How to hire a senior staff psychologist

How to hire a senior staff psychologist, step by step

Here's a step-by-step senior staff psychologist hiring guide:

• Step 1: Identify your hiring needs
• Step 2: Create an ideal candidate profile
• Step 3: Make a budget
• Step 4: Write a senior staff psychologist job description
• Step 5: Post your job
• Step 6: Interview candidates
• Step 7: Send a job offer and onboard your new senior staff psychologist
• Step 8: Go through the hiring process checklist

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1. Identify your hiring needs

   First, determine the employments status of the senior staff psychologist you need to hire. Certain senior staff psychologist roles might require a full-time employee, whereas others can be done by part-time workers or contractors.

   Determine employee vs contractor status

   Is the person you're thinking of hiring a US citizen or green card holder?

   Yes

   No

   Hiring the perfect senior staff psychologist also involves considering the ideal background you'd like them to have. Depending on what industry or field they have experience in, they'll bring different skills to the job. It's also important to consider what levels of seniority and education the job requires and what kind of salary such a candidate would likely demand.

   Here's a comparison of senior staff psychologist salaries for various roles:

   Type of Senior Staff Psychologist	Description	Hourly rate
   Senior Staff Psychologist	Psychologists study cognitive, emotional, and social processes and behavior by observing, interpreting, and recording how people relate to one another and their environments.	$32-68
   Clinical Fellow	Clinical fellows are doctoral-level health professionals whose interest focuses on biomedical research. They take part in protocol-based clinical research and laboratory research... Show more	$25-43
   Clinical Psychology Internship	Clinical psychology interns are responsible for assisting the clinical psychology staff by utilizing their academic knowledge to practical applications. A clinical psychology intern observes the daily operations in a health care facility, shadows medical staff, and prepares reports for clinical psychology processes or psychological research... Show more	$12-26

   Show more

2. Create an ideal candidate profile

   Common skills:

   • Social Work
   • Rehabilitation
   • Correctional
   • Mental Illness
   • Group Therapy
   • Individual Therapy
   • Treatment Planning
   • Risk Assessments
   • Mental Health
   • Developmental Disabilities
   • Psychiatry
   • Family Therapy
   • Clinical Supervision
   • APA

   Check all skills

   Responsibilities:

   • Provide psychological therapy for children with autism spectrum disorder, deficit/hyperactive disorder, specific learning disorder and others mental diagnosis.
   • Provide consultation regarding appropriate placement/treatment of juveniles in the DJJ system.

   More senior staff psychologist duties

3. Make a budget

   Including a salary range in your senior staff psychologist job description is one of the best ways to attract top talent. A senior staff psychologist can vary based on:

   • Location. For example, senior staff psychologists' average salary in alabama is 59% less than in california.
   • Seniority. Entry-level senior staff psychologists 52% less than senior-level senior staff psychologists.
   • Certifications. A senior staff psychologist with certifications usually earns a higher salary.
   • Company. Working for an established firm or a new start-up company can make a big difference in a senior staff psychologist's salary.

   Average senior staff psychologist salary

   $99,313yearly

   $47.75 hourly rate

   ---

   Entry-level senior staff psychologist salary

   $68,000 yearly salary

   Updated December 16, 2025

   Average senior staff psychologist salary by state

   Rank	State	Avg. salary	Hourly rate
   1	California	$159,113	$77
   2	Oregon	$102,197	$49
   3	Maryland	$99,572	$48
   4	Connecticut	$97,067	$47
   5	Colorado	$95,762	$46
   6	New York	$92,338	$44
   7	Ohio	$88,773	$43
   8	Florida	$88,199	$42
   9	Arizona	$87,107	$42
   10	Texas	$83,152	$40
   11	Illinois	$80,687	$39
   12	Minnesota	$80,614	$39
   13	Montana	$79,981	$38
   14	Michigan	$78,143	$38
   15	Massachusetts	$76,996	$37
   16	Georgia	$75,575	$36
   17	North Carolina	$73,221	$35

   Average senior staff psychologist salary by company

   Company

   Rank	Company	Average salary	Hourly rate	Job openings
   1	Workday	$120,703	$58.03
   2	Charles Schwab	$105,524	$50.73
   3	Bio-Rad Laboratories	$102,334	$49.20
   4	UTMB HEALTHCARE SYSTEMS	$96,742	$46.51	36
   5	California Dept Rehabilitation	$94,848	$45.60
   6	DENTSPLY IH	$94,848	$45.60
   7	eHealth	$91,896	$44.18
   8	University of California-Berkeley	$90,039	$43.29
   9	UCI Health	$89,511	$43.03
   10	Booz Allen Hamilton	$88,680	$42.63	1
   11	American Psychological Association	$88,183	$42.40
   12	Northwell Health	$85,639	$41.17	128
   13	Oakland, New Jersey	$85,281	$41.00
   14	Simpson Gumpertz & Heger	$83,616	$40.20
   15	Wheeler Clinic	$82,437	$39.63
   16	Hennepin Healthcare	$81,882	$39.37	19
   17	Youth Focus	$78,652	$37.81
   18	Crowe	$77,465	$37.24	3
   19	Boston College	$77,302	$37.16
   20	Oakland County, Michigan Government	$73,923	$35.54	2

4. Writing a senior staff psychologist job description

   A senior staff psychologist job description should include a summary of the role, required skills, and a list of responsibilities. It's also good to include a salary range and the first name of the hiring manager. Below, you can find an example of a senior staff psychologist job description:

   Senior staff psychologist job description example

   COVID\-19 continues to significantly impact our employees, families and communities\. With employee health and safety as our top priority, and as a federal contractor, Lockheed Martin is taking action to address the increased risk and uncertainty COVID variants pose in the workplace and ensuring we meet our commitments to national security\.
   
