Yay! You've got the job! So Now What? Your How to Guide to starting new roles

Jingle Guy (Singing).

Hi. Welcome along to the Aspiring Psychologist Podcast. I hope you are finding the content really useful. Thank you for listening and for being part of my world, it's so greatly appreciated.

What we're going to talk to you about today, is thinking about... So I've got my first relevant experience post, and it might be that you have got an assistant psychologist post or research assistant post or something else, which feels the next step that you've been striving for. And then you are, so now what? What do I do now? Now I've got to where I wanted to be.

And if you are listening to this and you're thinking, well, this isn't anywhere near where I am right now. Perhaps you are a psychology student or a psychology undergraduate, and you're thinking, well, I'll tune out because it's not for me. I would say, listen still, because it can still be super useful to think about covering these bases before you get there.

I think this is stuff that I would've wished that I knew before I got there. So I hope you will still find it really useful too. And it's all part of the process. It will be your time, and it will come, and good things will happen. But we have to do the bits below, to build our knowledge and our skills and our experience. And to build our readiness for that. And our ability to be able to talk confidently about what we're doing and why.

So, I hope that you will find this really useful. So maybe this new job or new post offer feels like a really exciting, tangible step. And I remember when I'd just done my GCSEs and I've got my GCSE results, and I felt, oh, okay, finally I've got something that helps me put my abilities and my confidence under my belt a little bit, proof that I know what I'm doing and I'm doing all right.

And for me, those GCSE results felt the first thing that proved that, that demonstrated that. And my first assistant psychologist post felt similar, it was a sign to myself and to the world and others outside. Oh she's heading towards that goal. And that's tangible proof, that actually this isn't all futile.

So I hope you find that as a useful way of thinking about that, because I certainly did. And I know I said, either in there, I think it was the first episode of the podcast, that people might say, oh, you don't get it. Why don't you go off and do something different? Be a buyer for Argos or whatever it was I was doing at the time. They just didn't get why this was so important to me. They didn't get why I was so upset. I couldn't find even any assistant psychologist posts to apply for. And when I did, why I was so distressed, when they were closing before I'd even got home from work to apply for them.

So you are allowed to be on your own team. Even if those around you don't get it. You always need to be on your own team. And we do doubt ourselves as humans. It's part of our incredibly tricky brains, but you're allowed to have that self-belief and that self-importance, about why you are doing it. And that hopefully with the requisite stripes that you earn along your path you'll get there and good things will happen for you.

But be on your own team. Even if those you are giving you disharmony. They're not singing in unison with you, they might be singing a completely different tune and that's okay. You're allowed to sing your own tune. And when I think about my other jobs that I've had in the past. They would've sustained me and fulfilled me for a time, but really to quote Princess Poppy, "they just weren't my jam." They didn't ignite and enliven me and they weren't a bit of me.

And so it's okay to keep striving for the stuff that feels authentic. That feels it is going to light you up. Because even though I love my job, I love what I do, there are still some days where I'd rather just sit around and watch Netflix. But on the whole, actually I'm really excited when I wake up and I realize it's a Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday. I'm, oh yay, I get to do my business today. I get to do the stuff I love. And I get to see clients. And I've got quite a nice balance, that Mondays and Fridays are days where I do just stuff for my business development or stuff in the background. And sometimes I don't do anything at all.

I went off recently to a Van Gogh exhibition on a Friday and had lunch, which was really nice. Last week I had my hair done on a Friday. And today I speak to you on a Friday, as I am recording podcast episodes. So I've managed to stack my week and organize it so that I've got a bit more breathing space on a Monday and a Friday.

And you might be hearing that, thinking, oh, it's okay for you, I can't do that in the service I'm working in. And I hear you, I've been there. I've been there for sure. I hope that your experiences along the way and everything that you're doing and everything you are hearing from me hopefully, helps you build confidence and a belief that you can build a career for yourself that feels really energizing. And that feels really exciting. And that allows you to be your authentic self.

So some of the early feedback I've heard from this podcast and certainly someone I was speaking to earlier about a university presentation that I'm going to be doing. She said, well, we've asked you to do it, because we like how okay you are with being yourself and how naturally you talk.

So I hope you find that to be the case too, and that you can lean in to your own abilities, to be authentic to yourself. And you're enough, and what you've got to say, and the way you think about the world is important and valid. This is quite a long introduction to this, isn't it? But it's all relevant. I've got to boost you out and send you out there into the world to do these really good things.

And I know I've got a lot of strings to my bow currently, but I feel every everything I do and everything I've got is underpinned by my core foundations, my experiences as a qualified psychologist. And within every session, within every podcast episode, within every thing I write for the media, I carry with me each individual client session, each individual supervision session, and each individual lecture I've been to.

