For college students or recent graduates, preparing for a job interview might involve tapping into the skills they acquired in a college classroom.
In a newly released e-book, An Eye on the Workplace: Achieving a Career With a Bachelor's in Psychology, Psi Chi, the international honor society in psychology, highlights lessons from experts in psychology careers, including Whittier College psychology professors Lori Camparo and Ayesha Shaikh.
Their chapter, Real-World Skills: How to Develop Marketable Career Competencies and Sell Yourself to Employers, explains how soft skills taught in the classroom can help psychology students when interviewing for a job.
Camparo and Shaikh share their insight and provide specific examples of various class assignments that can “help students better identify where and when professors present these soft skill development opportunities.” This way, students are able to better present themselves to a potential employer.
"The key to success in the job market will be identifying and taking full advantage of the opportunities [students] have in college to develop the soft skills that employers value most: written and oral communication, teamwork, ethical decision making, critical thinking, and the ability to apply knowledge in real-world settings," the professors said in a message to students in the article.
The book is intended to help students and recent graduates transition from student to professional. With the help of Camparo’s and Shaikh’s advice, candidates will be able to identify their marketable skills, apply them in the interview process, and launch their careers.
