Tag Archives: Professional Development

Negotiating Job Contracts: Effective Strategies to Improve Your Outcome

How to be comfortable being uncomfortable while negotiating

By Sarah Aghjayan

Are you in a position to negotiate your salary but do not know where to start? If so, you are not alone. According to a recent survey by Glassdoor, more than half of American workers accepted their employer’s pay offer without negotiating (2016). Many times, workers do not negotiate their salary because they are afraid of being told no or losing the job offer, they think it might create a negative impression, or their employer did not signal that the offer was negotiable by asking their expected salary. While negotiating can seem intimidating, there are several strategies that can help you feel more comfortable when negotiating and lead to a more positive outcome. Whether you are seeking a position in an academic, clinical, or industry setting, these effective strategies and resources may help boost your confidence when negotiating.

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9 Tips for Navigating an In-Person Convention

By Amanda Wisinger, APAGS Convention Committee

A return to in-person conferences is likely bringing about a mix of emotions for students – both positive and negative. Many of us have spent the better part of two years attending classes and seminars behind computer screens. For some of us, our entire graduate school experience has been spent in virtual spaces with limited opportunities to connect in-person with our peers and professors. We have grown adept at navigating a variety of typically in-person events being held virtually, such as dissertation defenses, interviews for practicum and internship, and even professional conferences.

If you are attending the APA Convention in Minneapolis this August in-person, it may be your first in-person conference ever. Or, your first in-person conference in a few years. While virtual conferences provided us with many benefits (e.g., reduced travel and lodging costs, the ability to refill your coffee by simply taking a few steps into your kitchen, attending sessions in your sweatpants, etc.), there were undoubtedly many opportunities that virtual events did not provide – including the ability to form new professional relationships and contacts through in-person networking.

Here are my top tips to boost your networking skills and make the most of an in-person Convention:

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Tips for Gaining Competency in Suicide Prevention as a Graduate Student

Kristen H. Erps and Stephanie Miodus

Graduates from health service psychology programs are expected to gain competency in many different areas before becoming independent practitioners. Despite developing key clinical skills throughout graduate training, one area that is often under-emphasized is recognizing and responding to clients at risk for suicide. In fact, studies have shown that many psychology graduates lack training in suicide prevention and intervention procedures and leave training feeling ill-prepared to work with individuals who are experiencing suicidality (Allen et al., 2002; Erps et al., 2020). 

The American Psychological Association of Graduate Students’ Advocacy Coordinating Team (APAGS-ACT) advocates for graduate students across all psychology training programs. As noted above, explicit education in suicide prevention, suicide risk assessment, and working with individuals who are at risk for suicide is not always a component of graduate training. For graduate students who hope to gain more competency in this area, APAGS-ACT has created a resource list that provides various avenues to independently gain education and exposure to suicide prevention. 

The resources in this list are not meant to be exhaustive; they instead provide a starting point for students who seek to increase their knowledge in this area. This list includes websites, organizations with which to get involved, volunteer and work opportunities, and trainings that are offered online. It also includes a competency assessment that can be used on an individual level or integrated into a graduate training program. 

The opportunities described in the resource list span conferences, community programs, certifications, and strategies for supporting those at risk for suicide, as well as other tools focused on suicide assessment and prevention. Graduate students in psychology programs are encouraged to explore these resources in order to supplement gaps they identify in their clinical training. Graduate programs can also use this resource list to support students in building their skills in suicide prevention, assessment, and treatment. 

References 

Allen, M., Jerome, A., White, A., Marston, S., Lamb, S., Pope, D., & Rawlins, C. (2002). The preparation of school psychologists for crisis intervention. Psychology in the Schools, 39(4), 427-439. https://doi.org/10.1002/pits.10044

Erps, K. H., Ochs, S., & Myers, C. L. (2020). School psychologists and suicide risk assessment: Role perception and competency. Psychology in the Schools, 57(6), 884-900. https://doi.org/10.1002/pits.22367

Where Science Meets Policy Part 3: Writing About Your Science for Non-scientific Audiences

Melanie Arenson & Mary Fernandes

It is critical that researchers translate their scientific findings to non-scientist consumers (seriously, we’ve written 2 blog posts about it – find out about engaging with stakeholders here and how to write academic papers for a broader range of stakeholders here). However, many researchers (including us graduate students!) feel uncertain about exactly how or where to write about our science. While graduate students typically get exposure to creating posters, giving talks, and writing scientific articles, very few of us are ever taught how to write for other mediums. Below are a few tips and tricks.

