Jobs in the Industry

Psychology is a very popular undergraduate major. In psychology, unlike engineering, career options for the baccalaureate level graduate are not necessarily obvious. These web pages are designed to provide some initial guidance on career options available in industry to the individual with an undergraduate psychology degree.

The following is a summary of a talk given by Ronald G. Shapiro, Ph.D. at the APA national convention in August, 2000. Dr. Shapiro is a Program Manager with IBM. (Reproduced with permission.)

What Are Your “Career Options?”
How Does Your Psychology Degree Help You?
How Do You Maximize The Value of Your Psychology Degree?
What Do You Need To Do?
What Skills Will You Offer?
What Would You Do In Industry?
How Do You Make Contact With Industry?
What Makes A Good Resume?
What Is An Interview Like?
What Factors Lead To Success and Failure In Industry?
Summary

What Are Your “Career Options?”

Popular options outside of industry

“Helping Professions”
- Improve lives of people with “mental health” problems
  - Diagnosis
  - Treatment
Help “typical” people with stressful situations
- Individual/Family/marriage counseling
- Career/educational counseling

A Dose of Reality

Bachelor’s level jobs in these fields are often low paying and offer little to no career growth
Jobs in these fields with growth potential require a minimum of a master’s degree, often a Ph.D.
- Managed Health Care:
  - Reducing freedom to make independent decisions
  - Reducing income
  - Making required internships very difficult to get
Education
- Teaching at the primary, elementary, or secondary school level
- School psychology/Learning diagnostics, Guidance counseling

A Dose of Reality

Teaching at primary, elementary, secondary levels:
- Bachelor’s level jobs in teaching require education certification and normally a master’s degree to maintain certification.
- Teaching jobs pay moderate salaries
- Added pressures of dealing with non educational issues such as discipline
- Positions may be difficult to get in some parts of the USA
School Psychology
- Entry level degree is a Master’s degree plus certification
- Case load sometimes overwhelming
Education
- Research/Teaching at the college level

A Dose of Reality

College research/teaching
- Positions difficult to come by
- Salaries moderate to low
- Publish or perish…
- Tenure difficult to get…
- If tenure denied, after 6 years of work, must start over
- Often requires one or more Postdoctoral fellowships in addition to Ph.D.
- Numerous positions are one to five year contracts, which may or may not be renewable
Industrial Options Directly Related To Psychology
- Industrial and Organizational Psychology
  - Leadership
  - Assessment
  - Recruitment
  - Designing organizations
- Human Factors
  - Designing and evaluating solutions for people
    - Products for consumers
    - Systems for industry and government
- Emerging job titles:
  - Usability engineer, Information architect, User experience designer, Agronomist
- Allied professions: Product Safety, Industrial Safety
Marketing
- Preparing information and planning presentation techniques for potential customers

A Dose of Reality

Salaries are high and increasing
Demand is very high and increasing
Internships for qualified candidates are relatively easy to find
Masters or Ph.D. degree is often, buy not always, required
Excellent career growth potential
Psychology teaches about people. Must also:
- Know the domain/system/business in which you will work
- Have specific skills and tools
If you plan and execute plan well your future may be very bright
If you do not plan well, you may waste a great deal of effort

Other Industrial Options Not Directly Related To Psychology:
- Business Management
- Human Resources
- Sales
- Customer Relations

A Dose of Reality

In all of the above professions, it is possible to receive an undergraduate degree specializing in the profession
For optimal job selection you need to be able to show you understand the business and the tool set required as well as people who have majored in these areas in college
Most of these professions do not require a graduate degree

Career Directions Not Directly Related To Psychology:
- Project Management
- Systems Engineering
- Software Development

A Dose of Reality

These jobs are not typically entry level jobs for psychology majors, unless they have a dual major
Psychology majors may gather job experiences and additional education (perhaps a certification program or a masters degree) which prepares them to move into these professions
While psychology majors have been very successful in these areas, the career path for moving into these areas is not always obvious, so initiative in seeking out opportunities is require

How Does Your Psychology Degree Help You?

Understand people
- You will understand people better as a result of studying psychology
- This will make you a better employee in virtually any career
Valuable tools
- If (and only if) you maximize the value of your degree, you will develop a fantastic tool set that will help you on the job with:
  - Analyzing virtually any problem
  - Decision making
  - Evaluating data
  - Planning most any program or project
  - Thinking broadly and focusing in on the right issues
  - Asking the right questions
The psychology degree provides a fantastic opportunity to acquire these skills, but many people do not! Don’t miss the boat!

How Do You Maximize The Value Of Your Psychology Degree?

