I/O Psychology

[PsychedUp101]

Hey Everyone,

I have recently started looking into grad I/O and I just had some questions concerning the career:

1) Is it possible to work in industry as a consultant and maintain a position as a professor at my local university? I have always been interested in having a role in academia as well as working somewhere outside of academia as well. 

2) What is work/life balance like in this field? In other words, will I be required to work during my "days off" and what not.

3) And finally, I hate to be that guy, but what is the typical starting salary? I know this varies based on location, but I looked up the average salary in my location and it said somewhere around 110K which didn't sound right at all (Sounds more like a salary after 10 years of experience or so). Then I kept snooping around and I cam across a more accurate figure: 85K. Does this sound about right?

Thanks for your time.

[Daisy0124]

19 minutes ago, PsychedUp101 said:

Hey Everyone,

I have recently started looking into grad I/O and I just had some questions concerning the career:

1) Is it possible to work in industry as a consultant and maintain a position as a professor at my local university? I have always been interested in having a role in academia as well as working somewhere outside of academia as well. 

2) What is work/life balance like in this field? In other words, will I be required to work during my "days off" and what not.

3) And finally, I hate to be that guy, but what is the typical starting salary? I know this varies based on location, but I looked up the average salary in my location and it said somewhere around 110K which didn't sound right at all (Sounds more like a salary after 10 years of experience or so). Then I kept snooping around and I cam across a more accurate figure: 85K. Does this sound about right?

Thanks for your time.

Hi!

1. Yes! Usually, you would be an adjunct professor or a guest lecturer. I also know people who teach online classes for local universities.

2. I feel like that very much depends on what you want to do with it and how successful you want to be. The balance for a professor and a consultant will be different. 

3. I think you hit it on the head when you say it depends on location. I have heard anywhere from 50K (professor at a small university) to 150K starting salary (someone with more previous work experience and connections). This also depends on what you do because there is a large difference in how much a college professor makes and a corporate consultant makes. 

[PsychedUp101]

36 minutes ago, Daisy0124 said:

Hi!

1. Yes! Usually, you would be an adjunct professor or a guest lecturer. I also know people who teach online classes for local universities.

2. I feel like that very much depends on what you want to do with it and how successful you want to be. The balance for a professor and a consultant will be different. 

3. I think you hit it on the head when you say it depends on location. I have heard anywhere from 50K (professor at a small university) to 150K starting salary (someone with more previous work experience and connections). This also depends on what you do because there is a large difference in how much a college professor makes and a corporate consultant makes. 

Hey there!

I failed to mention that I am considering the PhD route rather than stopping at MS/MA. The only thing that worries me is that when I go on SiOP to see job listings in my area, nothing shows up lol. I see some listings on other websites rather than SiOP. Also there is a professor at my university (Not an R1, not a super research-based school) and he has his PhD in I/O. It looks like he is still in the consulting game and has been for the past 35 years. He teaches 2 or 3 classes every semester (mostly online) and I'm assuming he spends time off campus consulting. He is a full professor at my university as well rather than a part-timer. Is this a common gig?

Thanks!

[eternallyephemeral]

1. This salary survey is a comprehensive look at IO salaries from SIOP members in industry and academia. To summarize, 110k in a city is definitely not the salary of someone with ten years experience. Starting salaries in consulting with a PhD range from 80ish thousand to 140k at the top consulting firms.

Link:

http://www.siop.org/tip/Jan17/Report.pdf

2. The person who you're describing in your second post may have the position of full professor at your school, but they do not have all the responsibilities that most professors have when we use the term professors - on this site (and in most places), professors conduct research, advise graduate students, complete service duties such as serving on committees for admission and hiring, and may be in administrative positions in the university. A lecturer would teach a few classes either in person or online, but to make things clear, we make the distinction between these roles although the name of the position might be the same.

You can definitely teach classes and consult, but it is less likely you will be a full-time research professor (i.e., you will do much more for the university than just teach) and have a substantial consulting component at the same time. That would be much less common, given how busy both of those positions are.

3. Your work-life balance can be as high or low as you want it to be - if you have high aspirations for your career, that will demand more of your time. It's possible to have a better balance, but if you want that through your life, the PhD won't help (as in during the degree and likely afterwards).

4. Regarding being both a consultant and an academic, you'll find there are many positions for IO psychologists in industry that use a lot of academic skills and may even have publishing opportunities. IO is rare in that you can do essentially everything that an academic does in industry, including being a PI, teaching people inside your organization or in schools in your area, learning new techniques, collecting data (sometimes more easily in industry than in academia), and supervising others.