Because of the way that we build over time as clinicians I'm multi-layered and I'm built of a lot of the words of others and the experience of others. And I'm pretty fortunate that on the whole, I've been surrounded by people that really like me and get me and are on my team. But it's important to tune in to the quality of the voices you're hearing, to think about whether actually what they're asking of you is reasonable and what their opinions of you are based on actual facts and not just their own beliefs and opinions.

So tune into what you are thinking about what you're doing and just listen to whether the feedback you're getting, if it's not great, is feeling it's coming from a place that's trying to help you be different or better. Whether it's constructive feedback. So, well done you, you've got this job. You've got this job that you've really, really been excited for. So you've had the moment of seeing the job advert or hearing about it for the first time and you read it ad you think that's it, that's my job. That's happening for me.

And I got that when I applied for my first assistant post that I did get. Believe me, I applied for a fair few, that I didn't even get interviewed for. But the one I got, I saw, this is it. I am ready for this, this is mine. And the same with my second assistant paid post, I just saw it. And I was, that's mine, that is my job. And I'm coming for it. And nothing is stopping me. I'm just going to be relentless about it. This is my job.

Whereas in contrast from my first qualified job, I'm really excited about the opportunity, but there were so few jobs at the time that I don't know if I actually would've ended up working in CAMHS, if it hadn't just been that they offered me the job. But it ended up were working out completely beautifully for my first four years of qualified.

So you've got this job, you've got the job offer. Perhaps you're waiting out your notice at your old job, and those can be slow and painful weeks. But maybe you are listening to this, about to start your new job, or maybe you haven't got a job at the moment and you're going to your dream job or next job. And you're, so now what?

So I thought it'd be really useful to tell you about some of the things that I've done ahead of chunks in my life, where there's been transition. So when I got my first paid assistant post, I took a week off of unpaid leave in between my jobs. And that might not be achievable for you, depending on your circumstances. But for me, it always feels like a little bit of a golden time, to be able to have a little rest and a little recharge and to help me transition from one stage of my life to the next.

And I actually went away with my Mum. We went away to Spain for a few days, and rented an apartment there with a pool. And we were eating nice food and having some sunshine and reading and having some naps and long lie-ins and things. And that was a really nice way for me to be able to go from a relevant job, but not under a qualified psychologist, to my first assistant psychologist post under a clinical psychologist. It felt like the big real deal, but I also absolutely had this pressure of what, enough, what, what, am I enough? Can I really do this? I've told them I can.

And so I did lean into the pressure to feel I knew a little bit about what I was doing. And so I did ask my soon-to-be supervisor, whether there was any reading recommended and I believe she would've recommended a forensic older adult book or something along those lines or working with an inpatient population. So I did read that from my sun lounger, just to feel I was getting myself versed in the right conversations, even in my head. The right language to be using, to talk about those things.

So that might be something that you feel would be useful, but also know that you are enough, they've offered you the job because you are the best person for the job, with your knowledge, skills, and experience. So do know that you are enough. And actually I think with retrospect, with hindsight what I realized is, that probably what I was wanting was to walk into that job on day one and feel I'd been there six months.

But that's not realistic, all of us need time to grow into new roles and we're going to be different to others. So it might be that they're taking on someone else new in your team at the same time. And that was certainly the case for me, my friend, well, she's now a friend, I didn't know her before, but we both were offered a job at the same time in the same service. And we're different clinicians than we were there then, and that has to be okay. We can't necessarily be comparing ourselves to other people in the team or the service. Because that's just not going to lead to happy outcomes for us. Because you need to be your genuine self and they've obviously offered the job to you. And so well done you.

So I always think it's also quite nice to mark these achievements tangibly. And my husband always says, you're not a dog. You don't need a treat. And I'm, yes, I do. So it might not be food-related, but it might be buy myself some new clothes to match this milestone in my life. So I definitely had an assistant psychologist wardrobe. Some of them are still around now, I won't lie. And a pair of shoes that I could look down at my feet if I was feeling I was floundering and think, oh yes, I am an assistant psychologist because I'm wearing my assistant psychologist shoes.

So that might be useful for you as well, to feel you're wearing your significant job uniform. And I still treat myself like a dog now. When I sold the first... I decided in my head a batch number of how many Our Tricky Brain Kits it would take. And then I'd celebrate by buying myself a nice perfume that I'd wanted for a while. So I definitely rewarded myself like a dog then.

And you find it helpful to have a new perfume or fragrance in your life as well to signify, I'm an assistant psychologist now, I'm a research assistant. This is the fragrance I wear, to celebrate and mark where I am right now. And also know that all of us sometimes sit at our desk and think, I don't know what I'm doing. And it's that case of the imposter syndrome showing up. And I'm just thinking now about a resource that shows, I think it's our levels of danger as we go forward in our careers.

