What’s an alternative career for psychology majors?
To help you know alternative careers for Psychology majors, we asked career coaches and experienced recruiters this question for their best insights. From Marketing to Human Resource Management, there are several career options that may be good for people majoring in psychology.
Here are 12 alternative careers for psychology majors:
- Marketing
- User Experience in IT
- Career Counseling
- Recruitment
- Salesperson
- A Career Interviewing People
- Correctional Treatment Specialist
- Law Enforcement
- Adoption Counselor
- Business Management
- Insurance Claims Adjusters
- Human Resource Manager
Marketing
Psychology majors can pursue a career in Marketing to apply their knowledge to help businesses identify and attract customers. Consumer psychology has an enormous impact on marketing strategies most businesses use today.
Psychology helps businesses plan marketing strategies from social proof to giveaways to segmenting target audiences. By leveraging a deep understanding of what motivates consumer behavior, brands can improve their conversions by optimizing their content to fit users’ preferences.
Students interested in both Psychology and Marketing have the opportunity to pursue a relatively niche, but lucrative role in Business Marketing. It’s a diverse field in its own right and it allows you to support organizations that rely on your insights to perform at their best.
Zach Goldstein, Public Rec
User Experience in IT
Psychology graduates can find employment in IT companies and many software houses that build websites and web products. In this position, knowledge of the human brain, subconscious and human needs are valued. This is not a position that you will get right away after graduation, but with a bit of self-study and belonging to a club at university, you can quickly get your first internship. Later on, it will not be hard to find a job, there are many offers, and they are often very well-paid positions that give the opportunity for growth.
Magdalena Sadowska, Passport Photo Online
Career Counseling
Okay, maybe not an entire career, but it is a great starting point. Colleges and universities, as well as corporate outplacement services are always looking for psych majors for openings in counseling departments and for good reasons. The same skills honed in the process of earning a psychology degree, empathy, patience, critical thinking and an appreciation of diversity are key to career counseling. In fact, the risk may be career counseling is too similar to practicing psychology for those trying to avoid psychology!
Joshua Chin, Chronos
Recruitment
Recruitment is an ideal career choice for sharp psychology majors who aim to benefit the lives of others. It gives you the flexibility to work when you want to. You can set your own hours and work around any other obligations that may arise. Financially, it is one of the best opportunities to earn a substantial income as long as you are willing to put forth the effort!
Jorge Vivar, Mode
Salesperson
Psychology majors should consider a job in sales. For example, a salesperson has an exceedingly difficult job that is customer-facing almost 100% of the time. With a psychology background, you can read your customers better than the average salesperson, offer your clients what they need before they’ve even realized they need it, and make them feel appreciated as more than just a business transaction. Psychology majors know the basics of human thought and emotion, and that can help tremendously in a sales job.
Bradley Hall, Sonu Sleep
A Career Interviewing People
Find a job where you can interview people for a living. Podcasting is a great outlet for that. It may be a side hustle at first, and there is a lot of competition out there. But if you love the role, work hard at getting better and provide consistent, compelling content, you will be successful.
Psychologists read people well. They know what makes a person tick early in a conversation and they know where to take that conversation. It can be a business podcast, a sports podcast, a news podcast, or a true-crime podcast. It can be any niche podcast you want. Psych majors can find ways to put their skills and instincts to good use, especially with the way the new media is expanding.
Trevor Ford, Yotta
Correctional Treatment Specialist
A degree in psychology opens doors to many career paths. Yet, the correctional treatment specialist job seems particularly interesting as these professionals impact not only the offenders but also the larger community. They work for a higher cause, basically. Their job involves developing rehabilitation plans for probationers and parolees to follow, as well as supporting them with advice.
A good understanding of complex human behavior, insight into different populations gained through psychology coursework, and knowledge of cognitive processes at different stages of the lifecycle serve as a brilliant starting skill set for this career. Thanks to highly developed analytical and critical thinking, correctional treatment specialists excel at inmate evaluation with the use of questionnaires and psychological tests.
Agata Szczepanek, MyPerfectResume
Law Enforcement
Law enforcement is a great career path for psychology majors. Understanding the human mind is necessary for deciphering motive and interacting with victims, witnesses, and suspects. The law enforcement field benefits from experts in the concepts of empathy and human connection.
Thomas Yuan, Sanebox
Adoption Counselor
Domestic infant, foster care, and international are the types of adoption services that individuals with a background in social work and child development can provide. The employment ratio for adoption counselors is higher and provides a solid income base for graduates with a psychology degree. There are diverse opportunities that offer advancement and flexibility in this field. Lastly, psychology majors have immense knowledge of human behavior and will excel as adoption counselors.
Yooseok Gong, Ohora
Business Management
A psychology major could do quite well in Business Management. Management is at least as much about managing personalities as it is managing finances and assets, and a degree in psychology should grant a lot of insight into how different personalities work. A psychology major may also be able to utilize their training in figuring out how to motivate employees. And should an employee have an issue, a psychology major would likely be able to approach them with a compassionate point of view and a good ear for listening.
David Culpepper, LifeMD
Insurance Claims Adjuster
Psychology majors can make for effective Insurance adjusters. This career is fundamentally about examining situations and people for the validity of their claims. Having an understanding of human psychology is extremely useful for understanding motivations, temperaments and reactions during the insurance claim process.
Insurance adjusters have the responsibility of investigating the situation around an insurance claim as well as the claimant in order to determine how much the insurer should pay for loss or damages. Adjustors should be able to pick up on certain behavioral cues and situational reactions if they are to be able to tell when someone is being dishonest with an insurer. Having some background knowledge in psychology certainly helps with this vital aspect of the job.
Katy Carrigan, Goody
Human Resource Manager
Human resource managers have different roles in organizations. One of the roles is recruiting, interviewing, and ensuring the employees are mentally stable. They also offer advice and resolve conflict among employees in the organization. Psychology majors have the skills to serve all these roles in an organization.
Ivy Bosibori, USBadCreditLoans
