Career progression in psychology: What jobs can I get? (with Matthew Jackson)

[00:00:00] Bronwyn: Hey, mental workers, you're listening to the Mental Work Podcast, your companion to early career psychology. I'm your host, Dr. Bronwyn Milkins, and we have a really interesting episode today, all about career progression in psychology.

You've heard you can do therapy, but what else is there? And there also seems to be perhaps a misconception that you do your undergrad, you do your honors, master's, and then you go straight into one to one therapy and private practice forever. But that might not be some people's jam. Let's talk about what else is there.

And here to help us out is our guest today, Matthew Jackson. He's a psychologist and a newly minted border proof supervisor. And we thank his friend Leanne for suggesting this fantastic episode topic.

Unfortunately, we had a bit of a technical hiccup with the audio recording for this episode. Our editor has done his best to rescue it and hopefully you won't notice much difference, but we did end up losing the first minute of the recording. No dramas. We pick things up where Matthew is answering my icebreaker question about what movie changed his life. I hope you enjoy the episode, it's a real good one.

[00:01:13] Matthew: a book or TV show or movie that changed my life. It's definitely a... the first thing that came to mind was a movie called Harriet the Spy.

[00:01:21] Bronwyn: Oh, I love that movie.

[00:01:21] Matthew: I don't... Thank you.

[00:01:23] Bronwyn: It's a great movie.

[00:01:25] Matthew: There are so many people who I say this to and they think I have never heard of it.

[00:01:28] Bronwyn: Yeah. She's a detective. Movie says it all. The title, the title is what it is.

[00:01:35] Matthew: explanatory. But the reason why it changed my life is because, um, I guess I tend to think of myself as a very curious person as well, similar to Harriet. I don't necessarily buy on my name, well, I'm just looking out of my apartment block and I'm thinking, I kind of do do that actually.

[00:01:54] Bronwyn: Maybe I'm more similar to Harriet than I know.

[00:01:56] Matthew: Maybe I need to reflect on this a little bit more, but nonetheless, I do remember watching it when I was little and thinking, oh, so it's normal to be inquisitive and curious about like humans and what they do and human nature, um, and so that really, uh, changed my life. I think before that I was like, I think I'm weird that I, I want to watch people.

[00:02:16] Bronwyn: Yeah. And so Harriet normalized that behavior for millions of people. Yeah, no, that's a great movie. What a blast from the past. Thank you for bringing that up.

[00:02:28] Matthew: Right, anything like 90s, ugh, the best.

[00:02:31] Bronwyn: Absolutely.

Okay. So, let's see how we go with this. We're going to talk about some myths and misconceptions about career progression in psychology. We're going to talk about different career paths that are available, some different settings that you can work in, some less conventional career paths, resources, and some advice or guidance as much as we can give.

Uh, I said that in question mark voice because I'm not sure if I have any good guidance, but maybe we'll cut that out because then listeners will be like, she doesn't have any good guidance.

[00:03:01] Matthew: I like that.

[00:03:02] Bronwyn: We'll see how we go. Are you ready?

[00:03:05] Matthew: Yes, let's do it.

[00:03:06] Bronwyn: Okay. Well, maybe the first thing that I want to start with is a question directed to you, which is , did you always think that you were going to go into therapy or did you consider different career paths in psychology?

[00:03:18] Matthew: So, I always knew it would be psychology, I didn't think it would be therapy.

[00:03:22] Bronwyn: Interesting.

[00:03:24] Matthew: I thought it would be along the lines of research. And I guess because that, um, in my third year, I volunteered for a research clinic to kind of get, you know, my feelers out for psychology and make some connections within the psych world for the fourth year stuff. And I always thought, yeah, this is where I'll be. I can do this. And I am now in like my fifth year and I've done nothing to do with research whatsoever.

[00:03:56] Bronwyn: Cool. It's interesting how things change. So like, did you ever consider other than research any other career paths and did you ever seek advice?

[00:04:03] Matthew: I did actually,

[00:04:05] Bronwyn: Oh, what'd you do?

[00:04:07] Matthew: The, uh, Moments in time where I contemplated taking a break from psychology, a year or year and a half ago, I can't remember the time, um, whatever that was, I did think about moving into like the human resources space.

[00:04:21] Bronwyn: Really? Oh,

[00:04:23] Matthew: Yes, I heard that, um, I had heard I don't know, this is not fact checked, I have no idea, but I had heard, um, that, uh, you could, I think with like an honours level in psych, not fact checked, don't 100 percent know, but I had heard, um, that you could do human resources if you had like a certain level of a psych degree, um, and I had a master's at that point, so I thought, oh, okay. I could do human resources. That could be really interesting.

So I thought about doing human resources for a period of time or even, um, uh, I guess this is more like organizational psych, but like helping businesses in regards to like hiring, um, and that type of, that type of area. So I also thought about that too.

[00:05:09] Bronwyn: Yeah. And what drew you to not taking those paths ultimately?