So to begin with, we feel we know absolutely loads and we'll tell anybody who listens about it. And then as we go forward in time, we realize how little we know, and that's when our imposter syndrome sets in. So what I'll do is I'll tidy up what I've just said, and put it into a resource that you can download. So the details of that will be through the show notes. So check that out if that sounds like that would be useful for you.

And I would say, as you go forward in your career, it's always okay to not know and to level with clients or supervisors or whoever you're working with, actually I'm not sure. I was tempted to wing it, but I don't know the answer. And I did that as recently as last week. I said to a client, well, I'm not quite sure about that. That's not cropped up for me before, but let's think about what that would mean to you. And let's think about how we could come up with a plan that feels it would be robust enough. And at the end I said, well, how did it feel when I said that I didn't really know because it hadn't cropped up before? I hadn't used this particular resource in this way with a client before. And so we'd need to create that for ourselves.

And the client said, well it is what it is. I wouldn't want you to be lying and just trying to look like you are winging it. It's okay. And because people are bespoke, there cannot be one size fits all. So even today, someone spoke to me about an honor... Look, I can say it. I'm going to leave this in as well. I'm going to leave this in the podcast edit, so that you realize that I'm human, an honorarium. And then launching off to thinking about this honorarium. And I said, I'm very sorry but I don't know what an honorarium is. I imagine it means it's free-ish, but you're going to have to fill me in there. So then she had to tell me what an honorarium is. Google it.

So what did I do, literally minutes after getting my first assistant post? Well to begin with, I was by myself. I was in my partner at times, flat and I was by myself, and I just felt, ah, amazing. And then I waited for him to get home and he said, oh, how did it go? How did the interview go? And I said, oh, I didn't get the job. I got a different one, yay. Because there was one job advertising. I didn't get that job. But they liked me and said that actually there's another job coming up and they'd like me for that one. So, that's how that worked.

And I just felt really, really happy and really, really excited and ready for this next step of my journey towards being what for me was a clinical psychologist. But I appreciate that you might be listening to this as an aspiring sport psychologist or a forensic or health or counseling, occupational, educational, so many lovely directions your career could take.

So I hope that this is relevant. And I welcome any feedback. If you feel actually the way I talk about things isn't relevant for your particular discipline, give me a shout and let me know, because I want this to be useful for all aspiring psychologists. That's the plan. Of course, I'm going to speak most convincingly about clinical psychology, because of course that's what I've done and that's my experience.

But I hope that all of you listening, regardless of what your own discipline is, that you find there is a reason to stick around and to hang about. Okay, we're going to take a short break here and I will be back to talk to you about growing into those relevant experienced shoes. Speak to you soon.

(Singing)

Review: The Clinical Psychologist Collective is a fantastic read for aspiring clinical psychologists. This book provides insights from real trainees and qualified psychologists. They offer their advice, hope and encouragement to aspiring clinical psychologists. This book helps put in perspective the variety of journeys people take to become qualified. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in the DClinPsy.

(Singing)

Oh honestly, is it just me who could listen to my jingle guys voice all day? Sometimes I feel it's going to move me to tears, it's just lovely. So I hope you love having these jingles in your head, because I sing them constantly.

So my first assistant post, honestly, I did not know I was born. I had my own office that I shared with my colleague. And I was in private practice. And so the stationary budget was limitless. And so we were given the stationary catalog and invited to flick through it and order what we wanted basically.

So we had a nice spongy wrist support mouse mat, and a wrist support thing for the keyboard and a desk ID. And when I compare that to when I worked in the NHS as an assistant, I didn't even have my own desk and I did some sessions in a cupboard. And then when I was qualified, everyone loves agile working, right. I didn't even have a chair. I really didn't know I was born.

So if you find that you've got a really good setup and you've got your own chair, celebrate that. Tag me in on LinkedIn, celebrate your own chair, put a sign on it, saying your name and your chair, spin around on it. Do your own office chair Olympics. You've got your own chair. You've made it in life. So, that's certainly more than I've had across my career at times.

But, we are able to bring out a game regardless of our setting hopefully. But agile working is an ACE for me. I remember when I was working at Argos Head Office, I had those little baffle boards around my desk and I had pictures of when I'd been away traveling, to be able to look on when times felt hard. So I like having nice things to look at. I like having pictures that feel significant, that feel important.

So I think, I definitely operate best with my own space that's mine. I don't have to sanitize the keyboard. So that's where I will operate optimally for me. But if you are currently having your own agile working challenges, then I hear you.

