Senior Occupational Psychologist

Contents

• Location
• About the job
• Benefits
• Things you need to know
• Apply and further information

Glasgow, York, Bristol, Newcastle, Manchester, Leeds, Sheffield

About the job

Job summary

The job is in the Occupational Psychology Service (OPS), which sits within the Government People Group (GPG) in Cabinet Office. The job is part of the wider Government Occupational Psychology Profession (a recognised government specialist profession).

GPG

GPG exists to work with departments, professions, and functions to build a modern, effective Civil Service.

We support the government workforce with the right skills and capability. We are working with leaders to get the right people in the right jobs, with the right skills and continuous learning to excel in their roles.

We provide leadership, and in turn, create leaders with exceptional line management capability across departments, influencing partners in the wider public sector and beyond. This involves getting our retention and reward strategy right, to nurture specific skills, and create pride and resilience in our workforce.

Our role is also to provide system leadership across central government in pulling together back office services. Collectively, we help support the Cabinet Office’s priority to drive efficiencies, and reforms that will make government work better, to ultimately provide a better service to the public.

OPS

Acting as an internal consultancy to all of the Civil Service, we collaborate with government departments, functions and professions to develop and deliver high quality, customer-focused assessment products and solutions grounded in great digital standards and best practice occupational psychology and psychometrics principles. Our services aim to help identify and develop the best people from all backgrounds, including the Civil Service’s prestigious talent programmes. 

You will be joining a high performing multi-disciplinary team of occupational psychologists, psychometricians and digital experts who use evidence-based practice to put the client and user at the heart of what they do. 

The Government Occupational Psychology Profession

The profession comprises over 250 members across all the major government departments and many agencies and arms-length bodies – which makes us the largest Occupational Psychology community in the U.K. The Head of the Government Occupational Psychology Profession is Dr Antonia Dietmann. Building on the foundation of skills that you developed in your Master’s degree, your career in the Government Occupational Psychology Profession will develop both your technical and consultancy capabilities. Throughout the year there will be many opportunities to connect with other members of the profession and build the relationships that will make the most rewarding occupational psychology career.

Job description

As Senior Occupational Psychologist you will work closely with the Head of the Occupational Psychology Service to provide thought leadership in the areas of selection and assessment for the Civil Service. 

You will play a critical role in supporting the design, development, trialling and evaluation of a suite of online tests used for recruitment and talent selection in the Civil Service. You will also provide support and advice for clients to ensure best practice use of assessments and create guidance to support candidates through their testing journey. 

You will have the opportunity to lead on psychological and insight-led research projects using both quantitative and qualitative methods to explore the wider recruitment context and better enable the Occupational Psychology Service to make evidence-based decisions. Examples of such work could include:

• evaluating the impact, and potential, of artificial intelligence methods for selection and assessment.
• working with digital specialists to research and develop transformative ways of defining job requirements, assessing people and ensuring automated recruitment processes are fit for purpose from a people measurement perspective.

You will act as a subject matter expert and represent the Occupational Psychology Service professionally with a wide range of customers and stakeholders. You will also be expected to contribute to the development of professional practice and work collaboratively with colleagues on a wider portfolio of activities when the need arises. 

Key responsibilities include:

Psychological Assessment at Work

• Scoping and designing bespoke assessment solutions including: psychometric tests, situational judgement questionnaires and other evidence-based sifting tools, behavioural work sample simulations, assessment centres and interviews.
• Using online assessment platforms to implement and support delivery of assessment solutions; working with digital, data assurance and diversity colleagues to ensure new assessments are compliant, fair, and meet customer and user needs.
• Managing multiple assessment projects at all stages of the consultancy cycle.
• Working with customers to ensure best practice use of assessments to support client decision making including pass-mark setting, moderation processes, and reducing risk of adverse impact.
• Evaluating the effectiveness of assessment solutions by identifying appropriate statistical methods/techniques and interrogation of data to ensure they are robust, fair, reliable and valid (e.g. predictive validity, adverse impact analysis).

Leadership, Engagement and Motivation

• Act as a subject matter expert providing expert advice on recruitment, use of assessments and wider Occupational Psychology areas.
• Keep up-to-date with the latest innovations in assessments, psychometrics, modern testing methods and in particular recruitment testing.
• Line management of one trainee psychologist may be required.

