How to Write the Perfect Psychology Job Description 2024

What’s in this guide?

By PsychologyJobs.com Staff Writer

Our career guides are produced by staff writers in conjunction with our expert career coaches.

If you’re searching for a high-quality candidate to fill your high-quality psychology role, it’s important to know how to write a compelling job description.

No matter how good of an opportunity your job may be, knowing how to properly highlight it is imperative. Career boards are brimming with possibilities. If your post doesn’t stand out among the hundreds of others, you may be missing out on impeccable candidates.

Psychologists are job seekers who likely possess graduate degrees — many carried their education into earning a doctorate and passing several difficult licensing examinations. This means they have an especially discerning eye for examining job posts.

When they’re looking for a new opportunity, they want it to be for a practice, corporation, or hospital that uses intelligence and precision in its treatment of patients. The best psychological job descriptions are those that tell candidates both how patients are cared for in a facility and explain what their impact will be in an organization.

While this is important for candidates to know, it’s not the only information that should be included. Before spending time writing your next description for one of your company’s open psychology roles, make sure you’re adding in all the necessary details to draw the best candidates.

What Should I Include When Writing a Psychology Job Description?

The main pieces of information experienced psychologists are searching for are:

  • Duties and Responsibilities
  • Salary
  • Skills and Qualifications
  • Experience Requirements

There is an enormous amount of variety between the types of psychologists and the kinds of work they do. There are clinical and counseling psychologists who give therapy to patients, psychiatrists who manage their patient’s mental illnesses, and even research psychologists who are primarily responsible for developing and testing new theories of human behavior.

Because of this variety, we’ll be giving specific information for five of the most common psychology jobs: counseling psychologist, psychiatrist, school psychologist, psychology professor, and neuropsychologist.

Here’s a breakdown of what you should include for each section.

Duties and Responsibilities

Besides where they’re going to work, it’s imperative for candidates to know the kinds of tasks they’ll be doing at their future potential job. The goal for this part of the job post is giving applicants a clear understanding of what they are responsible for while they’re working for your company or organization.

Whether it will be their responsibility to create a syllabus for the course they’re teaching or monitor their patient’s mental health condition in case they require hospitalization, this information should be included in your psychology job post.

Examples of Duties and Responsibilities to Include:

  • Counseling Psychologist:
    • Completing intake information about patients to discover why they’re attending therapy.
    • Working with their patients in counseling sessions to help them navigate the difficulties they’re facing.
    • Creating and maintaining a personalized treatment plan for every patient.
    • Evaluating their treatment plan and making changes as needed.
    • Leading either one-on-one therapy or a group session.
    • Keeping meticulous patient records to monitor their progress over time.
  • Psychiatrist:
    • Creating a treatment plan for their patients and ensuring they’re following it.
    • Getting their patients psychological evaluations to discover or determine a mental illness diagnosis and how severe the disorder is.
    • Engaging in talk therapy and psychotherapy with their patients to learn more about the issues they’re battling.
    • Depending on the person’s needs, providing cognitive behavioral therapy to navigate their unhealthy thought patterns.
    • Analyzing their patient’s life and the problems that arise from it.
    • Prescribing medication to help manage the negative aspects of their mental illnesses and monitoring their effectiveness.
  • School Psychologist:
    • Meeting with students to hear their concerns about issues they’re facing including problems with their academics, how they’re being treated at school, or mental health.
    • Helping students manage what’s happening to them and process their response to it.
    • Assessing students through psychological tests.
    • Giving individual or group therapy to students.
    • Working with students to create goals for their school life and creating a realistic action plan to reach or get closer to their goals.
    • Speaking with teachers and the student’s caregivers about the issues impacting the student.
  • Psychology Professor:
    • Planning their course content by evaluating and editing their previous classes; also determining the best ways to teach their students.
    • Researching their psychological field and sharing their new findings with the public in books, professional journals, or the media.
    • Holding office hours to speak with students about class-related problems and advise them on their future careers.
    • Giving lectures to their undergraduate and graduate students for the classes they’re currently teaching that semester.
    • Grading their student’s work which includes tests, labs, papers, and other assignments.
    • Writing grants to get more departmental funding, so they can engage in more research.
  • Neuropsychologist:
    • Conducting research about the brain and how it functions and completing experiments to test their theories.
    • Evaluating patients with brain injuries or diseases (like Alzheimer’s) to determine the severity of their symptoms.
    • Creating new treatments for the many different types of brain injuries.
    • Evaluating their patient’s condition or injury with PET scans, MRIs, and other forms of medical imaging.
    • Testifying in forensic court cases in which someone’s mental faculties are in question.
    • Attending conferences and other educational opportunities to learn about the most recent neuropsychological developments.

Salary Expectations

One newer expectation for job posts is including a salary range. Candidates now more than ever expect to see what they’re going to be paid before negotiating for or accepting a position. If that information is missing from your post, it’s a major red flag for job seekers.

Besides including a salary, make sure it’s an appropriate amount for psychology professionals. Keep your salary competitive by researching what psychologists are being paid across their industry and offering a figure in that range.

Getting a great person into your company means having a reasonable salary. Because the job market is brimming with opportunities offering a lowball figure will instantly decrease your candidate pool. A low salary is another red flag for experienced job seekers.