Writing for a non-scientific audience.

  • Adjust your lexicon. Sometimes this is easier said than done. Many of us have been talking about our work in scientific circles for so long that jargon is second-nature for us. Break the habit.  Write about your findings in your typical scientific manner and then go back and ask yourself, “but what does this mean?” — then replace whatever you wrote with that answer. Wherever possible, write in lay terms or connect back to phenomena that people know and understand.
  • Write a story. This sounds abstract, but it is really important. People are good at processing stories — they’re not as good at conceptualizing facts and figures and understanding why they matter. The story will change depending upon the science that you are talking about, but it should flow from beginning to middle to end.
  • Write short. Ideally, people should be able to get the gist your scientific findings and the story you are going to tell them within the first 3 sentences. Get to the point as quickly as possible. For longer pieces (e.g. a blogpost), you can definitely expand, but the first few sentences should be a punch that conveys the big takeaways.
  • Wherever possible, include accessible infographics. What these look like can change from discipline to discipline, but you want the graphic to be accessible, easy to understand without explanation, and to summarize the most important take-home point and/or summarize large amounts of information.

Now, share it!

  • Social Media: If you’ve written something just a few sentences long, tweet it, share it on Facebook, or find a great photograph to represent it on Instagram. Then, interact with anyone who comments on or likes it. Encourage people to share your work, and make sure you’ve provided links back to the original scientific article.
  • Link to longer pieces: If what you’ve written is longer than just a few sentences (e.g. you wrote a blogpost, or have talked about your research in a news article), provide the link to the longer story, but make sure you’ve got a 1-3 sentence summary of your results and why they matter. As a tip, if you’ve followed the tricks listed above, you’ve probably already written those 1-3 sentences.
  • Blog posts: There are a number of science-relevant blogs (in fact, you’re reading one of them!). These blogs can vary from area to area, but they are a fantastic way to disseminate your research.
  • Email and listservs: We know this can feel strange, but you should be sharing your work with your colleagues. This means blasting it out on listservs and sending it to your department. First, people in your field are probably already interested in your work. Second, they also have connections, and may want to forward your work to other people who might also be interested. Whenever possible, include links to both the scientific article and the more accessible format.

Help! The media has asked about my work.
First of all, congratulations! You’ve been contacted by the media, because they want to know more about the really cool science that you are doing.
Many scientists feel nervous about talking to the media. They worry their work will get misrepresented, or feel uncomfortable describing themselves as the expert. Below are a few tricks (some of them may feel familiar).

  • Adjust your lexicon. Before providing information to the news source, do some background research on them to see what their writing style is usually like, and who you think their target audience is. Then, adjust your language accordingly.
  • Tell a story. It’ll be a short story, but it should still be a story. Whenever possible, connect back to why your results matter. Contextualize it within the broader picture.
  • Talk short. Your answers shouldn’t be lengthy. Make sure you already know how you want to talk about your work and what the key takeaways are (think back to those 1-3 sentences you’ve been using for social media and the beginning of blog posts).
  • Plan your responses. Think about what questions you might be asked and plan out how you would respond. Pay special attention to anything you think might be taken out of context; aim not only to be understood, but also to avoid being misunderstood. Be as precise in your language as you can be, without sliding into scientific jargon.
  • Build a relationship. Whenever possible, build rapport with the media author that contacted you. You want to be in a place where you would feel comfortable contacting them if you think they’ve accidentally misrepresented your work.
  • Remember, you are the expert. This one can be really difficult, but you are the expert in your work. Take pride in that, feel confident in that.

Further resources.
Don’t just take our word for it! Tons of people have written about communicating scientific findings to non-scientists. Below are a few of our favorites:

Keep following the series for more ways to translate your science! Up next, we’ll discuss how to write a policy brief.

Where Science Meets Policy Part 1: Involving Stakeholders in Every Step of Your Research

Where Science Meets Policy

Part 1: Involving Stakeholders in Every Step of Your Research

Melanie Arenson, Renee Cloutier, Travis Loughran, Mary Fernandes

There is a well-known lack of consistent translation of scientific research into public policy. To address this, the scientific community has instituted a substantial push to involve “stakeholders” in our research, in order to make it more targeted, translatable, and impactful. But what does that mean practically, and how do we do it?

What is a stakeholder?

