Psychology is one of the most rewarding careers to enter, and you’ll be able to feel that throughout your time studying, too. This subject can be an excellent starting point for a lot of careers, or you could use it as a secondary qualification to improve your performance in your primary career! So, no matter whether you’re getting ready for your undergraduate degree, master’s, or are working towards your psychology graduate certificate, let’s take a look at what you can do with your psychology qualifications.
Jobs that directly use a psychology degree
When choosing what to study, you might begin thinking about jobs that directly use your degree as much as possible. The good news is that there are plenty of jobs you can consider that use your psychology degree, including:
- Clinical psychologist
- Counselling psychologist
- Educational psychologist
- Further education teacher
- High-intensity therapist
- Psychological wellbeing practitioner
- Educational mental health practitioner
- Forensic psychologist
- Heath psychologist
- Occupational psychologist
- Sport and exercise psychologist
To name a few! While studying for your qualification you’ll be able to delve deeper into these and focus on a few that you’re most interested in. When studying for a psychology graduate certificate, you’ll likely only be able to focus on one or two career paths, while degrees give you more time to explore more avenues.
Jobs that might find a psychology degree beneficial
You don’t necessarily have to go into a career that uses your psychology degree to its fullest potential if you don’t want to, as there are plenty of jobs that can use your qualifications in a secondary position. We’ve included just a few here:
- Advice worker
- Careers advisor
- Counsellor
- Education consultant
- Life coach
- Mediator
- Play therapist
- Psychotherapist
- Border force officer
- Chaplain
- Dance movement psychotherapist
- Human resources officer
- Market researcher
- Neuroscientist
- Police officer
- Social researcher
See, the possibilities of how to use your psychology qualifications are almost endless! These career paths might not be centred around your psychology qualification, but they can use a lot of the skills you learnt along the way to improve your performance!
Typical employers who consider psychologist graduates
So, you have a psychology qualification and you don’t know what to do with it. Don’t worry, there are an impressive number of typical employers who might be looking for psychology graduates to hire for their positions. Some employers don’t concern themselves with the subject of your degree – they just want to know you have the correct qualifications. This is to make sure you’re disciplined and qualified to complete their requirements without falling behind, which is why graduate jobs are so common.
Here are just some of the typical employers who might be looking for psychology graduates, other than the implied psychologists:
- Careers and counselling services
- Financial organisations
- Legal firms and organisations offering advice
- Marketing firms
- Hospitality organisations
- Schools, colleges and further education institutions
- Social services
- Commercial and industrial organisations
- Human resources departments
- Local and national government
- Media companies
- Police forces and prisons
- Social research organisations
Using your psychology qualification for work experience
For people hoping to become a chartered psychologist in the future by using their psychology qualifications, you’ll often benefit from work experience for a year or two before either your postgraduate studies or going into full-time employment. Many people agree that it’s best to build your work experience up as much as possible, as quickly as you can to show your commitment to the craft.
Work experience often looks like a voluntary internship to begin with, but you might be able to apply for a paid position in the same company after a year of working for free.
Where you choose to apply for your work experience will depend on what you want your future career to look like. For example, if you want to go into clinical psychology, you can apply to become an assistant psychologist. However, you can also choose to work as a nurse, mental health assistant, or social worker if you find these career paths more appropriate for you.
We see many psychology graduates choose to enter similar career options after their work experience, so it’s incredibly important to look into. Your work experience could be the difference between you getting the job or being beaten by one of the countless other candidates going up against you. No pressure!
Final thoughts
As you can see, there’s plenty you can do with a psychological qualification, no matter whether that’s a degree or a graduate certificate. You can choose between a career that uses your qualification to its full potential, or one that’ll use it in the background in the form of implementable skills. Good luck!
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