[00:05:14] Matthew: I guess two things. One of them was my existing client. I think I'm too involved. I want to see it out. I want to see where therapy takes them. So I couldn't sort of walk away from them in that sense. I think I would be failing them... uh, and I think the second thing was, um, probably a lack of information or knowledge of like, so how do I even move into room... uh, human resources? How do I even move into helping with like hiring of staff? Like how does it, where, where do I go? Do I just Google? What do I do?

[00:05:50] Bronwyn: Yeah. No, those are really both really good points. It's like we are really invested in how our clients go. Plus I reckon it's fair to say that there is an overall lack of mentorship in psychology, particularly, like, I don't know any. Any organizational psychologist. I've met a few face to face, but really only the provisional ones because they've been studying masters, but I've never met a endorsed organizational psych or many people who work in the organizational field. So I wouldn't know where to go either.

[00:06:17] Matthew: Completely. I think I've met, I've definitely met one endorsed org psych, um, and wanted to pick their brain, but was also like, I think I'm just going to come across as really intense.

[00:06:28] Bronwyn: Yeah,

[00:06:31] Matthew: Because they are kind of like, um, I also think of it like, um, like health psychs and things like that, like they're kind of unicorns a bit.

[00:06:38] Bronwyn: They really are. They really are unicorns. And so you don't want to be too intense when you meet one, but you also want to ask them a million questions.

[00:06:45] Matthew: Right. Like I'm, I'm interested in moving into that kind of org area, or at least, sorry, was at the time. So, um, help me?

[00:06:54] Bronwyn: Yeah, totally.

Um, I'll share my experience if that's okay.

I did seek career advice when I was at uni. I remember in my third year at uni going to, the uni counseling center had like, you could sign up for half an hour of career advice. And the person who I got was. just appeared the most disinterested in me as could humanly be possible. And he was like, you could do journalism. And I was like, all righty then. So that was like, cause I was like, what am I going to do with this three year degree? And that was pretty much the only advice I remember getting. And I remember coming out of that session being like, I am none the wiser for what I can do with this degree.

[00:07:35] Matthew: sorry. I'm laughing with

[00:07:37] Bronwyn: Yeah, no, I'm laughing. Oh, yeah, it was like, okay, because I thought I was doing like a really good thing. And I'm like, hurdy gurr, I'm going into the counsellor's like office and I'm gonna come out all knowledged up and no, I did not.

Um, but after that, I did do lots of volunteering. So I did volunteer with a PhD student who was doing some research in sleep at a hospital. So I was helping interview her patients or her research project. I also did some volunteering... It was called like the school volunteer program. And pretty much it was like you go in and help the teacher out with students. So it's like an unpaid, like teaching assistant role pretty much, but you do it voluntarily. Um, so I signed up with that, did that.

The best volunteering role I did was with the Smith family who are a national organization that help kids who are. financially disadvantaged with getting access to school. And what I did was they host reading clubs after school. And so you can help kids who are like two years behind in their reading with their peers, just read, and they might not have access to books at home or a safe space to read. And that was hugely rewarding. I really loved doing that.

[00:08:45] Matthew: I really love that. And I guess you just reminded me of, um, like in one of my placements, I guess the role was perhaps originally written for more of like a social work role. Um, but I had it for one of my placements. I was part of that role. And, um, a lot of it was like kind of group work for carers or for individuals.

Yeah.

[00:09:10] Bronwyn: I love carers groups.

[00:09:12] Matthew: Right! And, um, even just thinking about it now, I'm like, oh I miss that. Just, um, having moments where, um, like it was just like teas, like even just like having a talking circle and drinking tea.

[00:09:25] Bronwyn: Yeah.

[00:09:26] Matthew: I guess, uh, how therapeutic and cathartic and yet so different from the traditional, like, form of therapy, I guess.

[00:09:33] Bronwyn: Yeah. So I guess like, yeah, maybe we're trying to say that there is lots of other stuff that you can try and test out in psychology. It doesn't have to be one to one therapy to get a sense of what you like and you don't like.

[00:09:43] Matthew: I would agree with you. I think you said that really well, that psychology is actually probably quite vast. We might just not know about it or it's probably not televised. It's not as well known.

[00:09:55] Bronwyn: Yes.

[00:09:57] Matthew: I even think about some of the students that I work with at my workplace. Um, and there really is that message of like, there's only two paths. You either do Therapy, or clinical work, or you do research and that's kind of it, but actually there's a lot more opportunities, we've already mentioned probably like five or something, in psychology that you can explore or maybe even get into.

[00:10:25] Bronwyn: Totally. So I'm going to read you out a list of alternative jobs that you can get in psychology other than therapy. And this is if you, look, some of these jobs you could get from a three year degree. I'll read out the list of specifically what you can get with a three year degree afterwards, but these are just some alternatives to one to one therapy.

Um, do I want you to be like, would you do that? Yes, no, or should I just read out the list?

[00:10:48] Matthew: Oh, let's do yes or no, that sounds fun.

[00:10:52] Bronwyn: Okay, um, marking university assignments.

[00:10:55] Matthew: I would say yes.

[00:10:59] Bronwyn: I would say no, having done it. Yeah.

