Work, Organizational and Personnel Psychology

I'm now employed at Nouryon, and am working on some interesting projects. For example, I'm analysing our international HR offices to try to answer the question of how we can make them more efficient.

Work, Organizational and Personnel Psychology offers a good balance between practice and research. The programme continuously establishes links with actual practice, even in theoretical course units such as Personnel Selection. In addition, the Master’s track has a strong academic perspective, which both your own personal development and your future employer will benefit from. This is what will distinguish you from HRM students in the workplace.

I have a few pieces of advice for potential students. First of all, make sure you attend the planning meeting at the beginning of the year. It'll give you an idea of what you want to do and when, and what you will need in order to do it. Also choose an interesting placement; this will really help you a lot.

I’m now almost finished with my fourth assignment in two years time, so I have one assignment per six months on average. It’s great because it gives me the chance to see many different companies and carry out different types of work. It’s also sometimes called ‘legal job hopping’. I arrived at this job through my Master’s thesis, which was commissioned by the local government. My thesis discussed the development of the labour market in the Northern Netherlands. They were very impressed with my report; the way I presented it to them, and the way in which I made use of statistics. The latter is what got me a job as data expert in their team. As an interim professional, I have the chance to get to know many organisations in a relatively short amount of time and to try out different types of work. My professional development is therefore quite fast-paced. When you start your first job, you usually have no idea what you want to do and which skills you have. This job gives me the opportunity to discover my professional self and to find out what it is that I enjoy doing.In the current labour market, it is very important to attract the right people. Few people are the right fit and you want to keep the ones you managed to contract. That is why staff selection matters. In my current role, I'm also active as a selection psychologist, so I use my knowledge about assessments on a daily basis.I very frequently enter situations where people do things in a certain way because ‘that’s how they’ve always done it’ or because they simply don’t know how to do it and have, through experience, learned to do it the right way without even knowing it. I am able to use the knowledge from the WOP degree programme to improve, or even professionalize, business operations. Also, when a new project is about to start I can be of value, because I can rapidly familiarise myself with a topic and am able to find scientific information about the topic quickly.At the time, the Master’s in WOP was a logical next step for me after my Bachelor’s in Applied Psychology. I realized that my patience with clients runs out quickly if there is no progress. It suits me better to look at how people who function normally can function even better.In the future, I hope to hold a managerial position or even be on the board of a great organisation. That would have to be an organisation of which the core values are aligned with my outlook on life. Only then would I be able to give 100%.

I studied Psychology on Mallorca, where I’m originally from, and in Sweden on an Erasmus scholarship. A course unit in Occupational Psychology opened up a whole new world to me. I decided to further specialize in staff wellbeing and leadership, and chose to follow the Master’s track in Work, Organizational and Personnel Psychology at the UG because it's highly regarded and taught completely in English. The international environment also appealed to me.

This Master’s track teaches you lots of practical skills, for example in the Coaching course unit. I still benefit greatly from this, not only when coaching staff members, but also when designing projects. In addition, you learn to translate theoretical knowledge into real-life questions, such as how to increase creativity on the work floor or how to motivate staff members. I keep up to date with specialist literature and read a lot about new research. My employer offers me all the space I need to apply my knowledge to support the staff’s wellbeing. And that's what I enjoy doing most.

A variety of aspects of the Master’s track in Work, Organizational and Personnel Psychology have reappeared in my work. I still regularly consult the various motivation theories when I'm designing a training course. The practical course unit in Coaching has also helped me a lot, as well as the course unit in Creativity and Innovation in Organizations, which challenges you to think about how to translate theory into practice.

Graduates of the Master’s track in Work, Organizational and Personnel Psychology are experts in the field of culture and behavioural change within organizations. They're able to convert the desired changes into concrete behaviour. They can give feedback, ask questions, and motivate people. They recognize team dynamics and can identify the formal and informal leaders. And, above all, they dare to put their finger on what’s going on, impartially and objectively. And that, I think, is what our profession is all about.

Bringing the needs of an organization and those of its staff together demands a lot of knowledge and creativity.

If you're interested in applying knowledge from several different domains within psychology, the Master’s track in Work, Organizational and Personnel Psychology will be right up your street. Our knowledge is based on fundamental aspects of, for example, social, developmental, and personality psychology. My passion is health psychology on the work floor: how do staff members and entrepreneurs stay healthy during their day-to-day life and throughout their careers?

Organizational psychology is a relatively wide field. I therefore advise my students to keep an open mind, to be curious about all course units and new perspectives, but also to plan their studies properly. Do you already know what you would like to specialize in? Or have you not decided yet? In any case, our Master’s track will prepare you for all domains, so that you'll have plenty of career options after graduating.