According to the American Psychological Association, stakeholders include anybody that could be influenced by the research you conduct (e.g., they have a “stake” in it). What does that look like? Well, imagine you’re developing a new intervention for adolescents. Stakeholders for such a project might include the people receiving and providing the treatment (e.g. the adolescent and therapist), as well as the child’s parents, teachers, and peers, the administrators in both the treatment setting and the school, and the policy-makers dictating the allocation of school-based resources. Depending on your area of research, this group of stakeholders may expand to include businesses, insurance companies, curriculum writers, and nonprofits.

Why involve them at all?

Too often in academic settings, we formulate a question, conduct the research in our labs, find exciting results, publish a paper in an academic journal, and then that research gets cited by other academics in other academic journals. The problem with that? The information we’ve discovered doesn’t ever actually leave the world in which it was created.

Stakeholders, if engaged properly, are uniquely positioned in two ways to help change that: (1) their opinions can be sought to ensure that the questions we ask, the research paradigms we create, and the treatments we develop appropriately reflect the real-world applications that interested us in the first place; and (2) they hold connections that can help with dissemination when we find those really cool results. They are mired in the frequently messy reality that we try to emulate in our labs, and understand what is feasible and what isn’t because they live it, day to day, in a way we as researchers rarely do. They also hold connections in the community and have specialized insights into the most appropriate and impactful way to translate our research to the populations that need to hear it the most.

So how do we involve them?

This can depend on your setting, but below are a few options:

1)    Use your existing network. Most likely, you can think of a few stakeholders you already know, whether in a professional or personal context. One of the easiest ways to get stakeholders involved is to ask those people to have coffee with you and chat. If they’re interested in what you’re doing they might be a good person to get involved, but they also can likely suggest people they know that might be able to help.

2)    Focus groups are extremely helpful. They can be used as sources for more permanent stakeholder involvement (e.g. you can recruit stakeholders that will remain involved for the duration of the project), but they also are formalized way to engage stakeholders just as they are.  Recruit as broad of a range of stakeholders as you can, know the questions you want to ask, and be prepared to lightly guide a discussion. Keep in mind that it may be helpful to group participants by stakeholder type, depending on your project and the diversity of stakeholders. If someone seems particularly insightful, motivated, and you think they may be good fit for your research team, talk to them about the possibility of getting more involved (and keep a list of these types of people as possible stakeholders for future projects!).

3)   Use conferences to build connections. When you’re talking to colleagues about your research, don’t forget to talk about recruiting stakeholders (they may know someone that would be a perfect fit!), and attend talks that are related to the research you want to do as they may give you an idea for stakeholders you haven’t thought of. Check the program for any stakeholder-related gatherings, which may include a talk by patients, booths run by educators and/or companies, or division-specific events related to specific providers.

4)   Don’t forget about your professional organizations. Many organizations have committees and departments dedicated to influencing and crafting policy. These sub-organizations can connect you and your academic work to the policy arenas you want to influence. Reach out to committee members and tell them about your research and the implications you think it has. They’ll be perfectly positioned to help you translate your findings to the community stakeholders you want to reach. They also may be able to direct you resources and stakeholders you haven’t thought of.

5)   Finally, use your research. Talk to your participants, their parents, and the community connections you use to recruit your sample, and ask them if they would like a summary of your findings once your research is complete. If you haven’t already built a relationship with them, offering to reach out (and taking the time to do it!) is a great foundation. Similar to focus groups, if you think any of those people would be a good fit for your research, offer the opportunity for them to get involved in future projects.

Breaking the academic loop:

Once you have successfully designed, executed, and analyzed your research project, how do you convey the findings to a broad range of stakeholders? Researchers and policy makers often have different decision-making processes, time-lines, vocabularies, and incentives (Brownson, Royer, Ewing, & McBride, 2006; Grande et al., 2014), which create barriers to effective communication. Overcoming these barriers requires several, multi-level actions, many of which will be addressed in this series. Follow us for our next piece on how to write academic papers for a broad range of stakeholders.

 

References:

Brownson, R. C., Royer, C., Ewing, R., & McBride, T. D. (2006). Researchers and policymakers: travelers in parallel universes. American journal of preventive medicine, 30(2), 164-172.

Grande, D., Gollust, S. E., Pany, M., Seymour, J., Goss, A., Kilaru, A., & Meisel, Z. (2014). Translating research for health policy: researchers’ perceptions and use of social media. Health Affairs, 33(7), 1278-1285.