[00:11:03] Matthew: Fair. I don't want to now.

[00:11:06] Bronwyn: But also if you mark university assignments, it... okay, so you can look at these two ways. You can either be, it can either, Inflate your self esteem marking university assignments because it is amazing how many people need assistance with paragraphs, and I'm not making fun of people who for English is a second language. But sometimes you see essays and you're like, wow, my skills are pretty all right. If you're feeling down on yourself. Um, But it can also be depressing seeing what is in there. Um, so it's a little bit meh, pros and cons.

Um, okay, second thing, consultation. So this is a broad thing, but this is like where you can go into big organizations and you can be like, Hey, I know the psychology things. Let me consult you on how to increase the health and wellbeing of your workforce. That kind of stuff. Interested?

[00:11:58] Matthew: I, hands down, 100 percent I'll do it tomorrow.

[00:12:01] Bronwyn: Yeah, I would love to do that. I think that'd be super cool.

[00:12:03] Matthew: Right? Like, I'm sure that everybody, including us, but everybody who's listening, has probably worked in a workplace at some point in time that was quite, like, toxic and not healthy. Like, can you imagine that it's, like, somebody's job to go in there and say, Hey, I've observed this, this is just a suggestion, this could make your workplace less toxic.

[00:12:24] Bronwyn: Yeah. Yeah. And I think, I think psychs have got really good skills and being able to see what environments and what the dynamics are among people. Um, so, yeah, I reckon this is an area that will probably take off in the future, like more org psych kind of stuff.

Um, next one, Research Assistant. Have you ever done Research Assistant stuff?

[00:12:43] Matthew: I did. I was a research assistant for, I think it was approximately a year and a half. I, uh, even though that was like my original goal in psychology, I wouldn't do it again.

[00:12:54] Bronwyn: Mmm, interesting. How come?

[00:12:56] Matthew: I think, so I would describe myself as a vibrant person full of energy and personality. And when I was in the research space, I had to really push that down and just concentrate on getting the job done and not necessarily. Being the light in the room, I guess.

[00:13:16] Bronwyn: yeah, so it sounds like it was inauthentic for you.

No, that's fair. Absolutely fair. Um, I like doing research assistant work depending on the project. If it's for like a really boring project, then I'm like, nah, I don't like this. But over the past year, I've been doing research assistant work looking at the healthcare needs of the queer community who are at risk of experiencing intimate partner violence, which I was like, that is an A plus research that I want to be involved in.

[00:13:41] Matthew: Oh, wait. Now I'm a little intrigued.

[00:13:45] Bronwyn: It's been really cool, like, cause it was mostly like interviews with like healthcare providers on how they can provide better care for like their queer patients.

[00:13:53] Matthew: Okay. I have so many questions, but I'll stop. I'll, I'll pull back.

[00:13:58] Bronwyn: so it can be really good, but, and like, I mean, just FYI for listeners, that the way that I got that job was just through SEEK. I saw it on SEEK and I was like, this is, this is my job, like I want to apply for that job. Um, and it's been really good.

Um, okay, next, next, next job, Pilates or yoga teacher?

[00:14:17] Matthew: I laugh. I'm actually, um, a, a practicer of the yogamism. Um, so I, I laugh in the sense of, um, how is that related to psychology? I guess my brain kind of goes straight to that.

[00:14:29] Bronwyn: I think it's, um, like the trauma informed yoga kind of stuff.

[00:14:33] Matthew: Yeah, I can see that. Or even, like, health psych. I guess any kind of psych, really. Um, I would say yes, but I'm also... okay, I would say yes, and at the same time, I am aware of a psychologist I used to work with who received a letter, a heated letter from APRAH, um, just kind of advising her to be really careful on how she um, kind of sold her yoga business.

[00:15:07] Bronwyn: Yeah.

[00:15:08] Matthew: Um, and really differentiating it from from her, her role, uh, as a psychologist where we were working. Um, so I would say yes, and there's still that part of me from that experience that goes, Ooh, I don't want a letter from APRAH.

[00:15:25] Bronwyn: And I've actually heard of a really similar case. And that was when the practitioner, had clients come into the yoga class, as well as people from the public, and then was seeing them in their psychology practice as well. And they also got a letter saying that this might be blurring of boundaries, um, and you need to separate the two. So if anybody's interested in Pilates yoga teacher, do consider how you will go about this ethically.

[00:15:53] Matthew: Yes, and also I guess advertising as well. That has a whole component.

[00:15:58] Bronwyn: Yeah. It's a bit of a minefield.

[00:15:59] Matthew: The Code of Ethics. Oh, okay, a bit messy.

[00:16:02] Bronwyn: Yeah. Um, my main barrier would be like, I love yoga. I do Pilates, but in no shape or form am I going to teach those things.

[00:16:15] Matthew: Fair, fair.

[00:16:17] Bronwyn: Me doing Pilates is like, can I do this today? Whoop, there I go. Okay. I've fallen over.

[00:16:22] Matthew: Fallen over. You tried it, you attempted it, and that's enough.

[00:16:28] Bronwyn: Absolutely. Okay. Next job. Supervision.

