I graduated in 2008, which was a really bad time to find a job, particularly one in people and culture, as it coincided with the start of the global financial crisis and some of the highest unemployment rates the UK had seen in a while. During my master's, I completed an internship with an HR consultancy that was advertised through the university, so I simply applied and went. Afterwards, I looked for roles in business and occupational psychology, but there were very few available. I did apply for one with a well-known northwest-based consultancy but was unsuccessful.

So instead, I focused on finding adjacent roles that would continue to build my knowledge and experience in organisational psychology, covering areas such as organisational change, L&D, wellbeing, training and development, recruitment, psychological assessment, employee engagement, and leadership. I worked at RBS doing competency-based interviewing, which strengthened my skills in psychological assessment. I continued with the HR consultancy for a while, but when I felt I wasn't progressing, I pivoted into welfare to work, which turned out to be hugely beneficial, both as a psychologist and as a manager. I think there's real value in not just advising people on management and leadership, but having actually lived it. I've managed through startups, through turnaround and transformation, and in environments riddled with infighting and incivility, so I know just how hard it is. That experience of connecting what you've learned with real-world practice is invaluable. In that role, I moved into management, building extensive experience across psychological assessment, recruitment, and training design and delivery. It was a high-pressured, highly targeted environment with unpredictable clients and complex barriers to work, meaning wellbeing and emotional labour were constant considerations.

When I was promoted to a national level, I was asked to look at employee engagement across teams experiencing high turnover, and across probably all five areas of organisational psychology, I was able to apply my knowledge in a very real-world context. I think this is really important for anyone graduating who feels they must go straight into the Cabinet Office, the public sector, or a specialist agency. Those routes are valid, but there are plenty of other roles that will build your experience across all five areas, with welfare to work being a prime example. If we're heading into an economic downturn, which I think we are, those roles will become even more available.

Getting onto a management track early is also hugely beneficial. I didn't take the traditional route. I moved into an adjacent industry, applied my business psychology knowledge, then went freelance and completed my chartership by sourcing my own projects. There are so many different ways to get there, and you don't have to follow the conventional path.