You learn more than you think

 

Students, even after they have graduated with a Bachelor’s, Honours or Master’s degree, say that they don’t know what they actually have learnt what they can do; what they can offer to prospective employers. Perhaps because psychology graduates find such a variety of jobs, they often consider their work unrelated to psychology. But it is more likely that many graduates, or current students, underestimate psychology's relationship to their work. And we at universities contribute to that, because we don’t tell students explicitly what knowledge and skills they are acquiring via their psychology degrees. We often fail to recognise what skills psychologists have, or find it very difficult to articulate what these are. Yet psychology majors gain a range of skills that are asked for by, and can be applied to, almost any job.

 

It is not a bad idea to take a skills orientation to both your studies and your later career. Think of your courses not only as ways of learning about particular subjects but also as learning experiences which refine a variety of specific skills. So let us look at “skills”, as something a little different from “knowledge”. First, we look at the skills that employers seek in graduates, as suggested by the American Psychological Association (APA), and by a South African study.

 

The skills and knowledge that employers seek in job applicants – the APA (http://www.apa.org/ed/precollege/psn/2013/09/job-applicants.aspx)

 

 

Critical thinking skills – the ability to “think on your feet” and analyze what you encounter in the workplace.

 

Problem-solving skills – you are able to solve the range of small and large problems that arise daily in the workplace: how to identify questions, frame them, devise and carry out procedures to test them and analyze the data to draw conclusions.

 

Oral, writing and interpersonal communication skills, including presentation skills.

 

Ability to locate, organize and evaluate information from multiple sources - success in the workplace requires the ability to manipulate and use information productively.

 

Appreciation of diversity and individual differences - employers value an awareness and sensitivity to issues of culture, class, and race.

 

Potential for continued learning and professional development - employers seek graduates who are interested and able to pursue their own professional development by acquiring knowledge and outside experiences to enhance their skillset.

 

Innovation and creativity - employers want to hire people who can think creatively in order to complete tasks. Successful employees are flexible, able to evaluate options to determine the best approach for a given situation and adapt accordingly.

 

Ability to apply knowledge and skills in real-world settings - job applicants who can apply their university-based knowledge in everyday settings are valued. How does one obtain such applied experiences? The APA lists the following as specific ways students can enhance their employment prospects: 

  • Acquire hands-on collaborative research experience (for example, with a professor and/or lab).
  • Develop research questions and conduct independent research (under supervision).
  • Complete a project that demonstrates the knowledge and skills you have acquired (for example, compile a portfolio, construct a literature review paper or prepare proposal for a prevention/intervention program).
  • Participate in an internship or community-based experience.  In South Africa numerous organisations make use of volunteers: Childline, Rape Crisis, Nicro, Famsa, and Attic, for example.

 

 

 

The skills and knowledge that employers seek in job applicants  - South Africa

 

Linda Richter and her colleagues at the University of KwaZuluNatal studied job advertisements in South African newspapers toward the end of the 1990s, and established a list of skills and duties required for advertised jobs for graduates.

 

Advertised Skills and Duties

 

Training or teaching 
Administration or management roles 
Research (broad) 
Data analysis – access, analyse, interpret 
Labour/industrial relations 
Social scenario interpretation (interpret social trends) 
Counselling/group facilitation 
Person evaluation/testing 
Advocacy and public relations 
Recruitment 
Organisational development 
Community organisation 
Welfare activities 
Understand labour environment

 

 

You can find this out easily for yourself, by looking at the job advertisements in the weekend newspapers, to see what knowledge, skills, and abilities employers require. You can find another, complementary, list at  http://www.psywww.com/careers/skills.htm.

 

But Richter and colleagues draw our attention to a number of important conclusions, all still valid today I believe:

  • When graduates enter the workforce, many are going to be expected to train and/ or teach people; take on administrative and managerial tasks and roles; be numerate; and understand the labour environment and the changing social environment.
  • Most jobs were advertised in human resources, manpower, organisational development, and industrial relations, followed, in descending order, by education, research, social development, welfare, and health.
  • The finding that the majority of jobs advertised ask for a generalist tertiary qualification, or one in the social sciences (and later the human sciences), and not professional registration, contains an important lesson. It is that the employment environment in South Africa reflects a need for more generalists, where students are able to adapt to changing skills demands, and be innovative in the way they position themselves in the job market. Preoccupation with the five professional registration categories and the territorial marking that accompanies it might be injurious to the profession, and more importantly, less beneficial to graduates in psychology.

 

 

By now I am sure you have sensed that the skills that employers want are exactly the things that an education in psychology delivers. Below is a list of such skills, which I drew from a number of sources, as you will see. Of course, many of those skills are generic to university education, but psychology is unique in the number and variety of skills it imparts. The British psychologist, Nicky Hayes (1996), had this to say about it: “One of the important factors that makes psychology special is not the psychological skills themselves, which are often relevant to other disciplines as well, nor the specific items of knowledge. It is the sheer number of skills and range of knowledge that makes psychology special. Psychology is distinctive in that it equips its graduates with an extremely rich and diverse portfolio—providing a variety of forms of expertise, which are found in few other disciplines and which can equip psychology graduates to undertake many different types of work”.