[00:16:33] Matthew: Oh yes, I'm actually just about to complete my supervision training.

[00:16:37] Bronwyn: Amazing.

[00:16:38] Matthew: Thank you very much. So, um, 100 percent yes, it's already occurring. Thank you very much.

[00:16:43] Bronwyn: Yeah. I would love to do supervision in the future. I think it's, I think it's just wonderful.

[00:16:47] Matthew: Oh my god, please, even doing the course itself, um, even like part one, the kind of uni component, the theory component, I guess, um, even, uh, challenged the way that I view my internship in the past, um, and like how, I guess the role of the supervisor as well, so very informative.

[00:17:10] Bronwyn: that's really cool. I'm really glad to hear that you enjoyed your training. Where did you do it through? Oh,

[00:17:14] Matthew: I did it through staff, S T A P, yeah, a lot

[00:17:18] Bronwyn: So well, podcast a few weeks ago.

[00:17:21] Matthew: Yes, I love it. Um, yeah, yes, the, uh, STAP course, a lot of people do do it through STAP. I would, I would recommend it. I really enjoyed it.

[00:17:32] Bronwyn: Oh, good. That's really good to hear because I know that some people have not enjoyed their supervision courses, so I'm glad to hear that that was a good one.

[00:17:40] Matthew: Yes.

[00:17:41] Bronwyn: Excellent. Next job, uh, project management, like in a government department. Would you ever work for government? Your face is kind of a scrunchy, no kind of face.

[00:17:51] Matthew: How dare you reflect back what my face is doing. Um,

[00:17:56] Bronwyn: You're like, that's my happy face.

[00:17:58] Matthew: yeah.

[00:17:59] Bronwyn: How dare you?

[00:18:01] Matthew: Oh, that's funny. Um, okay. So based off of, uh, your observation on my face, I'm going to say no. There's a part of me that wants to say yes. I don't know what that is. I don't know. I'll figure that out in my own time. But what, what about you?

[00:18:12] Bronwyn: Uh, no, I think just as a neurodivergent person, like I, I, I just can't deal with the potential bullshit. Like, I can't deal with office politics. I don't mind gossiping from the sidelines, but I find that, like, with government stuff, it's kind of hard not to get drawn into it. So, it's like, I don't mind gossiping about, like, Sandra's poor sandwiches, like, on the side, but I just know that I'd be pulled into it. Um, and then, and then I'd be unhappy.

[00:18:39] Matthew: Poor Sandra and her sandwiches. That's fair, I get that.

[00:18:45] Bronwyn: Okay. Um, creating an online program. So, this one has been sold as, um, a really good thing for psychs to do by a lot of entrepreneurs. So including like Dr Hayley Kelly was on the podcast about six months, nine months ago. And her big thing is create online programs to get out of the one to one money exchange and then have many to one offering. So that's what it's called. Um, So it is a potential thing for listeners to get into. Would you do it?

[00:19:14] Matthew: 100 percent I love this, this is a fantastic idea. Why aren't we doing this a million times already?

[00:19:19] Bronwyn: Well, the, the main barrier I have is time. Cause I would also love to do an online program. Um, and then I know Hayley, if she was here, she'd be like, hit me up. Like we can set something up. You just need to dedicate a bit of time. But once you do it, the returns are many fold. And I'm like, I hear that. I hear that. Yes. I need to do it. I know.

[00:19:38] Matthew: I can appreciate.

[00:19:39] Bronwyn: Stop pestering me. It's like they're not even pestering me. It's just for my own creation. But I think, um, like just in terms of online programs, I think it's a great thing that is being promoted to psychologists because, like, yeah, we do see people a lot one to one or we see them group therapy, but with online programs, people can access them anytime or if they're a led one, then you can come online anywhere.

Um, so, And the information is always there and it's usually packaged stuff that we deliver one to one to clients, but it's accessible, I guess, which is great in promoting mental health in the community.

[00:20:13] Matthew: That's very true. I guess also in like, I think about like accessibility as well.

[00:20:17] Bronwyn: Yeah, totally.

[00:20:19] Matthew: Even just like generalizing to the public. Okay, yeah, I like that actually. That's a great idea.

[00:20:24] Bronwyn: Yeah, absolutely. And if anybody is interested in that, like I said, Dr Hayley Kelly is somebody who's really big in this space. I know Natalie Kladinski is another person who's really big in this space. I'll put their links in the show notes so you can check them out. Um, okay. Policy at state level. Do you, are you interested in policy?

[00:20:44] Matthew: Yes and no. My brain goes yes, I would love to create like fundamental change, and the other half of my brain goes, ugh, that just seems like it would be a lot of energy on my part. It would take a lot of energy.

[00:21:00] Bronwyn: Yeah, um, I was really interested in policy when I finished my psych degree. And so I actually did a bit of diving into it and I spoke to somebody who works in policy and they said, if you love change, don't do this job because every time the government changes, you have to start over again. So you'll be making Progress with like one minister or with one council or whoever you're dealing with. And then you start all over again, When that person is replaced or they get a different executive assistant. Um, and so change doesn't come easily and it's all about relationships, which can be a bit dirty as well.