Become totally involved with your department at school!
Involvement in research projects
- From your first (or at least your second) year become involved in faculty research
- Goal is to be published (or in press) as an author (or at least with name in acknowledgments) before graduation
- It’s best if this work has practical implications
Most of your classes should be small intensive seminars
Complete your research methods classes as soon as possible
- If statistics is not covered extensively take statistics classes
Build a list of “recommenders” from the faculty you are supporting
The ways to minimize the value of your degree
- Take mostly large classes
- Graduate without knowing any faculty
- Take research methods class your senior year
- To graduate with some knowledge, but no tools!

What Do You Need To Do?

Remember, to be an ideal job candidate you need to:
- Understand people
  - Your psychology degree is extremely valuable here
- Know the Business in which you will be working
  - If it’s aviation, become a pilot
  - If it’s computers, study computer science, programming, and/or software engineering
  - If it’s consumer electronics, study some engineering
- Specific skills or tool kits
  - The tools from your psychology program
  - Programming
  - Business
  - For the business in which you want to work
So, you need to consider:
- Dual major
- Minor
- Heavy concentration in your area of interest outside of psychology
Outside of your department
- Do an industrial internship
- Campus involvement
- Volunteer work
- Become active in professional organizations
- Build a resume now, identify gaps, and work to fill them
- Practice interviewing
Decide on plans for graduate school
- Decide on Masters or Ph.D.
- If not going to graduate school, focus on jobs available now
  - Be sure your program will provide you with the skills you need!
  - If not, make adjustments
  - Technical skills are vital to getting high growth potential jobs if you start working full time without a graduate degree!
  - Develop a marketing plan to show how your technical and psychology skills combine to make you the best job candidate!

What Skills Will You Offer?

Technical Skills

A psychology major should be equipped to offer the following skills
- Analysis of situations with experiments, observations, or interviews
- Interpretation of qualitative as well as quantitative data
- Translation of information into meaningful recommendations
- Demonstrated problem solving and assessment skills
- Thinking at a conceptual as well as a practical level
- Solving general problems and focusing on details
You should also offer the following
- Knowledge about your industry
  - Speak the language of your team and company
  - For computer software, you can prototype and program
  - For aviation, you can fly
An interest in a variety of practical problems of interest to the industry
Acquired the skills industry needs, even if you had to do self-study or go outside your program to do so

General Skills

Through campus leadership, you should demonstrate that:
- You are action oriented and take initiative
- You are bright, energetic, and learn quickly
- You understand and know how to deal with people
- You know who to communicate effectively
- You are a good team worker with a positive attitude
- You have good ideas
- You are dependable and get things done
- You can negotiate effectively
- You can think on your feet

What Would You Do In Industry?

Help your employer achieve their goals
- To make a profit
- To save money
- To gain market share
- To develop high quality products and services
- To achieve a high level of customer satisfaction
- To prevent accidents and litigation
Help customers achieve their goals
- Figure out what customers need
- Design products, systems, and programs to meet those needs
- Convince other to implement the designs
- Measure how well customers’ needs are met
Help product designers achieve their goals
- Prototype design
- Validate designs via testing, observation, customer reaction
- Work with marketing to best feature those designs
Interact with:
- Management
- Colleagues
- Customers
- Suppliers
- Other professionals
Represent company to customers and suppliers
Work on multidisciplinary teams, lead where required
Advise and consult to solve team members’ problems
Maintain and enhance your professional skills
Be ready to explain your profession at the “drop of a hat”
Teach occasional classes in your area of expertise

How Do You Make Contact With Industry?

Know the business you are contacting
- Web pages:
  - Know what the company tells the world about itself
  - Know what the world says about the company
- Annual reports: Know what the company tells its shareholders
- Trade press: Know what is said about the company in public
- Professional publications: Know what people are doing
- Products: be familiar with the products produced
Establish contact with technical people/managers early in graduate career if possible
- Seek contacts of professionals in your field
  - By reading and contributing to LISTSERVs
  - At professional talks/meetings
  - From published technical papers and the popular press
  - From directories of professional societies
Initiate and maintain contact with e-mail, phone calls, letters, visits
Do short assignments in industry (e.g., co-ops, work study, contracts) if possible
Be active in professional organizations:
- Human Factors and Ergonomics Society (HFES) and local chapters
- Association for computing machinery (ACM)
  - Special Interest Group on Computer-Human Interaction (SIGCHI)
- Usability Professionals’ Association (UPA)
- American Psychological Association (APA)
- Society of Industrial and Organizational Psychology (SIOP)
- Regional or state psychological associations
- Other technical or application area or business societies
Be active as a valued contributor to LISTSERVs
Take advantage of campus visits by industry professionals
Tour industrial sites whenever possible

What Makes a Good Resume?

