Find out the top 10 core skills you need to master as a psychologist and what hard skills you need to know to succeed in this job.
A psychologist is responsible for studying cognitive, emotional and social processes to determine how people relate to one another and with the environment in general. He/she is tasked with conducting scientific studies on the human mind about the behavior and brain function of an individual to diagnose and treat mental disorders.
In addition, he/she can also get to undertake the following tasks; counsel patients, collect information through observations, and survey, conduct research to determine behavioral and emotional patterns, predict behavior, undertake controlled lab experiments, conducting aptitude and intelligence tests, testing theories through research work, offering consultation services and performing other related duties.
Core Skills Required to be a Psychologist
Core skills describe a set of non-technical abilities, knowledge, and understanding that form the basis for successful participation in the workplace. Core skills enable employees to efficiently and professionally navigate the world of work and interact with others, as well as adapt and think critically to solve problems.
Core skills are often tagged onto job descriptions to find or attract employees with specific essential core values that enable the company to remain competitive, build relationships, and improve productivity.
A psychologist should master the following 10 core skills to fulfill her job properly.
Delegation:
Delegation is assigning responsibility or authority to another person a junior or subordinate to carry out specific activities while remaining accountable for the outcome.
A Psychologist must be equipped with skills on how to make the delegation work correctly to save the organization time and money and to allow the subordinate make wise decisions, skills, and motivation to become better and grow the company.
Planning and Scheduling:
Planning and Scheduling are the act of establishing a plan for a set of tasks that needs to be completed and including when they should be done.
A Psychologist needs creativity in balancing both planning and scheduling by clearing defining what and how activities will be carried out by when and who in particular to ensure there are a clear flow and accountability to every staff.
Evaluating Others:
Evaluating others is the capacity to see the individuality in others and recognize a person's unique point of view.
A Psychologist must master the skills of evaluating others to help his staff members to identify their talents and match those talents to the proper job without trying to judge them by their actions that can create a misinterpretation of who they are.
Monitoring Others:
Monitoring others is tracking employee activities monitor the worker engagement with the workplace-related tasks.
A Psychologist should always monitor his workers to measure productivity, track attendance, incoming and outgoing phone calls, safety spying, employee theft, employee's location, horseplay and collect proof of hours worked using the latest computer detective monitoring system that provides accurate data that cannot be debated.
People Reading:
People Reading is the ability to creatively and quietly read the important non-verbal intuitive cues that people give off without their knowledge.
A Psychologist must be willing to surrender any preconceptions or emotional baggage like old resentments or ego clashes that may stop you from seeing someone clearly as they truly are to remain objective and receive information without distorting it.
Personal Drive:
Personal Drive is a combination of desire and energy in its simplest form directed at achieving a goal in whatever you have set your heart to accomplish.
A Psychologist needs to creatively design ways that drive the staff to carry out their work without wasting time by helping them understand and develop their self-motivation skills that assist them to take control of many different viewpoints of their life.
Persuading Others:
Persuading others is making sure your best ideas get a fair hearing without manipulating others or using trickery.
A Psychologist needs to creatively learn how to introduce new ideas that will boost growth for the company without managing the staff or put them under pressure with more work but with manageable goals that the employees will delight working on and grow as they do.
Training others:
Training is the ability to expand the knowledge base by learning new truths that are useful in the workplace.
A Psychologist needs to creatively schedule training for his employees in a focused manner that will allow the employee stay useful in the workplace and get new knowledge so that both the business and the worker not suffer from delays and work related stress.
Analytical Skills:
Analytical Skills is the ability to collect and analyze information, solve problems and make decisions according to the policies and regulations of the business.
A Psychologist should hire employees who use clear, logical steps and excellent judgment to understand an issue from all angles before executing an action depending on the objective and the methodical approaches to benefit a company's productivity.
Product Knowledge:
Product Knowledge is an essential sales skill to understand the features of your product allowing you to present the benefits compellingly and accurately to the customer.
A Psychologist should ensure the teams understand the company's goods or services and can quickly take a client through them, therefore, instilling faith, trust and respect in the customers which in turn creates a positive customer experience.
Hard Skills Required to be a Psychologist
Hard skills are job-specific skill sets, or expertise, that are teachable and whose presence can be tested through exams. While core skills are more difficult to quantify and less tangible, hard skills are quantifiable and more defined.
Hard skills are usually listed on an applicant's resume to help recruiters know the applicant's qualifications for the applied position. A recruiter, therefore, needs to review the applicant's resume and education to find out if he/she has the knowledge necessary to get the job done.
A psychologist should have a good command of the following hard skills to succeed in her job.