Finding a Career in Psychology: Job Hunting 101
Careers in psychology span various settings and job duties. Learn more about how to start your career in psychology.
- Psychology grads can pursue careers in clinical, academic, and corporate settings.
- Utilizing specialized job boards and search keywords is crucial to a successful job search.
- Understanding employer priorities can help prepare you for interviews.
The careers you can pursue with a degree in psychology vary widely and depend on your degree level. Some common work environments include clinical practice, academia, or even corporate.
Learn more about where to find jobs in the growing psychology field, including application and interview tips. Also, discover answers to common questions from an expert in the psychology job search.
Careers in Psychology: Job-Hunting Sites and Resources
Professionals searching for careers in psychology turn to a wide range of job-hunting websites to find positions in clinical settings, universities, and research roles.
Here are a few sites to help guide your search:
- APA PsycCareers: The American Psychological Association (APA) job site features positions across a wide range of work settings, including non-profit, K-12, university, and clinical roles. Here you can upload a resume to be more easily found by recruiters and take part in virtual hiring events.
- The Chronicle of Higher Education: If you’re looking for a role teaching at a university, this site specializes in faculty positions at universities around the country, from Postdoc to Tenure Track opportunities, and everything in between.
- HigherEd Jobs: Another great resource for psychologists seeking a teaching position at a university. They even have a search tool to find remote opportunities.
- APS Employment Network: The Association for Psychological Science employment network offers a range of different career opportunities for psychologists, from nonprofit leadership positions to faculty roles and beyond.
- SIOP Job Search: The Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology is a hub for corporate career opportunities for psychologists, particularly those interested in industrial-organizational psychology, human resources, and management.
- Locum Tenens: This full-service healthcare recruitment agency offers a self-search job board for clinicians seeking temporary and temporary-to-permanent roles, both in-person and remote.
- Indeed: This classic job search platform is a great place to find opportunities, both local and remote, for clinical psychologists looking to practice in a group setting or at a hospital.
- LinkedIn: LinkedIn is a great tool for online networking with other psychologists in the field. You can also take advantage of LinkedIn’s job board, where you can search for careers in psychology.
- Psychology Jobs: This job board connects psychologists with opportunities in clinical psychology, school psychology, forensic psychology, industrial-organizational psychology, and more.
Psychology Job Hunting Materials
For professionals searching for a career in psychology, some common application materials include:
- Resume and/or Curriculum Vitae (CV)
- Cover letter
- References
Depending on the position, you may also be asked to submit:
- Official academic transcripts
- Documentation of clinical licensure
- Example syllabi
- Writing samples
People often use resume and CV interchangeably, but in psychology and other scientific fields, the two are distinct. Some employers prefer one over the other, while others may ask for both.
Developing an effective resume means making the document as short as possible (one page is ideal) and providing succinct overviews of your work history, credentials, and skills. By contrast, a CV is usually more than one page long and lists your academic accomplishments, publications, and research in greater detail.
Psychology Job Search: Important Titles and Keywords
Simply searching “psychologist” or “counselor” on a job search casts a wide net. Instead of wasting time sorting through listings that don’t match your skill set, try searching job sites using keywords that match your priorities. You may also be able to find resources that are local to you. Keep in mind that the lists below are not necessarily exhaustive, so feel free to use your own intuition to track down resources that make the most sense for you.
These strategies can help you find roles that most closely match your resume.
Interviews for Psychology Jobs: What to Expect
Universities typically advertise long-term academic jobs in late summer or early fall and short-term positions in the spring, but positions and timing vary.
As you explore academic psychology job opportunities, be sure to find out more about each school’s expectations when it comes to research productivity, clinical responsibilities, and teaching duties. Generally, community and small liberal arts colleges emphasize teaching abilities, while larger schools tend to value research and presentation skills more.
According to the APA, the hiring process for a psychology faculty position usually includes:
- 15-30 minute phone or Zoom interview: This hiring step helps narrow down the large pool of applicants to 2-3 serious candidates.
- Campus visit and job talk: Final candidates come to campus for one or two days to meet with faculty members and conduct a job talk — a lecture, teaching demonstration, or overview of their research.
Clinical and Private Practice Psychology Job Applications
Outside of academia, many graduates find psychology careers in clinical settings, including:
- Private practice
- Hospitals
- Outpatient facilities
- Inpatient facilities
- Clinics
The hiring process varies by practice location and might include one interview or a series with various team members. Many private practice positions are not advertised, so it can be a good idea to make professional connections by attending conferences, lectures, and seminars in your area and reaching out to colleagues you’d like to work with. Join your local psychology association to stay up-to-date on events.
When applying for a position in clinical practice, consider:
- How will our expertise and treatment methods add to the practice?