Here are the salary ranges for our five example psychology positions:

  • Counseling Psychologist: At the beginning of their careers, counseling psychologists earn about $45,000. Experienced practitioners make $80,000 on average but can be paid $130,000 or more on the high end.
  • Psychiatrist: Starting out, psychiatrists earn around $75,000. As their career progresses, that number quickly jumps to $220,000.
  • School Psychologist: School psychologists make $45,000 just after they earn their psychology license. With a few years of experience, their salary jumps to $78,000 on average and $135,000 for higher earners.
  • Psychology Professor: On the low end, psychology professors make $31,000 per year. As they gain more experience teaching, their salary can raise to $65,000 and tops out close to $134,000.
  • Neuropsychologist: Neuropsychologist are paid $45,000 at the beginning of their career and earn $101,000 on average. Well-paid professionals can make about $129,000.

Skills and Qualifications

Being a psychologist means interacting with patients during their vulnerable life moments. That means hiring someone with excellent communication skills is imperative. Candidates should also be empathetic and patient — they are often working with people in difficult situations, so these qualities are a must. No matter which field they’re in, these professionals should also be detail-oriented.

Because many of these carry over across these fields, we will not be including role-specific examples, but always include desired skills and qualifications in your job description.

Experience Requirements

It’s important to include experience requirements candidates must possess in your job description.

Most of the psychological subfields require years of college beyond an undergraduate degree. For example, psychiatrists must attend medical school as a part of their training and counseling psychologists are required to pass difficult licensing tests to practice in their state.

Would you like them to have interned with a specific type of organization? Do they need to have a doctorate or is a master’s degree okay? Does is matter if they attended an APA-accredited university? These are the types of information to put in your post.

Examples of Job Descriptions

For more inspiration for your next psychological job post, here are two opportunities from PsychologyJobs.com to use as examples. If you’d like to see the full job description, click the links in the titles.

  1. Adult Psychologist, The University of Chicago: Biological Sciences Division: Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neuroscience

Position Description

The University of Chicago’s Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neuroscience is searching for a full-time faculty member at any rank. The appointee will provide assessments and evidence-based interventions for adult patients with a range of obsessive compulsive and impulsive behaviors. The appointee will join a multidisciplinary team aiming to initiate and advance the reach and effectiveness of treatments for compulsive and impulsive disorders. Other duties will include teaching and supervision of trainees and students, and scholarly activity. We especially welcome applicants with training and experience in evidence-based treatments for compulsive and impulsive disorders, and/or competency in cognitive-behavior therapy (especially exposure response prevention), including third wave treatments and motivational enhancement. Academic rank and compensation (including a generous package of fringe benefits) are dependent upon qualifications.

Prior to the start of employment, qualified applicants must: 1) have a PhD in Clinical Psychology from an APA-accredited university-based doctoral program, 2) hold or be eligible for an Illinois license in Clinical Psychology, and 3) have completed an internship at an APA-accredited site.

To be considered, those interested must apply through The University of Chicago‚ Academic Recruitment job board, which uses Interfolio to accept applications: WEBSITE LINK REMOVED. Applicants must upload: CV including bibliography, cover letter.  Review of applications ends when the position is filled.

  1. Child & Adolescent Psychiatrist, Albertina Kerr

Albertina Kerr empowers people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, mental health challenges and other social barriers to lead self-determined lives and reach their full potential.

We’re seeking a Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist to provide comprehensive psychiatric medical care to individuals served in Youth and Family Services’ community based, outpatient, and inpatient programs, as assigned. You’ll provide psychiatric evaluation of patients, prescribe and manage medications, and coordinate care with other staff and community members. Our psychiatrists work as part of an interdisciplinary team including Child and Family Therapists, Registered Nurses, Psychiatric Technicians and others to provide direct care and support patients experiencing an acute psychiatric episode. Learn more about our subacute program here.

You will primarily support children and adolescents served in our Crisis Psychiatric Care (subacute) and Outpatient programs and may provide support for group home clients. This position works four days per week with some weekend on-call duties. Weekday schedules are flexible and will be determined during the hiring process. This role is largely in person, with some elements of telemedicine due to the current pandemic. Competitive pay dependent on experience.

Essential Duties

  • Provide direct patient care including face-to-face psychiatric evaluation, consultation, day-to-day treatment and discharge, follow up, and similar tasks.
  • Provide appropriate and timely response to clinical requests for service and review them for medical necessity and clinical relevance.
  • Provide consultation and clinical supervision to other members of the team.
  • Participate in decisions and provide advice on case management, care coordination, therapeutic planning, making clinical diagnoses and similar therapeutic case management tasks.
  • Work effectively with physicians, nurses, therapists, social workers, counselors, psychiatric technicians and others to ensure appropriate quality of care is provided to all patients.
  • Review and approve mental health assessments of individuals. Review and approve medical appropriateness of services and supports.
  • Complete documentation and orders in a timely fashion in keeping with established guidelines.

Requirements

  • License to practice medicine in Oregon, with a least 2 years’ experience, which may include time in fellowship. Must hold full prescriptive authority in Oregon/independent Oregon medical license and DEA number.
  • Be board certified or board eligible in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.
  • Current CPR or BLS certification.

Now It’s Your Turn

Armed with this new information, your next psychology job post is sure to attract a high-quality candidate.