Popular Careers in Psychology: For the Best Minds!

A major in Psychology opens up several interesting opportunities for a candidate. Different types of counseling and special education teaching are two of the most popular careers in Psychology that are popular among its graduates. Besides, there are some very rare opportunities available to psychologists that can give a run for money to best detectives in history. Did you know that NASA uses services of psychologists to design cockpits or psychologists offer services to furniture designing firms to come up with designs tailor-made for their targeted clientele?

Careers in Psychology can vary from analyzing the employability of a candidate and his suitability to a particular job in a particular company to research on customer behavior, expectations and satisfaction with respect to a particular product or service being offered by a company. From helping the police to come up with a likely profile of a serial murderer to develop just the right incentive system for the salespeople of an organization, careers in psychology can be quite interesting. Advertising and marketing world often need vital inputs of psychology experts to come up with effective advertising campaigns and manufacturing firms need their assistance in coming up with just the right products.

Psychology is still at a nascent stage in India but things are changing now and scope for psychology graduates virtually seems limitless. Some of the Psychology careers that Indian students usually opt for are:

1.Career Counselor

At the tender age of 16 to 18, when an average Indian student usually clears Class 12, it is quite easy to get awed by the entire spectrum of career choices available to you and get confused about which career to choose and how to develop suitable skills for the career. This is where career counselors come into picture. They access a school or college student, or a professional willing to change his or her job objectively; analyses his or her personality, skills, aptitude, interest, intelligence level and related socio-economic factors and then, suggest best suitable career choices for a student. They suggest ways to the candidate to enhance their career prospects in their chosen field, find suitable jobs, and prepare them for job interviews. Career counselors also help people to deal with job related stress and deal with various phases in the working life of a person.

2.Clinical Psychologist

The single largest sub-branch of psychology to offer employment, Clinical Psychology has several specializations that one can opt for. Clinical psychologists deal with mental and emotional disorders and some of the fields in which you can create your niche are substance abuse, health psychology, geriatrics, child or adult mental health, and post trauma therapies.

As a clinical psychologist, one can work independently or join a clinic, health center or hospital. In India, a clinical psychologist will have to do a MA or MSc in Psychology or Applied Psychology followed by a two-year M Phil in Psychology to fulfill the minimum requirements specified by the Indian Journal of Clinical Psychology. Delhi University requires students to appear for an entrance test to get admission in the MA Psychology program. 80% weightage is give to the entrance test while 20% weightage is given to the interview. There are distance learning programs in Psychology on offer too.

3.Counselor

Counseling is a generic term for all kinds of assistance psychologists provide to people dealing with any type of problem - be it career planning, difficult in handling the social issues, emotional problems, matrimonial or parenting crisis, dealing with divorce or your past, and domestic violence. A counselor offers support, consultation, techniques and therapies to the client and ensures his or her healthy development.

Several institutes in India are now offering counseling courses in the form of Certificate, Diploma, and PG Diploma programs in Psychology that produce trained professionals in the field. To opt for a PG Diploma in Psychological Counselling, you should be a graduate in Psychology while for a Diploma program in Guidance & Counseling, a graduate degree in any stream might suffice. Those who have a MA or M.Ed degree in Psychology may also opt for Diploma and PG Diploma Programs in Vocational Rehabilitation and Counseling or Rehabilitation Psychology.

4.Forensic Psychologist

Forensic psychology is the red hot psychology job trend that you might want to try and has certainly gained its celebrity status due to how it is portrayed in TV shows, movies and detective novels. Used extensively in criminal investigation and law cases, forensic psychology is certainly an exciting career choice. Besides working with the police investigators on murders and rape cases, forensic psychologists may also work in assessing insurance claims and cases of child custody. Profiling a criminal or tapping into the psyche of a potential criminal or suspect is one of the chief roles of a forensic psychologist.

Besides studying Psychology, a Forensic Psychologist also needs to know criminal and civil laws. Thus, a PhD in Psychology from a recognized University is necessary to get good job offers in the field. A twin degree in Psychology and Criminology at the graduate postgraduate level can increase your chances of being a success in a field too.

5.Industrial or Organizational Psychologist

As an industrial psychologist or organizational psychologist, you can help employees to improve their work performance, improve their work behavior, and build their job-related skills. You will help companies to choose right professionals with right attitudes and right aptitudes for specific job roles, assess people for promotion, determine training needs, and make people-related decisions that play an important role overall performance of the organization.

Additionally, organizational or industrial psychologists can also help in improving interdepartmental and intradepartmental communication, develop sensitive yet effective managers, hone leadership skills of employees, and help salespeople come up with better negotiation skills. Besides, industry psychologists also play an important role in human engineering and ergonomics in information processing, work space arrangement, illumination, product safety, and noise effects. The career prospects of industrial psychologists are quite bright and they offer earn good salaries as part of the Human Resources team of industry giants.

Today, industrial psychology forms part of every psychology program offered by Indian universities and one can specialize in it at the Master's level. Delhi University offers a full-time M.A. in Applied Psychology while the AVR Educational Foundation offers a correspondence MA degree course in Psychology which is approved by UGC, AICTE, and DEC.

6.Special Education Teacher

There are psychology graduates who have the cause of students with different types of disabilities - physical or mental - at heart. To tap into this field, you will need a B.A. degree in Psychology as well as a B.Ed. program in Special Education. Opportunities as a special education teacher is aplenty as enrollments in Special Education Programs are on a rise and the awareness in parents of disabled/afflicted/mentally retarded children is increasing.

To discuss more about careers in psychology, post your queries here.

- Compiled by Ruchi Shrimali (shiksha.com)