As I read this
statistic on the IPA listserv, I started thinking
about the reactions. Of course, many
professionals reacted with the same compassionate
platitudes: "We've got to work on creating
more internship sites;" "We have to start
limiting the number of students who are accepted
into professional schools;" "Shouldn't someone be
telling these poor students about this competition
BEFORE they get into graduate school?" And,
many applicants started talking about how they have
to mobilize to force APA to do something about this
internship imbalance (what APAGS now has started
calling the internship
"crisis").
All of this got me
thinking about how common this reaction is.
Frequently, I hear job hunters rationalize
that they cannot get a job because "the unemployment
rate is so high" or "the economy is in the tank".
The problem with this way of thinking is that
it maintains an external locus of control (remember
that from Psychology 101?) The more we can
focus on external factors in explaining how a
situation turns out, the less responsibility we have
to take for our role in it.
This reaction
makes sense in the beginning, when we need to soothe
our hurt feelings or express our anger and
disappointment to get it out of our system.
But, after a time, we need to shift our focus back
to ourselves. After all, the job hunter is not
trying to help every unemployed person to get a job,
and the unmatched internship (or practicum)
applicant) is not, actually, trying to help every
graduate student to secure a training position.
You, as an
applicant, only need to make sure that you do what
it takes so you can graduate.
Read
the rest of this post »
One of the biggest
challenges you might face in graduate school is not
matching with a practicum or internship. As
competition for training positions continues to
increase, more and more applicants are having to
deal with this experience. But, there is no
comfort in that growing pool.
You probably feel
devastated...and, maybe, even humiliated.
After putting so much energy into writing
applications and conducting interviews, the
rejection you feel can be overwhelming. How is
it possible that these sites could not see what you
have to offer? How could they miss your
enthusiasm and overlook how well your qualifications
seemed to fit what they were offering? If
most of your classmates were able to match with
sites, your feelings can become even more magnified
by the isolation that comes with not feeling
understood.
This is a
fundamentally-important time to pull inside yourself
and start focusing entirely on what happened to you
and what comes next. You need - and deserve -
enough time to express and sort through your
feelings so you can begin to heal and prepare to
start fresh.
1. Consider
going through "The Clearinghouse".
If you feel ready to consider alternative
placements, this is the place to go next.
(Although I am not sure it still has that
name, I wish they would change it to "Second-Round
Matching Pool" or another name that describes it
more accurately. Contrary to the name's
connotations, The Clearinghouse is not a bargain bin
or sale rack where the worst positions are marked
down for a quick sale. Actually, it is a place
where, for many reasons, good internship and
practicum positions remain available. Often,
they are un-filled because various sites'
highly-ranked applicants accepted other offers, and
the training staff ran out of names on their
preferred lists before the matching process ended.
Or, they did not find enough applicants they
wanted so, rather than lowering their standards,
they simply stopped making offers. If you did
not previously apply to these sites, you might
actually be a good fit for their training programs.
Check with your training department to see how
to find all of the names and contact information for
these. You will probably be amazed at how many
high-quality programs still have openings for
trainees. Take some time to start re-vamping
your priorities and revise your applications to fit
their requirements. Be sure to talk with your
training director and advisor about how quickly you
will need to complete this process so you have a
shot at these openings before they are filled with
other applicants. Some sites like to complete
their matching process as soon as possible, so you
might not have as much time as you would like.
Read
the rest of this post »
If you are currently
on internship - or have already graduated and
still are looking for post-doctoral employment
- please consider taking my survey. Your
responses will help me write more relevant posts for
readers like you in the future. Also, please
feel free to send your questions or concerns
directly to me at DrCarlsen@PDI-Online.com.
Here is
the link: Survey
of Interns' Post-Doctoral Concerns
Thank you!
Most graduate
students (and many professionals) worry too much
about finding ways to meet new professionals who
might be able to help them learn about job
openings. So, they wait until graduation
(or being laid-off) before they begin thinking
about the job hunt. They rationalize that
they have too much to do right now to think much
about the future. If you do not want to be
like these people, the smartest step you can
take right now is to get back in touch with all
of the people who have been part of your
training or your previous work.
Re-connecting with these people will remind you
of how much progress you have made and reduce
the isolation that usually accompanies a job
hunt.
The easiest place to
start building your professional network is with your
existing relationships. If you are not
careful, your anxiety might lead you to overlook
the fact that you already have a number of
people who know you and recognize what you have to offer.
Your undergraduate psychology professors, your
graduate professors, your previous clinical
supervisors, your previous bosses from
work...all of these people know a great deal
about you and have contacts in the
professional world.
I call this Warm
Networking (as opposed to Cold Calling, in which
you are trying to add new, unfamiliar people to
your network). It is warmbecause it is similar
to a pot that you have set on a burner with low
heat. You have already cooked (or
partially-cooked) the ingredients in that pot,
and you want to prevent them from burning before you add them
to other pots to make your dish. Yet, you
want to keep it from cooling off completely so
you will have an easier time blending it with
these other ingredients.
Read
the rest of this post »
Your
responses to this survey will help me to
identify useful topics for future posts on this
blog. They will also guide me in developing
other resources to ensure your success in becoming a
professional psychologist.
If you have a few
minutes, please check it out: Practicum Interviewing
Survey
Another big mistake
you can make in applying for practicum is acting
as though you are applying for a professional job
- instead of for a training experience. In
your drive to compete successfully
with fellow applicants, you might
unintentionally oversell yourself and
your qualifications. Yet, unless you
stop, pay attention, and prepare yourself,
you are likely to do this without even
realizing what you have done until it is too
late. In the process, you might also
might wind up undermining your own needs.
Of course, you want to
present yourself to selection committees in the
most professional manner possible - dressing
appropriately and conducting yourself with poise,
composure, and self-assurance. You want to discuss
your goals and previous experiences with the depth
and seriousness of someone in the dedicated to
receiving a high-quality graduate education. You
want to convey your strong interest in making the
most of the training opportunities they offer. So,
naturally, you want to present yourself as someone
who has clearly started moving beyond the
preliminary role of "student" toward becoming a
"professional-in-training".
But, that is where
the similarities end.
Read
the rest of this post »
One of the biggest
mistakes applicants make in practicum interviews is
failing to prepare. Because they feel such extreme
anxiety, they often cope by waiting until their
interviews and hope they will "pull it together"
during their interviews. The problem with
this strategy is that it actually creates more
anxiety and prevents the applicant from showing what
he or she has to offer as a trainee.
If you include
yourself in this group, I hope you will find these
suggestions helpful in preparing to conduct
effective interviews.
First of all, your
interview is not the time or the place to gather
basic information about the site. Instead,
it's the place to show how well this particular
training fits with your individual training goals.
By the time you arrive at the interview, you
should have a basic understanding of:
- the services the
agency offers
- the client
population it serves, and
- the kinds of
training you would probably receive there.
If you wait until
the interview to get answers to these questions, you
risk appearing naive and un-informed.
1.
Make sure you do not sound like a parrot. As
a supervising psychologist, I have one major pet
peeve during interviews: Practicum applicants
who tell me they want to "gain experience with a
culturally-diverse clientele who have a broad range
of disorders". They might as well have told me
that they want a "practicum that will teach me how
to become an effective psychologist". Yes, I
know that these applicants mean well: They want to
show that their schools have told them the
importance of learning to work across cultures and
that they know what they are supposed to say
(especially if they are coming from a majority
perspective). But, even a parrot could learn
to repeat these principles. You must go
much deeper.
Read
the rest of this post »