Psychology employability: Work experience reflections from our students. Blog 3, by Emily Durber

When entering the second year of my Psychology degree, I had little knowledge of careers that I wanted to pursue, or specific sectors that I was passionate about. For this reason, I set myself a goal: by the end of the academic year, I will have further developed my employability skills and be confident in my career ambitions. I purposefully left this as a very broad goal, so I could explore careers and opportunities through as many avenues as possible, such as independent online research, careers events, networking, informational interviews, and work experience.

There is a never-ending variety of career options, all with vast amounts of information regarding specific skills required, commercial awareness, and qualifications, which can make researching future career directions overwhelming. I approached this by, firstly, writing down my interests and topics that I am passionate about within my degree, and my daily life. Common themes for myself included sport psychology, nutrition, health and helping others to achieve their goals. Through evaluating my current skillset, I then identified some skills that I valued the most, such as active listening, a proactive mindset and working with customers. Based on my interests, I began to research some specific careers related to those sectors to identify the desirable attributes of applicants. I then gathered more information on three chosen careers: sport psychology, life coaching, and customer facing marketing roles.

Career research is a constant process that aids personal and professional development, therefore I outlined both long- and short-term goals, to expand my knowledge on careers and increase my drive to utilise the skills learnt in my degree, to highlight on my CV. Short term goals were completed on a weekly basis to develop a habit in growing my employability skills. My short-term goals were focused on attending careers or departmental events run by Royal Holloway, such as the ‘Meet our Grads’ event or ‘Using LinkedIn to Find a Job’ workshop from the careers team. This, however, is only the first step, as all students have access to these platforms, therefore it is the actions you take after attending these sessions that can positively impact your employability and career development.

My long-term goals, that I set for a 3-, 6- and 8-months aimed to expand on the information obtained through careers events and online research. For example, I connected with speakers and alumni on LinkedIn, scheduling informational interviews to understand more about specific roles. This has helped me to evaluate my suitability or identify current gaps in my skillset that I can enhance to increase my employability. LinkedIn has strengthened my ability to network, by delving deeper into careers or businesses that I am interested in, while also identifying specific roles that I know are not the right fit for myself, based on my interests.

Dedicating time on a weekly and monthly basis to research career opportunities and potential job markets has been invaluable for my personal and professional development. I am more confident in future career directions that I am passionate about, which also drives me to work hard at my studies to achieve the best degree class possible. Researching future careers is an exciting aspect of university, as there are so many options to pursue your passion. Therefore, going into my final year, I can continue my own independent research into the sectors that I love, while also looking for MSc programmes and careers that I will pursue.