The purpose of a resume is to show a prospective employer how they will benefit by having you on board
Essential sections:
- Objectives that are very focused
- Education
- Skills (Expert category and Familiar (but not expert) category)
- Experience section that supports Objectives and shows:
  - Responsibilities
  - Results/accomplishments
Awards/Honors/Leadership/Affiliations (as appropriate)
Publications/Presentations
Tips:
- Your resume is your sales pitch
- Customize your resume for each employer
- Demonstrate that you understand the reader/employer
- You may have only seconds to interest reader so resume must:
  - Be concise
  - Look attractive
  - Maintain the reader’s attention
If sending by e-mail or mail, think of resume as an attachment to a letter which convinces employer they need you!
Maximize the desired behavioral outcome—reader will call you!

What Is An Interview Like?

Discussion with management
- Ask about
  - Initial Assignment
  - Growth path
  - Structure of the company
Expect to be asked
- How do you think you would fit into the company?
- What did you learn from technical discussions?
Numerous discussions with future coworkers
- Ask
  - What do you do?
  - What is typical work week like?
- Expect to be asked
  - How would you approach the work?
  - What would you like and dislike about the work?
  - How will you/your skills help me to do my job and get ahead?
Formal or informal presentation of major piece of work is possible
- Preparation
  - Stress practical implications of work
  - Show relevance to industry problems if possible
  - Present summary of data, have detail if asked
  - Stay within the time allocated for talk and discussion (be prepared to leave something out at the end if you have a lot of questions)
- At the presentation
  - Audience consists of lots of intelligent people
  - Audience probably does not know your field of study
  - You must convey importance of work, findings, and general sense of excitement to this audience
  - Attitude and ability to answer questions is very important
  - If you don’t know the answer to a question, say so and volunteer to follow up if appropriate
Discussions with human resources or management
- Logistics of interview company policy, application, etc.
- If you interviewed for more than one department expect to be asked to rank order your preferences for jobs
- Ask about
  - Relocation package
  - Company benefits: retirement, medical, vacation
All interviewer’s goals are to determine how you will:
- Fit on the team
- Communicate enhance their reputation complement the team’s skills
- Make their job easier

NOTE: Interviews often include extensive discussion during meals. Be prepared.

Tips
- Be open and honest
- Don’t be afraid to ask questions
- Relax, but realize that all time spent with company personnel is part of the interview—even in casual settings
Remember
- Employer know you are good, or they would not have invited you for interview
- Employer needs to see if your skills and interests match their needs
- The most important part of the interview is for YOU to decide if the job is right for YOU!!
  - Do you like the work?
  - Do you like the organization?
  - Do you like the people?
  - Are salary, benefits, and security appropriate for you?

What Factors Lead To Success and Failure In Industry?

SUCCESS

Be visible
- Show concrete results (e.g., designs, prototypes)
- Print crisp summaries of recommendations
- Display one clear graph to illustrate point
- Specify product goals and directions
- Work with customers
- Shadow management
- Describe accomplishments
- Make decisions based upon current facts
Help clients any way you can.
- Utilize skills, knowledge, and ability creatively
- Be a leader, show initiative
- Show you care, learn about product
Prioritize
- Be accomplishments/goal oriented
- Maximize benefits for effort
- Do work that will impact business
- Be timely

FAILURE

The Ivory Tower Problem
- Telling it with long letters and notes
- Writing long “research reports”
- Hiding behind charts and graphs
- Going along without clear goals and direction
- Doing comprehensive studies that take too long
- Spending lots of time in classes
- Describing activities
- Saying “I need to do more research”
Saying “It is not my job so I don’t do it”
- Doing it only if it was covered in a textbook
- Following a checklist
- Relying on others for product expertise
Trying to do it all
- Being activity oriented
- Feeling you can or even should do it at all
- Doing studies for the sake of
- doing them
- Missing deadlines

This material originally developed by RG Shapiro, AM Vosburgh, PD Pagerey, and R Rao for “How Human Factors Can Maximize Its Effect In Organizations” a special presentation to the Hudson Valley Chapter of the Human Factors Society, September 22, 1993.

Summary

There are GREAT opportunities for a Psychology Major in business if you:
- Learn how to use the tools psychology has to offer
- Plan well
Psychology degree provides 1/3 to 2/3 the background you will need
- Maximize the value of your psychology education
- Study business, science, and technology for the other 1/3 to 2/3
Do an internship or two to learn
- About the business you want to work in
- The tools used in that business
A dual major of psychology and technology or business may be an unbeatable combination!
Don’t assume!