Industrial-Organizational Psychologist

Are you the kind of person who looks at a workplace and says, “I bet I could help this place run more efficiently!” Do you love talking to people about their career goals and desires? If you said yes to these questions, and you have a love of tests, talking, and coaching, then you might be a good candidate for an Industrial-Organizational Psychologist position.

An Industrial-Organizational Psychologist operates in the workplace, either working for a company directly or being called in as an independent Agent. As an Industrial-Organizational Psychologist, you help select new employees for jobs, and make sure that people are working in the positions they’re best suited to. You can also be instrumental in the promotion process.

You do this by creating tests to exclude certain applicants and highlight others depending on their skills and responses. You base these tests on scientific principles that you’ve applied to the workplace (work ethic measurements, collaboration tendencies, etc.), then use your findings to advise the management team, giving them the insight they need to make the workplace more efficient.

Coaching is also an important element of your job. Having analyzed the employees in an office and observed how they interact with one another, you step in. Using group-counseling sessions to build trust, teamwork, and understanding, you can make the workplace a better place. If you love scientific principles, human interactions, and group dynamics, then this might be the job for you.