So that's just, you know, from one person's anecdote, there might be a person in policy listening who is like, note love policy, I get changes done all the time. So, but I guess I would say investigate widely.

[00:21:48] Matthew: Wow. Okay. Yeah.

[00:21:49] Bronwyn: Blowing minds here. Yeah.

Um, okay. Next one. Assessments.

[00:21:56] Matthew: No.

[00:21:57] Bronwyn: Yeah, same.

[00:21:59] Matthew: no. I feel like it, I feel like it's for some people. I have a, like a very good friend who's a psych and it's like her thing, like hands down, she loves it. And I'm just like, oh, I can't think of anything worse.

[00:22:12] Bronwyn: Yeah. Oh no, same. Cause I went through a bit of a crisis maybe a year, year and a half ago. And I was like, what am I doing with my, with my life and my psych work? And I thought like, Oh, maybe I can do assessments. And so I bought the An extra iPad and I was like, okay, I'm just gonna give it a go. The existing client wanted an assessment, so I was like, okay, I'll do this assessment.

Loved doing the assessment, loved assisting this client, but writing up the report was like hell for me and I hated it. And I was like, I cannot do this. No. Oh God, I hated it. Yep. So I was like, never again. So it was a good, it was a good dipping your toes in the water, but some people, they love it. I've had people on the podcast who are just so into it and they find it's a really good way to break up therapy.

[00:22:57] Matthew: Good point actually, fair point.

[00:22:58] Bronwyn: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Um. Next one is mediation like, uh, for separated families or for working out with child custody arrangements, that kind of stuff.

[00:23:12] Matthew: Um, uh, immediately no.

[00:23:15] Bronwyn: Yeah, no, I'm immediately no as well. I feel like I'd have to use my teacher voice too much and I don't, I don't like using teacher voice too much.

[00:23:23] Matthew: Yeah, I feel like that would just challenge me in regards to like being non judgmental.

[00:23:28] Bronwyn: Yeah. Um,

[00:23:30] Matthew: uh, yeah, I don't think I'd be able to kind of hold all of the things that occur in like family processing.

[00:23:36] Bronwyn: okay. I've got two more. One is run, running seminars and workshops for corporate. So these would be like mental wellbeing workshops, stress management, resilience, that kind of stuff. Interested?

[00:23:48] Matthew: Oh, I would love to do that. I would even like, I would probably knowing me make like half of it all like in vivo exposure, like let's actually relax type of stuff,

[00:23:59] Bronwyn: would love that. That'd be a great workshop. Yeah. You'd nail that.

Yeah. I would love to do that kind of stuff. Um, yeah, that would be wonderful. I think what holds me back is just the time because you have to build those relationships to kind of get in there. And then also like, what am I selling? Like, so I'd have to build something to, to sell. Yeah, so the thing that holds me back is actually doing the work. Um, funny that.

Um, and then the last thing is, um, I guess this is a bit of a cheeky one, but this is managing a group practice. So what happens is that, um, if you don't want to be a therapist doing therapy, you can always switch to managing the therapist.

[00:24:40] Matthew: okay. I'm going to say no cause, uh, I hate admin stuff and I can, I can already see admin stuff.

[00:24:48] Bronwyn: Yeah, no, it'd be a lot of admin, a lot of business planning, a lot of finances, a lot of managing workplace relationships, you're everything.

[00:24:59] Matthew: Quite literally. And oh my God, imagine that stress too.

[00:25:02] Bronwyn: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:25:03] Matthew: not for me. I'm a no.

[00:25:04] Bronwyn: I feel bad for practice owners when I think of the amount of stress that they must be under.

[00:25:08] Matthew: Yeah.

[00:25:10] Bronwyn: Yeah, totally. Okay.

Those are all the examples of non client facing jobs that I could find. So literally, I scoured Facebook groups and anytime someone had posted a question and people had answered being like, yes, this is what you can do other than one to one therapy, this is the list that I found.

Um, so yeah.

[00:25:28] Matthew: I love that list actually. I think it's a fantastic list.

[00:25:32] Bronwyn: Yeah, and of course, oh you go.

[00:25:35] Matthew: was going to say, I imagine some of them you can probably like move into not quickly, but you can move into fairly quickly. Um, I guess I just said exactly what I said. Um, yeah. Yeah, they probably don't need, you know, like a decade or two's worth of experience and like, you know, potentially another degree. Um, a lot of you could probably just move, put it in too, naturally.

[00:26:01] Bronwyn: Really good point. There's a lot of transferable skills that psychologists have and a lot of them would go into these jobs. So I say that they're adjacent and of course, you don't have to get a like an adjacent psychology job if you want to work at Bunnings or start your own floristry business or do drag like Matthew. Like you can do, you can do whatever the hell you want.

[00:26:23] Matthew: Exactly, and then you just have to, you know, figure out like the boundaries and the ethics and things like that. But

[00:26:29] Bronwyn: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:26:30] Matthew: You've got it, then yeah, I don't know, it might provide more of a balance too, if that's something.

