Occupational Psychology as a calling- Lauren's journey.
Hello everyone and welcome to the next instalment of the Pathways to Psychology blog.
Today we hear from Lauren Griffin (née Reeves), CPsychol, AFBPsS, Chartered Occupational Psychologist and Teacher of Psychology. Lauren highlights the variety and skill in the field of Occupational Psychologist, where there are plenty of opportunity to consult, lead projects, design and administer tests and assessments, build platforms and liaise with likeminded colleagues. We hope you will find Lauren's journey an inspiration.
Lauren Griffin CPsychol, AFBPsS, Chartered Occupational Psychologist and Teacher of Psychology.
I studied a full-time BSc in Psychology at Cardiff University, and as part of that degree, I had the opportunity to take my third year as a placement year. I hadn’t heard of Occupational Psychology before, but I saw a chance to gain work experience in an interesting area that would also provide me with business-relevant experience. After this year in placement, I realised how much I enjoyed Occupational Psychology and wanted to pursue it as a career. I finished my final year of my BSc and was then asked to return to my placement organisation to continue working for them, which was fantastic. I worked there full-time whilst also completing a full-time MSc, which I attended in the evenings after work. It was incredibly tiring but also very rewarding, and I loved being able to put into practice what I'd learned in lectures the very next day! I stayed in this organisation for many years and thoroughly enjoyed the wide variety of work. I then had the opportunity to move to London and pursue a role there, which I thought would present me with numerous interesting challenges. I moved to another consultancy after a couple of years to gain experience in training. I headed up the Hogan training for that organisation, which I enjoyed as it was a different aspect of Occupational Psychology. By moving organisations, I was fortunate enough to gain accreditations in several psychometric tools and also to achieve a wide range of experience for my Chartership. I created a variety of tools during my time in these roles, including numerical-, verbal-, and logical reasoning tests, personality-and motivation questionnaires, situational judgement tests, interview question banks, assessment centre exercises, and leadership development guides.
I was also part of the British Psychological Society conference working group. After managing the stewarding team for a year, I was asked to serve as co-chair for the Occupational Psychology conference, a role I completed in 2017. This provided me with great opportunities to liaise with colleagues and to listen to and read about a wide variety of research. It was also a great way to relax and enjoy the company of other like-minded individuals over a couple of days. Another Chartered Occupational Psychologist approached me to help set up another organisation, which provided me with a significant amount of experience in both psychometric test design and platform development. I had always had an interest in these areas and enjoyed working alongside IT and R&D (research & development) departments in previous roles; however, this opportunity afforded me the chance to do this right from the start. I was involved in a wide variety of international projects, and I successfully managed these whilst leading the UK client implementation team. As part of this role, I worked closely with global partners to develop bespoke client solutions and oversee the ongoing product and IT development of the platform. I organised the ongoing workflow for IT development and was responsible for IT budget expenditure and ensuring the platform was developed effectively. I was also involved in developing the digital assessment centre platform and testing this out with a range of different clients. As part of this, I also liaised with IT to create a scheduling system for assessment centres.
A couple of years later, I decided I loved training, sharing experiences and learning with others, and I decided to retrain as a teacher. I worked as a teacher of psychology, science, and the humanities and thoroughly enjoyed the mix of subjects and the students I taught. Currently, I work as a psychology teacher whilst also serving as an associate consultant for various consultancies and directly with clients. I provide consultancy support in the form of assessment and development solutions and have worked on projects ranging from designing psychometric- and assessment exercises to coaching senior leaders. This combination of teaching and consulting work gives me a great balance of interesting tasks. I feel very fortunate to be able to do two jobs I love at once. Being an associate has also enabled me to connect with the broader associate network in Occupational Psychology and to meet more colleagues in the industry.
I strongly recommend a career in Occupational Psychology, as the work is highly varied and allows you to combine science, technology, innovation, and people. It's also a career you can start straight after University or pursue after gaining several years of workplace experience. It enables you to acquire a wide range of skills that you can apply and adapt throughout your career. It provides access to numerous organisations and insight into how they operate. Getting involved in the British Psychological Society is also highly recommended, as it offers abundant shared learning and insights, which are incredibly helpful for your professional development. Additionally, many individuals are kind enough to share their knowledge and insights with less experienced colleagues, which is truly invaluable.
Thank you so much Lauren for sharing your experiences. There are so many valuable nuggets of information for aspirant Psychologists in your writing. We trust you will inspire others to follow this fascinating (and demanding!) field of Psychology.
Maybe reading about Lauren has made you reflect about your own career as a Practitioner Psychologist or trainee. Perhaps you are a CBT (cognitive behavioural therapy) Practitioner or a PWP (Psychological Wellbeing Worker), a Psychotherapist or Counsellor. We would love to hear from you. The more examples of experiences we can share, the better.
Get in touch to add your own blog entry.
Kind regards,
The Pathways Team.
Comments
Post a Comment