   To uphold safety for all employees, we will continue to request vaccination status for all Lockheed Martin employees including new hires\. All current and newly hired employees who are unvaccinated will be required to adhere to onsite safety protocols\.
   
   **Description:** Responsibility includes managing a diverse matrixed team across Sourcing, Operations, Design Engineering, the Supply Base and Industry experts to facilitate the implementation and execution of Diminishing Manufacturing Sources and Material Shortages \(DMSMS\) activities throughout the business and across the product lifecycle, from aircraft proposal through sustainment activities\. The selected individual:
   
   Conducts DMSMS supplier assessments: through analyzing technical data, designs, preliminary specifications, manufacturing limitations, supplier facilities, parts/equipment availability, costs, inspection of facilities, and historical performance\.
   
   Facilitates technical trade\-offs and standardization that may lead to more economical procurement through execution of DMSMS mitigations\.
   
   Leads teams of Supplier and internal staff in collaboratively developing DMSMS sourcing strategic plans to address cross business and cross functional DMSMS program needs and business requirements\.
   
   Influences cross platform subcontractor DMSMS cost, quality, schedule, financial and technical performance requirements to ensure performance and support of DMSMS contract milestones: To include coordination of make or buy, life of need buys, and/or redesign actions\.
   **Basic Qualifications:**
   
   BS Degree
   
   Demonstrated strong understanding of the contracting process \(Government regulations, Intellectual Property rights, procurement processes \(internal and external\), technical objectives\)\.
   
   US Citizen \- Able to obtain a clearance\.
   
   **Desired Skills:**
   
   MS Degree
   
   Considerable experience providing cross functional viewpoints while leading and negotiating supplier procurement efforts\.
   
   Experience in coordinating actions across senior management, customers, and suppliers\.
   
   Ability to accomplish long term desired results while exercising considerable latitude in determining objectives and approaches to assignments\.
   
   Ability to accomplish objectives through team building and collaboration\.
   
   Ability in recognizing supplier risk indicators which could lead to diminishing manufacturing sources\.
   
   Recognized mentor/leader within field
   
   **BASIC QUALIFICATIONS:**
   
   job\.Qualifications
   
   **Lockheed Martin is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer\. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, pregnancy, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, protected veteran status, or disability status\.**
   
   Join us at Lockheed Martin, where your mission is ours\. Our customers tackle the hardest missions\. Those that demand extraordinary amounts of courage, resilience and precision\. They're dangerous\. Critical\. Sometimes they even provide an opportunity to change the world and save lives\. Those are the missions we care about\.
   
   As a leading technology innovation company, Lockheed Martin's vast team works with partners around the world to bring proven performance to our customers' toughest challenges\. Lockheed Martin has employees based in many states throughout the U\.S\., and Internationally, with business locations in many nations and territories\.
   
   **EXPERIENCE LEVEL:**
   
   Experienced Professional

   Copy this example

   

5. Post your job

   There are a few common ways to find senior staff psychologists for your business:

   • Promoting internally or recruiting from your existing workforce.
   • Ask for referrals from friends, family members, and current employees.
   • Attend job fairs at local colleges to meet candidates with the right educational background.
   • Use social media platforms like LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter to recruit passive job-seekers.

   Post your job online:

   • Post your senior staff psychologist job on Zippia to find and recruit senior staff psychologist candidates who meet your exact specifications.
   • Use field-specific websites.
   • Post a job on free websites.

6. Interview candidates

   To successfully recruit senior staff psychologists, your first interview needs to engage with candidates to learn about their interest in the role and experience in the field. You can go into more detail about the company, the role, and the responsibilities during follow-up interviews.

   It's also good to ask about candidates' unique skills and talents. You can move on to the technical interview if a candidate is good enough for the next step.

   The right interview questions can help you assess a candidate's hard skills, behavioral intelligence, and soft skills.

7. Send a job offer and onboard your new senior staff psychologist

   Once you've found the senior staff psychologist candidate you'd like to hire, it's time to write an offer letter. This should include an explicit job offer that includes the salary and the details of any other perks. Qualified candidates might be looking at multiple positions, so your offer must be competitive if you like the candidate. Also, be prepared for a negotiation stage, as candidates may way want to tweak the details of your initial offer. Once you've settled on these details, you can draft a contract to formalize your agreement.

   It's equally important to follow up with applicants who don't get the job with an email letting them know that the position has been filled.

   To prepare for the new employee's start date, you can create an onboarding schedule and complete any necessary paperwork, such as employee action forms and onboarding documents like I-9 forms, benefits enrollment, and federal and state tax forms. Human Resources should also ensure that a new employee file is created.

8. Go through the hiring process checklist

   • Determine employee type (full-time, part-time, contractor, etc.)
   • Submit a job requisition form to the HR department
   • Define job responsibilities and requirements
   • Establish budget and timeline
   • Determine hiring decision makers for the role
   • Write job description
   • Post job on job boards, company website, etc.
   • Promote the job internally
   • Process applications through applicant tracking system
   • Review resumes and cover letters
   • Shortlist candidates for screening
   • Hold phone/virtual interview screening with first round of candidates
   • Conduct in-person interviews with top candidates from first round
   • Score candidates based on weighted criteria (e.g., experience, education, background, cultural fit, skill set, etc.)
   • Conduct background checks on top candidates
   • Check references of top candidates
   • Consult with HR and hiring decision makers on job offer specifics
   • Extend offer to top candidate(s)
   • Receive formal job offer acceptance and signed employment contract
   • Inform other candidates that the position has been filled
   • Set and communicate onboarding schedule to new hire(s)
   • Complete new hire paperwork (i9, benefits enrollment, tax forms, etc.)

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