[00:26:36] Bronwyn: Oh, totally. Absolutely. Um, so you're not locked in, but I get that listeners would want to know how to use their skills. So should I read out what this study was with what you can get with a three year degree?

[00:26:46] Matthew: Yes, I'm very curious.

[00:26:48] Bronwyn: Okay. So there was a recent study that was released. It was a collaboration between University of Canberra and Australian National University. I literally got it in my inbox like a month or so ago. And what they did was they used a machine learning and natural language processing program to scour 5. 1 million job ads and they, the machine was like, is this job suitable for a person with three year psychology degree? Okay. And what they found was that around 25 percent of Australian and New Zealand jobs advertised in the last four years are potentially suitable for psychology graduates. Woohoo.

[00:27:29] Matthew: That's a good amount, 25%, that's a good amount.

[00:27:32] Bronwyn: a good, that's decent. Um, and it gets a little, um, Okay, so only 1 percent of those 25 percent were explicitly identified for psychology graduates. so yeah, so what the report found was that like, there's not many jobs that are specifically targeted towards psychology grads, but there's around one quarter of them that have the skills that we could go into.

[00:27:57] Matthew: actually kind of motivating.

[00:28:00] Bronwyn: Yeah. And they also said, this is another hopeful stat, but they said three year psych graduates hold skills that are in really high demand across a wide range of destinations. So there are potential job roles in almost all industries, very large and highly diverse set of job titles. Um, so you're not like, some people are like, Oh, psychology is such a useless degree if you don't become a psyc, but this is saying that it's not, which is nice.

[00:28:28] Matthew: No, it's really not. I've seen a lot of people mention on like the psych forums, um, How perhaps they've done their three or maybe even their fourth, but they had to sort of defer or stop because of starting a family or due to financial concerns, things like that, and have taken time away from the traditional psych, uni, etc. and done something that is psych adjacent. A lot of those I saw on those forums too were kind of like support work related. Um, and that's, you know, very related to, to this particular field of psychology.

Anyway, um, my point here, uh, is that, I don't know, sometimes maybe it can actually be really helpful to even intentionally take a break. Um, and see what you can do with those three years, or fourth if you, um, do honours, etc. And gain that experience, challenge yourself, see if like this is what you want to do, or if it's this, or that, or over here, wherever it is.

[00:29:32] Bronwyn: Yeah, no, absolutely. So let me read you out some example job titles that this machine learning thingy identified from the 5. 1 million job ads. Interested?

[00:29:43] Matthew: oh, yes, please.

[00:29:44] Bronwyn: So we have Community Arts Worker, market Research Analyst, Software Tester, Environmental Health Officer, Occupational Health and Safety Advisor, Community Development Officer, Health Promotion Coordinator, Intelligence officer, policy analyst, training and development officer. Oh yeah, so you could do like workplace in training and development. Diversional therapist, program administrator, human resource advisor, recruitment consultant. Oh, I think that's what you're talking about with hiring people.

[00:30:18] Matthew: Correct, yeah.

[00:30:19] Bronwyn: Yeah, um, People and Culture Administrator, Heritage Specialist, Information Officer, Author, Technical Writer, Journalist, uh, we could also be in the Security Officers and Investigators field. So, a Private Investigator. This is what the machine identified. Everybody's going to become like PIs. See, Harriet the Spy. That's, yeah. See, this is what we're going back to.

Um, okay. Other things, um, education aides, um, sales representatives, uh, product managers, public relation professionals. So I could be really good at that.

I think actually, um, social research workers. So survey interviewer, uh, Uh, Librarian, Library Technician, Aged and Disability Carers, so Personal Care Assistant, Therapy Aid, Records Managers, Medical Administrators, and Managers and Directors.

So, uh, the report says that most managerial roles call for specific experience plus psychology related capacities and skills. So, you might need to have the three year psych degree plus do some extra training in managerial type skills.

[00:31:33] Matthew: that makes sense. That part really does make

[00:31:35] Bronwyn: Yeah, but like, you know, I just read out some of those titles, but there's about, I reckon there's about 50 or 60 listed here. I'll pop the link to the report in the show notes. Yeah.

[00:31:45] Matthew: I would love to read that full report. As I was listening to you, um, a couple came up there and I was thinking, oh my God, people in culture. Hello. Of course. I'm like, what? That is such a great idea. Most like big corporations or businesses, clinics, et cetera, have people in culture department, if you will. That's, that's great. Oh yeah, I didn't even think of that.

[00:32:10] Bronwyn: Yeah, totally. Absolutely. And there's like lots of different settings that you can work in. So like universities, for example, they have student experience officers that make sure that students are okay. And psychologists would be really good in those roles as well.

[00:32:23] Matthew: I was even thinking, uh, it's probably on that list too, but like, uh, I don't know the proper term, so I'm just going to say media psychologists. Those psychologists who go on like TV or podcasts or thing and they answer like psych specifically, psych related, you know, um, and their role there is to be a professional as the psychologist, et cetera.

