Embalmers

What the job really is

Prepare bodies for interment in conformity with legal requirements.

At a glance

• Sector: Personal Care & Service
• O*NET-SOC code: 39-4011
• O*NET job zone: 3 — medium preparation
• Work sample tasks on file: 12
• Tools and technologies listed: 12

What you actually do

Work sample tasks recorded for this occupation:

• Conform to laws of health and sanitation and ensure that legal requirements concerning embalming are met.
• Apply cosmetics to impart lifelike appearance to the deceased.
• Join lips, using needles and thread or wire.
• Close incisions, using needles and sutures.
• Incise stomach and abdominal walls and probe internal organs, using trocar, to withdraw blood and waste matter from organs.
• Clean and disinfect areas in which bodies are prepared and embalmed.
• Dress bodies and place them in caskets.
• Make incisions in arms or thighs and drain blood from circulatory system and replace it with embalming fluid, using pump.
• Remove the deceased from place of death and transport to funeral home.
• Perform the duties of funeral directors, including coordinating funeral activities.
• Attach trocar to pump-tube, start pump, and repeat probing to force embalming fluid into organs.
• Reshape or reconstruct disfigured or maimed bodies when necessary, using dermasurgery techniques and materials such as clay, cotton, plaster of Paris, and wax.

Tools and technology

Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Office software, Microsoft Word, Adult trocars, Air brushes, Aneurysm needles, Angular forceps, Arm and hand positioners, Axillary drain tubes, Barber scissors, Belmar & Associates Mortware, Bistoury knives

What employers expect you to already be comfortable with.

Where this job leads

Related occupations — the usual moves up and sideways:

• Morticians, Undertakers, and Funeral Arrangers
• Funeral Attendants
• Funeral Home Managers
• Crematory Operators
• Licensed Practical and Licensed Vocational Nurses
• Surgical Technologists
• Surgical Assistants
• Coroners

Getting in

O*NET assigns this occupation job zone 3 (medium preparation). The related occupations above are the realistic routes in and out.

Find openings

Browse the verified job sources directory, or explore more occupations.

Check this against the source

O*NET OnLine: Embalmers — the authoritative public-domain profile this page is derived from, including the full task list, reported skills and the wage estimates for your region.

Derived and rewritten from the public-domain O*NET database (U.S. Department of Labor / Employment and Training Administration). Figures are observations, not promises — always confirm salary, licensing and visa requirements with the employer and the relevant authority.