MSc in Psychology or CIPD

[LittleMissBrainy]

If you had the choice of doing an MSc in Psychology or a CIPD qualification which would you choose?

I am looking at a range of options that suit my skills and experience which include:
Counselling, Psychology, HR, Learning & Development, Corporate Social Responsibility or anything else in that sort of 'people skills' area. I was wondering which qualification would be the most flexible.

Background is mainly offenders having recently left the Probation Service after 15 years and Youth Offending Service before that.

I think you need to work out what field you want to work in and then decide how to get there.

The jobs you list - HR, counselling, corporate social responsibility are all very different and require a different skill set, experience and training.

If you do CIPD there is no counselling and CSR in that. You'll be learning about e. g HR strategy, employment law etc, is that what you want?

“I did CIPD but didn’t actually ever work in HR! However you do need to understand (and some people really don’t get this) that HR is about effectively managing the staff from a business expense point of view. Counselling and talking to staff it isn’t. HR look at job structures, recruitment, redundancies, performance management, grievances, disciplinary issues, competency procedures, absence management and lots more I’ve probably forgotten! So it’s everything about employees that keeps a company working effectively and keeping within their budgets. They are seen as business partners rather than welfare officers.“

I have my CIPD and have worked in HR for the best part of 20 years. I haven’t found what you say to be the case at all. I spend a significant proportion of my time on staff wellbeing, including individuals and spend a lot of time working with our psychologist to understand what is going on for staff. Counselling and coaching is most definitely part of my role and my team (I line manage 20 staff). That’s on top of the usual strategic stuff, policy stuff etc.

My team and I have worked 16 hour days, 7 days a week at times during Covid. It’s not a role for the weak!

Ooh, and I did a psych degree for fun whilst working. The organisational psychology aspects of that have come in handy, alongside the understanding of individuals.

@Feminist10101

That does sound unusual for HR though. What industry do you work in?

OP, what is your under graduate degree in? Is it psychology or something different?

If you are interested in becoming eg an occupational psychologist you might want to look up something called the GBC - the British Psychological Society has lots of info on this. Look up the careers packs for schools. For most of the psychology "professions" you would need GBC (either from an UG degree or a postgrad conversion course) PLUS vocational postgrad study.

If you want to be a counsellor it would be better to look into the specific training for that eg a masters in counselling but try to talk to some recent graduates as well as the training course about what you would need to do after you get your Masters to get accredited.

@dooratheexplorer

If you got a job as a Band 3 OT Assistant in the NHS you could dip your toe in the water before you decide to commit to further training. It would help towards your university application if that's the way you want to go.

If you do this you might be able to get onto an apprenticeship. That's a degree though not an MSc

Depends on where in the country you are. OT apprenticeships have only just been introduced and there are very few about at the moment.

I'm in HR and agree with @Feminist10101. HR is such a varied profession and often the type of HR work you do depends on the business and industry you choose.

I currently sit on the board in a medium sized manufacturing business and CSR is a big part of my role now too. I can see your skillset being useful in an HR role.

Some HR roles are much more office and policy based vs actually being face to face with employees on a daily basis etc. which doesn't sound like it would suit you.

CIPD qualifications are great, but only really useful if you want to work in HR or L&D.

@SpeedofaSloth

CIPDis more vocational and will get you work. My own MSc Occupational Psychology is really only an interesting footnote to my core skill set (H&S).

H&S- is that Health and Safety?

Just to explain: we had an office reorganisation. I had always intended to try and go into our HR dept (Education - Local Government) as my dept was being disbanded. My employers were paying for my CIPD so it seemed the likely career move. Instead I got a better and more highly graded post. So all the best laid plans etc. I worked closely with HR though and there wasn’t much counselling. I’m sure some companies will have roles that are not about managing their human resource in the traditional way but loads cannot afford it.

@My0My I have both an MSc in Occupational Psychology and CIPD level 7 in HRD. I think it depends on where you’d like to work - most of the HR teams want you to have level 7 in HRM whereas my experience in learning and development is that they’re a bit more flexible in people having different types of experience and/ or qualifications from areas such as the CIPD, BPS, Coaching etc. I loved studying for both my MSc and the CIPD in different ways, also loved hearing what happens in other industries from other students for example. What is your head and heart telling you to do?

Go for your masters. I would hire a Master degree holder over CIPD any day of the week. Also a Master is more international.

I speak as an ex HR Director. Have hired lawyers and people wit Masters degrees who wanted a career change and never ever been disappointed. I would also say it is so important to be both numerate and literate in terms of HR and a Masters gives me some comfort in that regard.

Good luck.

CIPD is not as valued internationally and a Masters is.

I'm doing a MSc in Psychology but I'm going into clinical psychology

H&S- is that Health and Safety?

Yes.