Any Occupational Psychologists out there?

[Lostbutlooking]

If so could you give me an insight into the road to becoming chartered. I currently have a bps accredited degree. I’m planning on doing an occupational psychology MSc through distance learning. I also work on IT.

I’ve read the bps information about stage 2 but I suppose I’m looking for any tips on finding a job or placement to undertake it. What are the best avenues to go through?

Or really just any other advice, tips or experiences.

Tia

I'm not finished yet but it's a bit of a slog really - it's meant to be the equivalent of a doctorate and takes most people several years. I'm not aware of any placements that help you complete it. And if you want to work in the field I'd focus on finding the right job first and about chartership later. Getting an entry level job in occ psych isn't always easy, there are a lot of grads now and not so many jobs. If you can spin your IT experience to be relevant that would be a help.

Do you actually need to be chartered? Many people working in the field aren't.

Well that’s what I don’t really know. From reading about it, it seemed like you needed to be chartered but maybe I’d be better just trying to get into the field without it...

I think you may be getting a bit ahead of yourself then? Generally a job in the field comes first, chartership second, and the job is the tricky part. Universities are churning out far more MSc graduates than there are entry level jobs. There are 3 main ways of working in the field: for the Civil Service/DWP, for a large corporate within HR, and for a consultancy. Grads without relevant work experience are usually looking at hotly contested entry level admin roles to get a foot in the door unless they can score an internship. Chartership has become less attractive to most as the BPS has made it more bureaucratic. In general the DWP and more academic and conservative consultancies care about chartership, corporate clients and more results oriented consultancies don't care.

Your best bet is just to get some kind of HR related role and pick up experience in that. The hard part with chartership is getting breadth of experience. It can be easy to get one area ticked off (e.g. training, or selection), but getting all the areas you need is hard if your job is only focused on one area (e.g. recruitment). So get a start with generalist HR roles and keep applying to the specific OP posts. Also getting qualified and experienced in occupational testing is a good idea.

Chartership is expensive, the process is badly organised and managed by the BPS and quite a few people are put off. That being said, employers do see it as a badge of expertise. It's also worth noting the Association of Business Psychologists (ABP) has also just launched their equivalent scheme, which I think will be very popular.