So when I got my first qualified post, it had been off the back of the recession that was happening at the time. And there were very, very few jobs. And at that time, places on clinical training were reducing, not Midco or anything that would be catastrophic, you are the weakest link, goodbye. It wasn't like that. But suddenly we were a cohort of 15 and then the year after us were 17 and the year after that I think went down, it might have been 15 again or it might have been below that.

But I think at one point they had a cohort of 10, which is so different to a cohort of 15. So the times they were a-changing at that time. So actually when I qualified as a qualified psychologist, I had no job to go to. I'd been to a fair few interviews, but I had no job to go to. And actually I found that I kept getting picked to the post by people that had already been qualified for a few years. And I was good enough at that time as a newly qualified band 7, but it's very hard to compete with somebody who might be stepping down from an AA to come and do band 7 or to compete with any qualified psychologists that been doing it for a while. Because I was of course, fresh off my clinical doctorate at boat.

And so I just found that I kept losing out until I didn't, until I got my first qualified post. And at that point I had a little bit of downtime. So I finished in September. Then I had October off and November off. And I think at some point in November I knew I was going to be starting. And so at the beginning of December, I did start my job. And I had a little bit of time eating lots of things with lentils in to try and make the money go further. And drawing on my savings a bit, as much as possible. And also my partner, who's now my husband, wasn't going to see me destitute and out on the street, because that would've meant he was on the street as well.

So just had to get through it, because of course, what we know, certainly about the clinical doctorate, it's a period of training contracts. So long as you meet those milestones and you get there and do what you're supposed to be doing. Then with any luck you will become a qualified psychologist, but there is no guarantee of a job.

lear when I was qualifying in: 2011

But what I like about this time off between jobs, is that ability to reflect and to consolidate and to allow myself to transition to this next step, this next stage. Because they are significant and they matter. And I just like a little bit of pause and what we talk about as rest and digest, just do a bit less, breathe a bit more. If that was now, I'd be probably going out for runs and stuff more. I think I was less fixated on any exercise at the time. Probably doing Pilates and things like that. But now I'm a mummy, I'm super good at using time off to its optimal ability.

So when I first started my first qualified job, I'll be forever grateful to my manager at the time because she was super excited that I joined the team, which is always lovely. But there weren't kit gloves. And I thought I needed kit gloves. I thought I needed, you are qualified, you're going to have to work up to doing X, Y, and Z. And there wasn't that. You are a qualified clinical psychologist. You are the real deal, you've earned your stripes, now go.

But it wasn't my caseload built as a flood immediately. That bit, it trickled in, in a gradual, predictable way. But there wasn't that period of, just see how you go, get used to making decisions, get used to doing that and being part of the team. Sometimes I was just sent to be in a meeting as the psychologist in the team. Do you know what I mean? It wasn't I was shadowing a proper psychologist, who knew what they were doing. I was it. And that was actually really helpful for me. It didn't feel like being chucked into deep water. It felt like someone was believing in me.

And so bear that in mind, if you find that you're feeling a bit floundery, maybe it's actually a mark of someone's confidence in your ability to do that job. But if you feel things are overwhelming, always shout out about that.

As I said before, I like to mark occasions and chapters with wardrobe. So I definitely had a qualified psychologist wardrobe, and I was forever gutted that my favorite, I'm a qualified psychologist dress got a hole ripped in it by my NHS lanyard, which made me really sad, because I loved that dress and it just wasn't repairable where the hole was. It just wasn't repairable. So look after your favorite, I'm an assistant psychologist or I'm a research assistant psychologist outfits, because NHS lanyards don't always like them.

So as I said, I love celebrating your successes. So please do come and connect with me on socials. I am really easy to find on certainly LinkedIn, I'm Dr. Marianne Trent. Tag me in or some other way let me know about this post, and I will help you celebrate, because it's big and it's important. And well done you.

If you are listening on YouTube, then please subscribe and like, and comment and click that little notification bell to be told when I produce more content. My kids told me to say that. They spend a lot of their time watching YouTube, they love it. And they said, mummy, you've got to start asking people to click the notification bell. So there you go, kids mummy's done it.

They also want me to have merch. We were out shopping with my eldest a few months ago and there was a shopping list. And on the back of it was a picture of the Grief Collective book. And my eldest was, mommy, quick, stick it on your back and call it merch, which really made me laugh. And I was, well, no, because then I won't know what I need to buy. And I'll also look very silly. So no plans to launch any merch coming soon guys.

But subscribe. Tell your friends, do all those lovely things to help me to be able to create and continue to create this hopefully useful quality content for you as an aspiring psychologist, whatever the stage of your journey you are at. Thank you so much for listening and I will look forward to catching up with you very soon. Take care.

(Singing).