The Psychology of workplaces and organisations: Catherine Stephens' experience
Hello everyone and welcome to our next blog entry.
We are very fortunate to learn from an Organisational Psychologist and trainee Occupational Psychologist, Catherine Stephens. Catherine highlights how Psychology forms part of every business and organisation and a Psychologist can be a valuable asset to any team, regardless of sector or size. Choosing this career path required a leap of faith, but it seems to have paid off in spades. We hope you will find reading Catherine's journey inspiring!
Like many other aspiring Psychologists, my journey into the profession started when I chose to study Psychology at A-Level. At the time it was a fairly new offering at my school and I thought the course sounded interesting. It quickly became my favourite subject and when it was time to choose what I wanted to study at University, it was easily a contender. After lots of deliberation, I decided to go for it and secured a place at Exeter University to study their Undergraduate course.
It was here that I realised how broad Psychology was and the range of areas you could specialise in. I was fascinated by human behaviour and what causes individuals to behave in certain ways, but wasn’t clear on what area I wanted to go into. During the summer breaks I tried to get some experience in the Clinical Psychology space but I wasn’t very successful. Before I knew it my 3 years at Exeter were finished and I had no clue what to do next. I knew I wanted to stay in the Psychology field, but I wasn’t sure where to go. I decided to take a year out to reflect and research the different options available. This research led me to Occupational Psychology.
Occupational Psychology wasn’t covered in detail during my Undergraduate course, so I didn’t know too much about it. The application of Psychology to organisations interested me, especially thinking about the performance of people at work and how individuals, teams and organisations behave and function. Given people spend so much of their time in work, I was interested in how the application of Psychology could support organisations and help people to thrive at work. After lots of reading and research I thought it might be the route for me. My research had suggested I would need to complete a Masters in Occupational Psychology, followed by the BPS Qualification in Occupational Psychology, if this was the route I wanted to go down. I reached out to some universities who offered BPS accredited Masters courses. Again, after lots of research, conversations and applications, I secured a place at City University in London to study their course. To be honest, I was terrified! Despite all my research, what if I didn’t like Occupational Psychology and I’d end up wasting my time? This also meant going back to studying, more exams and another dissertation, all alongside a move to London.
I decided to go for it and can honestly say that completing the Masters was one of the best decisions I’ve made. I absolutely loved my time at City University, it’s incredible and the course was fantastic. The year flew by and I knew I wanted to become an Occupational Psychologist and work in the field. As I was approaching the end of the course I was once again in the position of thinking ‘what next?’ I’d completed a 3-month internship during my Masters which focussed on employee wellbeing, but that had come to an end. City University had great links to industry and different organisations would regularly circulate job opportunities. They circulated a 12-month Organisational Psychologist internship with the Metropolitan Police Service which I was fascinated by but the imposter syndrome was definitely kicking in. Although it was an internship, I had very limited prior experience. I thought I had nothing to lose and decided to go for it and was lucky enough to get the job.
The 12-month internship turned into almost 8 years and I was fortunate enough to work on a wide variety of interesting projects, covering areas such as assessment and selection, leadership, talent- and performance development. It was during this time that I connected with an academic from King’s College following the Division of Occupational Psychology conference which resulted in a piece of research focussed on whether assessment centres truly measure competency frameworks. I loved connecting back to academia and would love to do more collaborative research.
Last year I again found myself thinking ‘what next?’ What I love about Occupational Psychology is that it can be applied to any workplace and organisation, no matter sector or size. I felt ready to gain experience in other sectors and organisations and moved to a Psychologist position in NatWest last year. I’ve never worked in Financial Services before and definitely have a lot to learn, but I’m really enjoying it so far. I’m also completing the BPS Qualification in Occupational Psychology, the last piece of the puzzle to becoming a Chartered Occupational Psychologist, so the remainder of this year will be focussed on my research project which is based on the predictive validity of assessment centres.
So, reflecting back over my career to date and journey into Psychology, what have I learnt? My overall reflection is to go for it – apply for that course / job, say yes to that project, reach out to that contact in your network, because what’s the best that could happen?
Thank you Catherine for sharing your experiences. Your determination of spirit and bravery to take on opportunities, is contagious. We wish you all the very best in the final bit of your studies and hope to see your career path continue to grow.
We hope you found reading the blog inspiring, and if you had your own journey to share, please get in touch. We'd love to hear from trainees and qualified colleagues, working in the field of Psychology in the UK.
Kind regards,
The Pathways team.
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