by John Hudson

At first glance you wouldn’t notice anything unusual about Alex, but for the past year she has carried a terrible secret. Alex is a final-year psychology student, but while classmates excitedly discuss and plot their paths into clinical, forensic, or educational psychology, she has felt a growing panic that everyone else – except her – has their future sorted. Despite working hard during the degree, even enjoying it, the only thing Alex is clear about is that a psychology career isn’t for her. Feeling ‘left behind’ is bad enough, but not even wanting to follow a career in the degree she’s invested years of her life into? That’s even worse, isn’t it?

If this sounds vaguely familiar and you aren’t sure you want to go into psychology after graduation either, be reassured that neither you or Alex are alone. Information for students about psychology degrees understandably emphasises psych-focused careers (e.g. UCAS & psychology course webpages), but only 8-20% of psychology graduates go into psychology-specific roles (AGCAS, 2020/21; The Psychologist, 2008). Of course, a British Psychological Society-accredited psych degree is a vital step for many careers, but what about the 80+% of psych graduates who wish to tread a different path?

“I don’t think I want a psychology career – have I wasted my time?“

Some students may feel they are ‘failing’ in some way by wanting to move away from a psychology career after a psychology degree, but you shouldn’t; the degree builds your understanding of people – alongside a range of other important skills – it does not only train you to be a psychologist. Psychology is all around us so understanding others and their behaviour is always relevant. Being able to apply that knowledge can add value wherever you go.

Psychology is everywhere, if you know where to look

If you’re intending to work in an industry where people’s behaviour matters, then you’re working in a field where psychology matters. If you manage people, for example, psychology has a lot to say about how to lead, to support, to motivate. Or maybe your future role involves convincing people to buy more of your products, or donating to your cause; you simply can’t do that effectively without understanding psychology. And try and think of a job (or almost any area of your life) that wouldn’t benefit from knowing how to communicate and persuade more effectively: psychology to the rescue again! How about supporting people to change their habits, or improve their skills…? The list is endless, psychology has so much to offer these – and many other – situations. In other words, the knowledge you gain on your degree isn’t just for consultation rooms, it can (and should) be applied anywhere.

The skills psychology teaches you transfer brilliantly: finding and using evidence

Having a working knowledge of relevant theories is a good thing, but where you should really shine after a psychology degree is in knowing where to look for the best information and evidence.  Perhaps more importantly you’ll also know how to evaluate and interpret it, and how well (or not!) a theory or finding translates from an academic journal to your real-world situation. 

Psychology may seem like common sense to those who haven’t studied it, because everyone has experience dealing with people so why do we need a qualification to tell us what we already know? When you’ve studied psychology, you know the world doesn’t always work the way people might first think. For example, using facts and evidence to persuade others seems like a reasonable strategy, but someone with a grounding in psychology will appreciate that people are complex and prone to responding to our ‘common sense’ in ways we don’t always anticipate. We may also assume that professionals have all the knowledge, but you’d be surprised by how often that isn’t true either and another reason those psychological skills are so useful.

Even experienced practitioners can be susceptible to misconceptions about what research really says about best-practice in their domain; for example, Tenhiälä and colleagues’ found Human Resource (HR) professionals beliefs about what ‘works’ in HR frequently differed from that recommended by research evidence (a finding confirmed by a number of other studies too). As a psychology graduate, you should know the importance of evidence and – reassuringly – Jackson and colleagues (2018) report that HR professionals with a psychology background were more accurate in identifying the most effective evidence-based recruitment & selection methods compared to those with a non-psych background. There’s always more to learn, but such examples demonstrate how a psychology degree can give you such a strong foundation to build on even outside of pure psychology careers. But knowing about the evidence is only a part of the jigsaw.

Critical evaluation and more

As you go further up any career ladder tasks tend to become progressively more complex, and being able to understand and manage information becomes increasingly valuable. If you can evaluate evidence effectively you’re more likely to make better decisions, and critical evaluation is a key skill we are extensively trained in during our psychology degree. Skills like this take a lot of time and effort to develop – you may not even notice the progress you’ve made since you started your degree, so it’s very easy to take it for granted and presume that everyone knows this stuff (spoiler: they don’t). I remember needing to review a report for my boss, shortly after I graduated, and noticing a few statements that sounded impressive but without any evidence to support them. It was only then it really dawned on me that I was reading and evaluating information differently compared to before my degree. I spotted things others hadn’t. I expect that made me very annoying to have in meetings, because we’d then have more discussion and evaluation of these reports, but it gave us more confidence in the decisions we made as a result. If you’ve engaged in your studies then you’ll undoubtedly have made big strides by the time you graduate. You’ll have more to offer than you realise so it’s important to credit yourself for that and remember to emphasise it when you’re applying for jobs.

At the end of your degree you’ll also be able to analyse data, write more clearly, and present complex information and ideas in a way that people can understand; you’ll even have experience of conducting your own research. And in your final year at NTU, modules such as Professional Practice in Psychology mean you’ll have hands-on experience applying psychology to tackle a real-world challenge faced by one of a range of businesses, charities, and public sector organisations – not to mention presenting your findings and recommendations directly to them (and you can read about Zarah’s experience of this here). When you add all that to your growing ability to understand people’s behaviour, you should see why this valuable and versatile set of skills and experience would be so attractive to employers.

What do I do now?

I’ve thought a lot about this over the last few years, having spoken to many students who weren’t sure what to do after graduation and who occasionally wondered if they were somehow wrong in wanting to take a different direction.  I also remember hearing NTU colleagues sharing their own career journeys and being surprised by how varied their own paths were; I used to assume all psychology academics simply went on a straight line from their undergrad psych degree, on to masters degree, then a PhD and then to academia. But I couldn’t have been more wrong. There isn’t one single ‘correct’ path and there’s so much scope for you to use your skills and knowledge in ways that fit with your own interests and ambitions, whether that leads you back to psychology or not.  So this is a reminder that you’ll have picked up some genuinely valuable skills during your degree – to go with the psychology-specific knowledge – that are needed by employers in many industries.

  • Firstly, don’t put extra pressure on yourself to have a full post-graduation career plan mapped out. It’s perfectly normal to be unsure.
  • Have a chat, explore your options; NTU students and recent alumni can speak to the NTU Employability Team. Highly recommended – they have huge experience supporting students at all stages; whether you have no idea yet, looking for opportunities, applying for jobs, preparing for interviews, or working out how to get to the career you want.  
  • Obviously, put in the work during your degree. That’s how you actually develop and improve. Get the most from your studies so you come out of your degree with the skills to go with your certificate. And we have some great articles to help you do that too…
  • Look for opportunities to apply the psych skills and knowledge you’ve learned in your role, wherever you may be, make the most of what you bring to it.

A word of caution: just because you might not feel a psychology career is for you right now, there’s no guarantee you’ll stay that way.  I very much enjoyed my psych degree but had no intention of going into it when I graduated, yet here I am now as a psychology lecturer. In fact, the reason I’ve ended up working in psychology all these years later is really only a reflection of how useful I found it in my career after I graduated. I tried to apply it in my role, to help myself and my team, and I begun to appreciate the benefits of applying it at work. There were certainly mistakes too, because I didn’t always get it right, but I found the application of psychology so interesting and helpful that it led me to completely change my plans and go back to study for an MSc. in Occupational Psychology. And I’m very glad I did.

John