDOL/ETA. FlightWay is not endorsed by, and USDOL/ETA is not responsible for, anything built on that data — see our terms. What is ours is the comparison, the score and the plan.