• Question: What work experience would you suggest doing

    Asked by anon-297626 on 1 Jul 2021.
    • Photo: Naomi Heffer

      Naomi Heffer answered on 1 Jul 2021:

      If you want to go into a career that’s related to psychology, then any work experience working with people is useful! Working in schools, helping out at charity events (e.g. for elderly or vulnerable people) and even working in a shop all expose you to contact with people from different walks of life, which will be useful when studying psychology! It is also worth reaching out to psychology researchers whose work you find interesting, as they will often be able to find someway for you to help with or participate in their research. You are more likely to be able to get work experience with researchers once you are at university rather than when you are still in school, but researchers might still be willing to meet you for a chat so you can ask them about their job and work.

    • Photo: Lisa Newson

      Lisa Newson answered on 1 Jul 2021:

      Yes, but i would say any work experience is good experience.
      What I mean by this is that to make a good psychologist you need foundation skills and good general skills.

      Honestly having just completed job interviews for a high grade professional job this week its surprising how many people cant put together a good presentation, or aren’t confident in speaking and discussing their ideas, or who waffle and don’t answer the actual question. Use your time at school to hone these skills!!!!! ask your teacher if you can do class presentations or mock interviews! score each other and look at your mean score. Your not looking to have a perfect score, but something which you can take away and learn from!

      When I was younger after school, I used to answer the phone in my mums hairdressers, this gave me communication skills and confidence. I would mop and clean around – this was about commitment and understanding that all jobs are important.
      I had a paper round, again dedication.
      I worked in a residential home (whilst this wasn’t my preferred job)- it helped with a range of skill building.

      In terms of work experience in a topic area, ask to help out. Read around the topic and see if you can offer support to someone.

    • Photo: Jennifer Deane

      Jennifer Deane answered on 5 Jul 2021:

      I would say first off just any experience of work, it doesn’t matter what it is – it shows you can be trusted and that you are responsible, that people want to employ you and it is also good for you to get used to a work place. It is very different form school and getting used to how a work place works is a good thing. I did all sorts of jobs from restaurants to bars and even dressed up a a shark for a bit. You gain a lot of confidence in these types of jobs. Then anything that links to your interests – charities are a good start as they often have lots of different types of volunteer work, but this can be hard as we don’t all have the opportunity to work for free. If you think you can fit in some volunteer hours then find a charity you like and see what you can get involved in. Some of the big ones like the Samaritans and Childline are great as they offer really good training. I worked for Sane when I was in London and loved my time there. I learnt loads but it was a big commitment too. Then look at what skills jobs need and try and find work that matches that – what are you more nervous about, can you find something that would help you get better at that? Ringing round people and just asking to chat about what they do and letting people know you are after work experience can mean people think of you when opportunities come up

      Good Luck

    • Photo: Samantha Harrison

      Samantha Harrison answered on 6 Jul 2021:

      Any work experience is useful, as universities/future employers care more about what skills you learned than what job title you held.

      For example, working in retail teaches you skills such as customer service and cash handling.
      From here, it is easy to explain to a future employer that you are good at communicating with a range of people (customer service) and you are observant and trustworthy (cash handling). These are all great demonstrable skills/traits/qualities that are essential for all areas of psychology.

      When you get to University, you may be able to access research teams/labs who would love to take you on as a research assistant so you can explore more specific parts of psych at that point

Comments