Um, but even, uh, I've heard of a particular psychologist. Um, I won't mention the name because I don't have that permission, but a particular psychologist, um, being consulted on in regards to, um, uh, like a psychopathy book.

[00:33:01] Bronwyn: Ooh.

[00:33:01] Matthew: And so I'm just thinking like media, but also the, um, journalism part that you were talking about, Oh yeah, like I guess like even with like a third year degree, like it might not be psychopathy for example, but you could be consulted on other things like, I don't know, CBT or something. That could be really interesting.

[00:33:22] Bronwyn: Oh, no, totally. I think so as well. And there's a wonderful opportunity for folks with three year psych degrees, like even science communication, like translating research for the general public is really valuable.

 See, I love my job, but these are kind of

[00:33:38] Bronwyn: Tantalizing.

[00:33:41] Matthew: Yeah, maybe I can think about if it was in a different reality and I was still aspiring,

[00:33:46] Bronwyn: Yeah. Yeah. And like, I really like talking about this because yeah, it's giving us different ideas other than automatically going into therapy. Cause people are like, I get my degree and then I do honors. And then I do the provisional master's program and then I get endorsement and I'm in therapy one to one.

[00:34:08] Matthew: That's it.

[00:34:09] Bronwyn: Yeah. So there's alternatives.

[00:34:12] Matthew: There really is. And I guess as well, even if you do take the traditional therapy route or the kind of research route, I guess you can kind of pause. Like you can And go to one of those different ideas or fields that you mentioned, um, and just kind of scope it out.

[00:34:30] Bronwyn: Yeah, so if I ask you like who you might talk about to work out how to advance your career, would you have any ideas?

[00:34:38] Matthew: So, I guess I would definitely say, um, like a career counsellor person. I can't think of what that formal role would be. Um, I would definitely, I guess, kind of go that area. My brain goes, well, that's kind of their role, right? They, they would know what options might be available, but even, um, if you make it past third year, I'm just thinking like, if you have a supervisor or a mentor, like if there's somebody within the field who you look up to and who you talk to or something like that, um, or if you're, you know, have any family or friends that are psychologists, counselors, allied health, et cetera. Um, I guess it could also be really great to kind of consult with them. Yeah, that's who I think of, that's what comes to my mind immediately.

[00:35:27] Bronwyn: Yeah. No, and I I mean to summarize what you're saying It's like talk to people who might be more knowledgeable about these things

[00:35:34] Matthew: Yeah!

[00:35:34] Bronwyn: I think is really handy. Talking with people is a great way to find out info like how I gave that example earlier about how I talked to the policy advisor. Um, so it's great to get the insider info.

I think something else that listeners could do is, this is something I've done in the past, but I've scoured job ads and, okay, so one thing that female identifying folks can have, which the research shows, is that we can underestimate our skills and then we automatically write ourselves off for a job.

And I think it's probably not exclusive to females, but Probably other folk would do the same thing. Um, but I would say don't write yourself off for a job. Instead, grab the number of the person who's on the job ad who's putting it out there. Give them a call. Ask them what the job involves. You can find out more about the role and the kind of things that you are doing. So again, it's like talk to people who are putting out these jobs and find out what's it all about.

[00:36:27] Matthew: Exactly! What's that old, like, saying that you never know until you ask?

[00:36:32] Bronwyn: totally.

[00:36:33] Matthew: Might as well ask. What's worse that's gonna happen? The answer's no. That's okay.

[00:36:36] Bronwyn: Yeah, yeah, yeah, we're not looking for you in our job. I think that would be pretty rude. Um,

um, another thing that you can do is that you can seek out volunteer opportunities. So if you're at university and you're interested in research, for instance, you can pop by the admin and be like, Hey, are any academics looking for research assistance. So again, it's like ask, find out the opportunities.

You can also look online at SEEK. There's ethical jobs. And my recommendation would be to look for really large, reputable organizations that have a budget to support you. Um, so one of the organizations that I used to volunteer with was called the Black Dog Institute. Um, and they're massive and they were so lovely and they supported me for like five years when I was volunteering with them, like best org.

[00:37:24] Matthew: I love, I've heard nothing but the best from Black Dog. I love them.

[00:37:31] Bronwyn: Yeah.

[00:37:32] Matthew: Good suggestion. I like

[00:37:33] Bronwyn: Yeah. Do you have any other words of advice or wisdom that you might have for psychologists or psychology students who are unsure about their career direction?

[00:37:42] Matthew: I would say that it's okay to be unsure. I think for most of my career, I've been unsure.

[00:37:48] Bronwyn: Yeah, I'm still unsure.

[00:37:50] Matthew: yeah, right. I think it's normal. I feel like when we get to six and seven and eight and nine and 10 and 20 and 30 years, there'll probably still be a part of us that's unsure. And I think that that's okay. I think that sometimes maybe we can just create space for that.

Maybe lean into it sometime, you know, um, Maybe lean into it and do some research. See, maybe I should take that like, you know, mediation like area. I wouldn't, but maybe I should.