Providing expert advice and research

• Providing professional occupational psychology advice and guidance to clients and senior leaders to ensure adherence to industry best practice and the highest ethical standards.
• Providing occupational psychologist support for information gathering exercises such as surveys and focus groups, and providing activities to support organisational development.
• Representing the Occupational Psychology profession at working groups, committees and other forums across government to inform policy and operations.
• Researching new and emerging assessment methods/processes; setting up and conducting detailed studies to explore their impact and efficacy.
• Chartered Psychologists and Registered Occupational Psychologists are required to supervise Trainee Occupational Psychologists on the qualification to achieve Registered Occupational Psychologist status. If not already registered on the Register of Applied Practice Psychology Supervisors (RAPPS), work towards RAPPS eligibility within a reasonable timescale.

Person specification

Memberships – Essential

• Chartered Member of the British Psychological Society.
• Full Member of the Division of Occupational Psychology, British Psychological Society.

Licences – Essential

• Registered Occupational Psychologist with the Health & Care Professions Council.

Qualifications – Essential

• MSc Occupational Psychology (or equivalent titled course) approved as Stage 1 by the British Psychological Society.
• British Psychological Society Qualification in Occupational Psychology Stage 2 or have completed Part 1 and Part 2 of a professional doctorate in occupational psychology, which confers Chartered Member with the BPS (see Memberships) and Registered Occupational Psychologist with the HCPC (see Licences).

Technical Skills

• We will assess the technical skills (Knowledge Base, Consultancy and Research and Evaluation) listed in the Government Occupational Psychology Skills & Standards at Senior Psychologist level (p17 – 23).
• We will assess Ambassador, from the Government Occupational Psychology Skills & Standards (p15 – 16).
• These technical skills should have been demonstrated in the application of occupational psychology in recruitment, selection and assessment, especially development and implementation of psychological assessments and in-depth experience of using statistical analysis software packages.

Additional information:

A minimum 60% of your working time should be spent at your principal workplace. Although requirements to attend other locations for official business will also count towards this level of attendance.

Licences

Registered Occupational Psychologist with the Health & Care Professions Council.

Qualifications

Each of the following:

• MSc Occupational Psychology (or equivalent titled course) approved as Stage 1 by the British Psychological Society.
• British Psychological Society Qualification in Occupational Psychology Stage 2 or have completed Part 1 and Part 2 of a professional doctorate in occupational psychology, which confers Chartered Member with the BPS (see Memberships) and Registered Occupational Psychologist with the HCPC (see Licences).

Memberships

Each of the following:

• Chartered Member of the British Psychological Society.
• Full Member of the Division of Occupational Psychology, British Psychological Society.

Technical skills

We’ll assess you against these technical skills during the selection process:

• Knowledge Base
• Consultancy
• Research and Evaluation
• Ambassador

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £42,382, Cabinet Office contributes £12,278 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides.

• Learning and development tailored to your role.
• An environment with flexible working options.
• A culture encouraging inclusion and diversity.
• A Civil Service Pension which provides an attractive pension, benefits for dependants and employer contributions of 28.97%.
• A minimum of 25 days of paid annual leave, increasing by one day per year up to a maximum of 30.

The Civil Service welcomes applications from people who have recently left prison or have an unspent conviction. Read more about prison leaver recruitment (opens in new window).

Once this job has closed, the job advert will no longer be available. You may want to save a copy for your records.

Contact point for applicants

Job contact :

• Name : Paul Weldon
• Email : Paul.weldon@cabinetoffice.gov.uk

Recruitment team

• Email : cabinetofficerecruitment.grs@cabinetoffice.gov.uk

Further information

Appointment to the Civil Service is governed by the Civil Service Commission’s Recruitment Principles. If you feel that your application has not been treated in accordance with the Recruitment Principles, and wish to make a complaint, then in the first instance you should contact Government Recruitment Service by email at : cabinetofficerecruitment.grs@cabinetoffice.gov.uk

If you are not satisfied with the response you receive, then you can contact the Civil Service Commission at info@csc.gov.uk. For further information on the Recruitment Principles and bringing a complaint to the Civil Service Commission, please visit their website at: https://civilservicecommission.independent.gov.uk.

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