- What is the practice’s niche, mission and philosophy? How does it align with your values?
- What questions do you have about the practice that you can have answered in the interview?
Corporate Psychology Job Applications
Corporate psychology careers often translate to industrial psychology roles. Employers want to ensure potential candidates can succeed in the role and assist them with:
- Employee selection
- Training
- Company culture
- Employee well-being
- Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI)
Companies hiring psychologists with master’s or doctoral degrees typically seek candidates with experience in conducting focus groups, research, and data analysis.
The hiring process varies by company. Current or previous employees may sometimes post anonymous accounts of their interview experiences on the website Glassdoor, which can give you some hints as to what to expect throughout the process.
You’ll likely be asked to submit a resume, cover letter, and complete an online application to be considered for a corporate role. Research the company’s industry, mission, and company culture and share how your expertise might be beneficial to them.
- 1Is it realistic to offer therapy independently directly after graduation or do most new therapists look for employment first?
Therapists cannot practice independently after graduation because they are required to complete a number of practical hours under the license of a supervising clinician. Because training therapists can’t just pay directly for a senior therapist to be their supervisor, they must work in a setting that employs both the supervisor and the supervisee.
This “setting” is complicated and costly to establish as a business entity and company structure, so many private practices do not go through the difficulty, leaving only hospitals and agency settings available to obtain these required hours. It also takes a while to learn the skills to retain clients, learn your therapeutic style and how to pace yourself as a therapist, so many opt for the salary dependability and initial client contact through employment with a hospital or agency first.
- 2Do clinicians typically take their clients with them after they’ve gained licensure and finished their supervised experiences?
Practices typically will have you sign exclusivity or non-compete contracts with wording about clients being the clients of the practice. This is because until you are practicing independently, the clients are technically the clients of the supervisor under whose license the therapist is working. The practices invest quite a bit into helping you to get there and to get those clients.
It is possible to have a non-compete in your contract, but then there’s also a code of ethics which will supersede that contract for continuity of care. For example, if you’ve been working with somebody on a very particular issue and it would disrupt their therapeutic process, it’s actually unethical not to take that client with you once you become independent.
At Resilience Lab, we believe very strongly in the therapeutic alliance and continuity of care for the clients. Once therapists do become fully licensed and it’s in their clients’ best interest clinically to follow their therapist should they decide to leave, that would be fully supported.
- 3What are the pros and cons of working as an independent therapist versus for a clinic?
At a clinic, you’re given salary and benefits right from the first day and it’s guaranteed that you’ll get supervisory hours, but it usually comes at the cost of having a really high caseload and pretty low pay. You’ll have financial stability and be exposed to a lot at the beginning, which is good, but then that can also lead to low direct contact to adequate training, compassion fatigue, or burnout.
If you start off in private practice, you build your case fairly slowly, but have access to specific training about how to build, maintain, manage, and treat clients that choose specifically to work with you and are seeking that relationship.
- 4What do you look for when interviewing candidates?
What we find very important are folks who describe themselves as curious, lifelong learners and have an understanding of boundaries. We want to see people understand what boundaries are and the purpose of them, both emotionally and professionally. If somebody is displaying passion and curiosity for the new field that they’re entering, but are taking a lot of the worry and concern home and over-identifying with clients, that’s usually an indication that it might not be a good fit.
Since therapists are able to design their own schedule, we look for candidates who balance self care and are not over-identifying emotionally or offering to be available 24/7.
- 5What are the biggest mistakes that you can make in an interview?
Red flag number one is someone who says, “I want to work seven days a week. I want to help everybody. And I become really upset when I can’t help.” But also, people on the other side of the spectrum, where they’re very concerned about how many hours they have to work and what is the minimum amount that they can do. [Don’t ask] “Do I have to read outside of work? Do I have to continue studying?”
We like to hear from our candidates that lifelong learning is important to them … a curiosity about patients rather than pathologizing them. We can hear that difference in the interview process. It’s not about the number of hours you’re putting in, but the enthusiasm you bring.
- 6Are there any questions that interviewees may find surprising or have taken them off guard?
One question we ask is, “What are you looking for in supervision? What style are you looking to work with? What’s a deal breaker in the relationship?” Often people have said, “Wow, nobody’s ever asked about that.” But we’re very aware that it’s a relationship [between the supervisor and the supervisee], just like the therapeutic relationship. It has to be chosen thoughtfully and intentionally.
Christine Carville is chief clinical officer and cofounder at Resilience Lab in New York City. She has been in private practice since 2010 and has helped hire over 100 clinicians. Before entering the mental healthcare field, Carville had a decade-long career as an entrepreneur. She earned her bachelor’s degree from Barnard College in 1994 and her master’s in social work from Columbia University in 2007.
