What does an organizational psychologist do?
Organizational psychologist responsibilities
Here are examples of responsibilities from real organizational psychologist resumes:
- Design and manage a state-of-the-art web-base elearning portal; recognize for creativity and ongoing content and adopt as corporate-wide model.
- Develop cognitive behaviorally-base educational module for post-surgery patients.
- Develop cognitive behaviorally-base educational module for post-surgery patients.
Organizational psychologist skills and personality traits
We calculated that 49% of Organizational Psychologists are proficient in Assessment Design, Conflict Resolution, and Strategic Plan. They’re also known for soft skills such as Integrity, Analytical skills, and Communication skills.
We break down the percentage of Organizational Psychologists that have these skills listed on their resume here:
- Assessment Design, 49%
Job analysis, job posting assistance and approval, assessment design, maintenance and administration.
- Conflict Resolution, 19%
Created and facilitated educational programs and workshops for improving individual and team communication, teamwork, cross-cultural diversity and conflict resolution.
- Strategic Plan, 16%
Led strategic planning JAD sessions with senior management to restructure operational units to create efficient cross-functional teams and improve processing efficiency.
- Human Performance Improvement, 15%
Contract business development consultant specializing in business development, sales, sales training, human performance improvement, and organizational development.
Common skills that an organizational psychologist uses to do their job include "assessment design," "conflict resolution," and "strategic plan." You can find details on the most important organizational psychologist responsibilities below.
Integrity. The most essential soft skill for an organizational psychologist to carry out their responsibilities is integrity. This skill is important for the role because "psychologists must keep patients’ problems in confidence, and patients must be able to trust psychologists’ expertise in treating sensitive problems." Additionally, an organizational psychologist resume shows how their duties depend on integrity: "conducted organization-wide intervention with large retreat that produced shift in organizational culture, communication, and trust. "
Analytical skills. Another essential skill to perform organizational psychologist duties is analytical skills. Organizational psychologists responsibilities require that "psychologists must examine the information they collect and draw logical conclusions." Organizational psychologists also use analytical skills in their role according to a real resume snippet: "posted new requisitions, as well as created, organized, updated and maintained personnel files and hr database. "
Communication skills. This is an important skill for organizational psychologists to perform their duties. For an example of how organizational psychologist responsibilities depend on this skill, consider that "psychologists must have strong communication skills because they spend much of their time listening to and speaking with patients or describing their research." This excerpt from a resume also shows how vital it is to everyday roles and responsibilities of an organizational psychologist: "identified barriers in communication for multiple client organizations, and designed effective training programs and cognitive strategies to rectify issues. ".
Interpersonal skills. organizational psychologist responsibilities often require "interpersonal skills." The duties that rely on this skill are shown by the fact that "psychologists study and help individuals, so they must be able to work well with clients, patients, and other professionals." This resume example shows what organizational psychologists do with interpersonal skills on a typical day: "provided a cbt group for anxiety and depression incorporating dbt skills, and interpersonal skills training. "
Problem-solving skills. A commonly-found skill in organizational psychologist job descriptions, "problem-solving skills" is essential to what organizational psychologists do. Organizational psychologist responsibilities rely on this skill because "psychologists need problem-solving skills to collect information, design research, evaluate programs, and find treatments or solutions to mental and behavioral problems." You can also see how organizational psychologist duties rely on problem-solving skills in this resume example: "provided seminars and workshops about self-injury, abuse, trauma, conflict resolution, and sexually transmitted diseases for the community. "
The three companies that hire the most organizational psychologists are:
Compare different organizational psychologists
Organizational psychologist vs. Manager, personnel selection
There are some key differences in the responsibilities of each position. For example, organizational psychologist responsibilities require skills like "organization development," "assessment design," "group behavior," and "organizational psychology." Meanwhile a typical manager, personnel selection has skills in areas such as "wms," "disciplinary actions," "quality audits," and "customer complaints." This difference in skills reveals the differences in what each career does.
On average, managers, personnel selection reach lower levels of education than organizational psychologists. Managers, personnel selection are 6.2% less likely to earn a Master's Degree and 7.9% less likely to graduate with a Doctoral Degree.Organizational psychologist vs. Testing projects administrator
Each career also uses different skills, according to real organizational psychologist resumes. While organizational psychologist responsibilities can utilize skills like "organization development," "assessment design," "group behavior," and "organizational psychology," testing projects administrators use skills like "regression," "windows," "software defects," and "test cases."
Testing projects administrators earn lower levels of education than organizational psychologists in general. They're 6.1% less likely to graduate with a Master's Degree and 7.9% less likely to earn a Doctoral Degree.Organizational psychologist vs. Senior behavioral scientist
The required skills of the two careers differ considerably. For example, organizational psychologists are more likely to have skills like "organization development," "assessment design," "group behavior," and "organizational psychology." But a senior behavioral scientist is more likely to have skills like "r," "patient care," "treatment planning," and "discharge planning."
Senior behavioral scientists typically earn similar educational levels compared to organizational psychologists. Specifically, they're 1.6% less likely to graduate with a Master's Degree, and 5.1% less likely to earn a Doctoral Degree.Organizational psychologist vs. Human resources psychologist
Even though a few skill sets overlap between organizational psychologists and human resources psychologists, there are some differences that are important to note. For one, an organizational psychologist might have more use for skills like "organization development," "assessment design," "group behavior," and "organizational psychology." Meanwhile, some responsibilities of human resources psychologists require skills like "crisis intervention," "group therapy," "clinical documentation," and "individual therapy. "
In general, human resources psychologists hold lower degree levels compared to organizational psychologists. Human resources psychologists are 12.0% less likely to earn their Master's Degree and 3.3% less likely to graduate with a Doctoral Degree.Types of organizational psychologist
Updated January 8, 2025
