Got psychology? Then you have human skills for the future

If I asked you to list examples of top skills in the workplace, you might say communication, leadership, or collaboration. You would be correct. These skills are consistently top-ranked. You’d get similar answers if you asked job holders, “What are the most important skills to your job?” and if you asked employers, “What are the skills you value the most?”

Human skills are the future

What do the three skills in the first paragraph above have in common? They are human skills, a broad set of skills that tap into the unique characteristics and abilities of humans. Human skills are based in behavior and by extension also based in psychology. At the moment, human skills are difficult to translate into algorithms, artificial intelligence, and other forms of technology. Can you imagine a virtual CEO? I can’t. Can you imagine trusting a robot therapist? I can’t. I would not rule out a greater role for technology in the future because we have seen rapid technological advancement in a short amount of time. At the same time, there is a greater importance of skills that are uniquely human. Humans are best at doing tasks that do not follow clear rules or have clear outcomes. Complex decision making, synthesizing an argument, and critically evaluating strengths and limitations are examples of human skills.

You can give yourself an edge on the job markets by cultivating your human skills. The vast majority of jobs require at least one human skill, and many jobs require more than one human skill. For example, 100% of job advertisements posted in March through July 2020 contained at least one human skill (Emsi, 2020).

My team and I worked with Emsi, a labor market analytics company, to examine the skills possessed by psychology degree holders. Emsi’s database contains more than 145 million individual-level profiles, including 321,007 psychology bachelor’s degree holders. Emsi gathers information through a variety of sources, including digital profiles, social media accounts (i.e. LinkedIn), websites, resumes posted on job boards, and other sources. Here’s what we know about the top skills possessed by psychology bachelor’s degree holders (Conroy, Lin, and Stamm, 2021).

Top 20 skills possessed by psychology bachelor’s degree holders

Source: APA, 2020, Emsi skills database [unpublished special analysis]

Broadly speaking, all of the top 20 skills are human skills in some way. These skills represent a variety of skills, such as customer service, leadership, management, research, communications, and public speaking.

There are some skills worth pulling out separately. One is psychology because it is unclear what psychology means as a skill. We recommend it is best interpreted as a broad knowledge area and in itself is not very informative. What is informative, however, is psychology’s rank. Notably, psychology is ranked number 15. This suggests there is room for improvement in forming the connections between psychology and these skills. Despite the underlying psychological and behavioral nature of the top 20 skills, you may not know how to describe your skills in language that resonates with employers.

Another area is Microsoft’s products, such as Office, Word, and PowerPoint. Are these human skills or are they something else? Technological skills? Tools for human skills such as communication? Regardless of exact classifications, Microsoft products are certainly widely used in many job functions. The patterns of top skills suggest we are picking up the wide use of Microsoft products. They represent valuable skills even if they are not purely human skills.

An example of human skills on the job

Let’s break down customer service, the top skill possessed by more than half of psychology bachelor’s degree holders. Imagine your job is to provide customer support. You receive a call from a customer who paid for an online service but cannot access the online service. You have to quickly assess the situation, identify the issue, and offer a solution. You need communication skills to walk the customer through the solution. You need skills in empathy to help the customer feel understood. You need problem-solving skills to assess the situation and identify the issue. Ultimately, your goal is to have the customer leave the encounter with a satisfying outcome, whether that outcome is a refund or successful access to the online service.

What are the common threads between customer service, communication, empathy, and problem-solving? Human skills. Psychology. Behavior.

What can you do to recognize your human skills?

As a psychology student, you may not see the connections between your psychology education and the skills that will bring you value in the workplace. In particular, you may not know the language to describe the skills you learned in the same language that employers describe their skills sought.

One strategy to build connections between psychology and skills is to examine job advertisements. Then you can incorporate language from job advertisements into your job application materials. You can do this at any point in your career journey, even if you are not planning to be on the job market and even if the job advertisements are not exact matches to your career goals. Job advertisements will help you learn the ways employers describe the duties, responsibilities, and requirements of different positions. Job advertisements can also give you insights into skills that are on the rise. If you see a skill appearing more frequently, this is a skill that is increasing in its importance to job performance.

Psychology’s strength lies in the broad set of behaviorally-based human skills required for the successful performance of just about any job. Human skills are very much in demand by employers. Human skills represent an advantage to the future of work. Making connections between your psychology education and experiences and the skills needed in the workplace will help you to find a career path that aligns with your skills, knowledge, abilities, interest, and values.

References

American Psychological Association. (2020). Emsi skills database [unpublished special analysis].

Conroy, J., Lin, L., and Stamm, K. (2021, July/August). A psychology major opens doors. Monitor on Psychology, 52(5), 21. https://www.apa.org/monitor/2021/07/datapoint-psychology-major.

Emsi. (2020). Resilient skills: The survivor skills that the Class of COVID-19 should pursue. https://www.economicmodeling.com/resilient-skills/opens in new window

About the author

Karen Stamm, PhD, is the director of the APA’s Center for Workforce Studies, working to fulfill its mission to collect, analyze, and disseminate data about the psychology workforce and education pipeline. Karen is a quantitative psychologist and specializes in the use of data to tell compelling stories. She is passionately supportive of women in science and dedicated to APA’s strategic priority to prepare the discipline and profession of psychology for the future. Karen earned her PhD and MA in psychology from the University of Rhode Island, and her BA in psychology and English at Boston College.