Bachelor's graduates seek greater challenges
The bachelor's degree in psychology is often thought of more as a prerequisite for graduate school than a ticket to the job world. But employment data suggests that many psychology majors are securing good jobs, and that more of them pursue jobs than graduate work.
Many psychology majors are using their degrees in public affairs and social services positions. Other majors are finding work in areas as diverse as insurance sales, biological research or computer science, according to APA and the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
But, while they are finding work, about 30 percent of those who graduate with bachelor's degrees would like to find more challenging jobs, suggests preliminary data for a recent APA survey of 767 psychology students who graduated between 1992 and 1993. The more coveted jobs—such as full-time research consultant or program coordinator positions—are harder to come by for bachelor's-level students than for those with higher degrees.
Psychology educators can help students find and secure those more challenging positions by building students' job skills through career courses, practical experience and job-market tips, those in the field say.
At Creighton University, psychology professor Mark Ware, PhD, helps his students pinpoint a job path in a course he calls 'Career Development in Psychology.' Ware says that choosing a suitable job is a lot like dating: One attempts to match one's interests, values and strengths to a job, just as one does with a mate, he says.
Ware recommends that students fill out career inventories—computerized or pencil-and-paper questionnaires—to identify their personal competencies. He uses Holland's Self-Directed Search, one of several easily accessible career guides. The Search—a fixture in career planning since 1979—highlights peoples' social, artistic, investigative and enterprising tendencies.
Other psychologists use the Multiple Intelligence Developmental Assessment Scale, or MIDAS developed by psychologist C. Branton Shearer, PhD, of the Multiple Intelligence Research and Consulting in Kent, Ohio. Shearer modeled his scale on the theory of Harvard University psychologist Howard Gardner, PhD, that people can excel in seven different 'intelligences' or areas—kinesthetic, musical, spatial, logical, linguistic, interpersonal and intrapersonal. MIDAS quizzes students on their abilities and interests in each of the intelligences and probes their technical, creative and leadership tendencies. Based on the test-takers' resulting intelligence profile, the scale matches them with job possibilities.
Essentially the scale defines peoples' ability to 'create a product or solve a problem in the community'—in other words, to find a job, said Shearer.
A growing number of psychology departments urge students to pursue a minor in such areas as social work or technical writing, and many of them offer their undergraduates a practicum course, featuring supervised internships.
For example, through the 'Early Field Experiences' course at Texas Women's University in Denton, students conduct intake interviews at local crisis-intervention centers and supervise criminals at a nearby Fort Worth prison. Others lead group activities at homeless shelters and children's homes or counsel victims of rape and beatings at the local police station, says Karen Jackson, PhD, an associate psychology professor at the university, and the president of Psi Chi, psychology's honor society for undergraduates.
Most entrants into social services do several internships before finding a part- or full-time job, says Bob Madigan, PhD, a psychology professor at the University of Alaska-Anchorage. Turnover tends to be high in entry-level positions, so students should expect to try several jobs before finding the right one, he notes.
To prepare students for the job interviewing process, Ware requires students to conduct informational interviews with people working in the field. Students identify someone whose work they find interesting and interview them to gain an inside look at the work world.
Other courses, such as one offered by the psychology department at Kennesaw State University in Georgia, recruit career services experts to talk with students. In the department's senior-level 'Capstone Course,' staff from the college's career office give students tips on interviewing, designing résumés and writing cover letters.
Associate professor Michael Reiner, PhD—who often teaches the course—hooks his laptop computer to a big-screen projector and shows students how to search the job classifieds on the Internet. Reiner also plans to start a mentoring program to connect the department's alumni with its undergraduate students. Mentors will advise students about workplace etiquette and opportunities, and hopefully link them with internships too, says Reiner.
But students often don't know how to market their skills and need guidance explaining the applications of their skills, on résumés and in job interviews, says Ware. When a student writes 'treasurer for psychology club' on their résumé, Ware tells them to flesh out the task description. Explaining what the job entailed—such as planning, fund-raising and coordinating people and activities—is what impresses employers, he said.
Ware encourages students to describe their academic skills on their résumés. To help students pinpoint those skills, Ware asks the department's professors to list the skills that their courses provide and distributes the lists in his career development class. Ware also urges students to think of nontraditional applications for their skills in real estate, insurance, financial-planning and other business-related areas.
At Kennesaw State, Reiner encourages students to structure their résumés based on their skills, instead of their chronological work experiences. Using his suggestion, a student pursuing a job in market research would feature the skill 'quantitative analysis' and list relevant courses and experiences in research and statistics.
'The skills-based résumé is an excellent way to market yourself because it broadens employers' thinking about the applications of psychology,' says Reiner.
The psychology major will never be a vocational degree, says Ware. But, he says, it is a major that could capitalize more on the many strengths it offers to the world of work.
A survey of 767 psychology majors from 1992, conducted by APA in 1995, found a high number of them working in education and teaching or in the hospitality industry, sales, research or administration. Half were employed full-time, a quarter were working during graduate school and the rest were in school full-time or were neither working nor in school.
A 1991 survey by the Bureau of Labor Statistics also illustrates the range of employment for 16,000 graduates with bachelor's degrees in psychology (out of the approximately 70,000 psychology majors produced each year). Most of the sample found jobs within one year of graduation:
• 20 percent were in administrative jobs such as coordinating community volunteers or managing a small office staff in a health agency.
• 20 percent were in public affairs and social services positions such as handling community relations at a crisis center or conducting intake interviews at a homeless shelter.
• 20 percent were in business management and sales.
• About 1 percent were educators and the rest either worked in other areas or failed to report their employment setting.
By comparison, a 1993 survey of 866 recipients of master's degrees found that 41 percent of them work in human services. Slightly more than 30 percent of them work in schools or education and 18 percent of them work for business and government, revealed the survey, which was conducted by APA's Research Office.
Interestingly, self-employment is a major setting for doctoral-level psychologists, overtaking universities and medical schools in recent years, according to National Science Foundation data. Industry and government are growing sectors as well.
The less specialized bachelor's degree offers an eclectic array of employment, says Bob Madigan, PhD, a psychology professor at the University of Alaska_Anchorage. For example, Alaskan employers offer a range of more than 2,000 jobs to psychology majors, according to a recent survey he conducted with his colleagues. They work as case managers for elderly people or people with disabilities, counselors in half-way houses or as therapists in prisons or psychiatric hospitals.