Tapping Into Alumni as a Source of Authentic Information and Advice on Careers in Psychology

Abstract

This article describes how my psychology department utilizes our alumni to educate current and prospective students about careers in psychology. I explain how we developed an alumni careers website and on-campus alumni careers sessions for students. High school students and our psychology majors reported that they found this information valuable, but they also valued a broader list of psychology job titles. Nevertheless, students appreciated the fact that the alumni careers information was more reflective of real-world jobs of our university’s graduates as compared to the list of job titles.

Psychology Students’ Expectations Regarding Educational Requirements and Salary for Desired Careers

“…Alumni can serve as a valuable resource for advice, career exploration, and mentoring (Brewer, 2009; Lawson, 2018). Recommendations made by alumni to utilize the career center, develop hands-on experience, participate in study abroad experiences to develop cross-cultural skills, consider part-time jobs to facilitate career-related skills, and take courses to foster workplace knowledge (Landrum, Hettich, & Wilner, 2010) may be perceived as more valuable than the same advice provided by faculty (Ware, 1986).…”

Embedding Career Issues in Advanced Psychology Major Courses

“…In response to Jeb Bush’s claims that began this article, psychologist Ali Mattu launched a campaign in which psych majors took selfies while holding a sign that said “#thispsychmajor” and completed the sentence with how they were meaningfully employed. In one of our departments, we adopted this strategy by dedicating some bulletin board space to our successful graduates who send us “#thispsychmajor” selfies depicting what job they hold (see Lawson, 2018, for more ideas involving alumni). A bulletin board displaying their selfies and business cards inspires students with the range of what might be possible with a baccalaureate degree.…”

Traditional and New Approaches to Career Preparation Through Coursework

“…Instructors can get their campus career services to speak about any topic they are particularly unfamiliar with or find guest lecturers. Alumni are often a great pool of people to tap into for both the career-specific information they can provide and the student networking (see Lawson, 2018). There are also a number of helpful Internet resources from which to get help (e.g., Golding, Lippert, & Malik, 2018).…”