[00:38:16] Bronwyn: Yeah, totally. No, they might love it. Um, no, I love how you're validating that it's okay to be unsure because yeah, it's, It's definitely okay. And I honestly can say that my career journey hasn't been like I've had a five year plan. It's literally been bumbling from one position to the next. And like, I got one of my volunteer positions when I was working at Rebel Sport when I was like 20 and a lady came in and we got a chatting and then by the end of it, I was volunteering for her organization.

[00:38:48] Matthew: Oh, that's brilliant.

[00:38:50] Bronwyn: Yeah, so it's just like, you just sometimes like grab opportunities. Like, are you, have you had a career plan or is yours like similar?

[00:38:58] Matthew: No,

[00:39:00] Bronwyn: You're like, definitely not.

[00:39:02] Matthew: no. Like when I was volunteering in, um, uh, like research as a research assistant, um, the, again, there was that like, okay, yeah, I'll go into research, but I tend to just take it year by year.

[00:39:15] Bronwyn: Yeah, same.

[00:39:17] Matthew: And I tend to think of, like, my continued professional development rather than, like, where my career is going. So, I guess what I mean by that is, I think about, like, where are my gaps? Like, as a psychologist, where are my gaps? And what am I interested in knowing? Um, and, uh, again, one of them was supervision, so I'm filling that gap. Um, and that'll take me on another path, but I don't necessarily plan or think for it. Then I get kind of like, um, I get too, like, unrelenting standards with it.

[00:39:52] Bronwyn: Yeah, absolutely. No, that's really good to hear. And I think, um, we wouldn't be alone. I think, I think it would be more uncommon for people to have a five year plan than to just kind of work out the areas that they're interested in or the gaps in their skills and progress that way and take little steps towards non therapy or alternative career pathways, you know,

[00:40:15] Matthew: Do whatever you want, well not whatever you want.

[00:40:20] Bronwyn: Not whatever,

[00:40:21] Matthew: Yeah, within reason.

[00:40:22] Bronwyn: within reason. Yeah, you can't be a murderer.

[00:40:26] Matthew: Oh.

[00:40:26] Bronwyn: Yeah. Um, so I guess that like, That dispels maybe one myth that people have about psychology, which is that it's a linear progression. And I would say like, that's definitely a misconception and career paths in psychology are pretty non linear. Um, and you can go up and down and around, but I'd say try things out.

[00:40:48] Matthew: Completely. I mean, I'm now in a role where I'm leading a team. I never saw that happening, like, what?

[00:40:56] Bronwyn: Wow.

[00:40:57] Matthew: You just never know, like, what's next, I mean, like, unless you're a psychic, you don't know what's next, so, I don't know, like, hop on the ride and see what opportunities

[00:41:08] Bronwyn: Yeah.

[00:41:08] Matthew: you don't know where to take you.

[00:41:09] Bronwyn: Totally, absolutely. And I would say, yeah, follow your interests as well. Um, even if other people are like, oh no, this interest is stupid. Um, I don't, I don't know if people would say that, but like, I know just if anybody kind of gives you a like a, a disbelief kind of thing. Like, there are some people who I love who are my colleagues and they love like eco psychology and that's their jam, you know? So it's like, and I bet there are some people who are like, that's a waste of time. I don't think it is. Um, but I think follow your passions, follow your interests.

[00:41:40] Matthew: Yes, and, like, um, surround yourself or seek people who have those interests or are willing to support you in them. Right? We don't sell sabotage anymore. It's 2024.

[00:41:51] Bronwyn: Yeah, that's out.

[00:41:52] Matthew: right? It's out. It's

[00:41:54] Bronwyn: Yeah.

Yeah. Blah, blah.

[00:41:57] Matthew: It's just not hot right

[00:41:58] Bronwyn: Yeah,

[00:41:59] Matthew: So

[00:42:01] Bronwyn: no. absolutely.

[00:42:02] Matthew: Right, if someone's not supporting you, maybe it's time to say goodbye.

[00:42:06] Bronwyn: Yeah, no, 100%. Totally. Okay. I feel like we're kind of coming towards the end. Is there anything else that you wanted, any hope or advice or guidance that you wanted to give our listeners or anything that we haven't talked about?

[00:42:20] Matthew: I would say psychology is a field that we probably know like 10 percent off and there's so much more that we can explore within it. that I don't know, maybe you're the next person to take it to an area that it hasn't been before.

So do it. Go there. Try it. Why not?

[00:42:43] Bronwyn: you're so inspiring.

[00:42:45] Matthew: Oh, thank you.

[00:42:47] Bronwyn: I feel hopeful. I hope listeners feel hopeful listening to this. I'm like, yeah, I've totally got to do my online program. Um,

[00:42:53] Matthew: Yes, you can!

[00:42:54] Bronwyn: Yeah, totally. No, thank you so much, Matthew, for coming on. I'll leave it there.

And, uh, Listeners, I hope you enjoyed listening to this episode. I'll put all those links in the show notes. And if you think anyone else would like this episode, do chuck it in their ears and make sure that you share it. It's the best way to get word out about the podcast. And that's a wrap. Have a good one. Catch you next time.