Career Planning for Psychology Students

Photo By: Phil Humnicky/Georgetown Univ.

One of the benefits of an undergraduate degree in Psychology is that it can be useful in many different types of careers. The challenge, then, is to identify and plan for a post-graduate career pathway that fits your interests, values, strengths, and goals. This guide is designed to support undergraduate Psychology students in planning for their post-graduate career.

What can you do with a degree in Psychology?

Students who study psychology go on to jobs in a wide range of fields. While some careers in psychology (such as being a therapist) require a graduate degree, there are many job opportunities available to those with a bachelor’s degree in psychology. A bachelor’s degree in psychology provides students with a number of key skills that employers value, including the ability to communicate effectively, think critically, understand others, and navigate interpersonal relationships with empathy. In addition, the student of psychology learns how to conduct and evaluate research and gains quantitative skills that are useful in many jobs.

Exploring your career options: Generating possibilities

Psychology is a broad field, appealing to students with many different interests, strengths, and goals. While some students may have specific career goals in mind, others are not yet sure what they might want to do after graduation. Careful planning can help you find your way to a career in which you thrive. This can be an iterative process, of course – people change jobs and even career pathways over their lifetime, so this needn’t be stressful. You aren’t deciding your entire future right now. But it is worth doing some thinking and planning during your college years to get a good start on that journey.

Personal Exploration

One way to get started is to explore your interests, strengths, values, and life goals. In thinking about career pathways, look for the intersection between what you enjoy doing, what you are good at, and what you find meaningful. Finding your “element” (the place where the things you love to do, the things you are good at, and what you find meaningful come together) can help you generate a vision for your career (Hettich & Landrum, 2014) Within that space, you can then include other considerations (e.g., geographic preference, desired income).

Thinking about what you enjoy doing can help you identify the kinds of job structures that would fit with your preferences. Simple things like whether you like greater variety or a more consistent routine, for example, can be helpful in identifying the kinds of occupations that would be a better fit for you.

Considerations of your strengths can help you identify where you are likely to succeed. While you don’t want to limit yourself to just what you can do now – you are certainly able to grow your skills and abilities through experience – it does make sense to at least broadly consider your areas of strength in choosing your career. For example, you might think about your general approach to problems (e.g., analytic and/or creative thinking skills) or your specific skill sets (e.g., strong interpersonal and/or technical skills).

Meaning also matters. We spend a lot of hours at work and our level of sustained engagement is enhanced when we find the work personally meaningful. In other words, at the end of the day (or the work week), what would feel like it was worth all the effort and time you put into your career?

Here’s an example: A student enjoys travel (preference), is good at photography (strength), and wants to help communities tell their unique stories (meaning). One career path that exists in this sweet spot would be a photojournalist (say, at National Geographic). Other options could include organizing cultural education tours for artists or providing photography classes for young people to help them tell the story of their community.

In addition to enjoyment, strength, and meaning, it is important to consider your career goals within the context of your broader life goals. Think about your life priorities and what you want your life to look like with regard to living situation, daily structure, time spent on work and non-work activities, financial status, and relationships.

Journaling and more structured exercises can help you identify your strengths, values, and preferences. You can find relevant self-exploration guides here:

Self-Exploration (Cawley Career Education Center): Explore your values, interests, and decision making processes.
The CareerOneStop Toolkit includes self-assessment tools to help you identify jobs that match your interests, skills, and values.
The Holland Code Test is based on John Holland’s model of personality-vocational fit. This model is widely researched and referenced, though it is worth noting that the test results are only modestly correlated with occupational satisfaction and success. In other words, don’t take the results as definitive or limiting – it’s just another aspect of self-exploration.
Self-assessment exercises are included in these books in the Wright Lounge (WGR 311-C)
- Hammond, M. S. and Brady-Amoon, P. (2022). Building Your Career in Psychology. Routledge.
- Helms, J. L. and Rogers, D. L. (2023). Majoring in Psychology, 3rd edition. Wiley Blackwell.
- Kuther, T. L. & Morgan, R. D. (2025). Careers in Psychology: Opportunities in a Changing World, 6th edition. Sage.

Researching job and career options

Identifying your career goals is an evolving process. First of all, you are growing and changing, so it is important to be open to new ways of thinking about yourself and your goals. As you move through your undergraduate education (and your life), you will almost certainly need to revisit your understanding of your interests, strengths, values, and goals. A new class, internship, or job can open up new learning about who you are and what you like, at least at this moment. In addition, the job market is also subject to change. Having a flexible approach to understanding your goals and capabilities will help you navigate the (sometimes dramatic) shifts in your career trajectory.

You can also get ideas for post-graduate careers through exploring specific jobs and careers. Most people only know about a small sampling of the careers open to psychology students – it can be very helpful to explore the full range of possible options. Here are some resources to begin exploring job and career options relevant to Psychology students:

What Can I Do with My Psychology Major? (Cawley Career Education Center): A career guide for Georgetown Psychology students.
Preparing to use your Bachelor’s degree in psychology (APA website): A good overview of how to translate a Bachelor’s degree in psychology into solid career options. Be sure to click the “more” buttons under each section for additional resources. A great place to start.
The Skillful Psychology Student (APA website): An overview of workforce-ready skills gained through completion of a typical undergraduate psychology degree program.
An Online Career-Exploration Resource for Psychology Majors, Version 2 (OCER-2): Over 2,400 hotlinks psychology majors can use to explore 300 careers (some requiring a graduate degree and others that do not require a graduate degree). A great place to get ideas for different potential career pathways. The resource is described more fully here.
CWS Data Tool: Careers in Psychology (APA website): An interactive tool showing career pathways for those in the workforce with a degree in Psychology (most recent dataset is from 2019). You can select the data for different degrees (Bachelor’s, Master’s, Doctorate).
CWS Data Tool: Degree Pathways in Psychology (APA website): A graphic showing the degree pathways for those who held a Bachelor’s degree in psychology in 2019.
Careers with a bachelor’s degree in psychology: An interview series (APA website): Interviews with 13 psychology majors who discuss how they prepared for their careers and what advice they would offer to current psychology majors.
Career Paths in Psychology (APA website): An overview of the range of career pathways in psychology across a variety of fields (not specific to those holding a Bachelor’s degree, but a useful starting point for considering different options).

You can also explore jobs more broadly through O*NET OnLine and CareerOneStop, career exploration and job analysis search tools sponsored by the U.S. Department of Labor. You can search for jobs along a number of different dimensions, explore self-assessment tools, and find out more about salary and educational requirements for different occupations.

Two Guiding Questions

In researching more specific career options, there are two key questions that can guide your exploration. Note that the Department of Psychology has gathered testimonies from its faculty to help you explore career options through these two different questions.