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Career/work opportunities in Poland for a guy with a Bachelor of Science in Psychology?


Ethanolbrah  3 | 9  
29 May 2014 /  #1
Hello everyone,

I'm about to finish my studies in Psychology and was wondering what kind of perspectives do psychologists have in Poland. In general I'm open for anything as long as my bachelor degree suffices as a qualification (I am graduating from a prestigious German university). I can speak Spanish, German, English, Slovak and some Czech and am currently learning Polish on my own. I'm 25 years old, in case that's somehow relevant.
hoopla  
29 May 2014 /  #2
Can you even speak the proper Polish language?

Working in Poland requires you to connect with people through their language. Even though some companies do speak English. Polish language remains important to increase your chances of getting hired. You can always keep trying to find opportunities for a few months to a year. That's what i would do. But after that you'll have to move on.
Roger5  1 | 1432  
29 May 2014 /  #3
Ethan "what kind of perspectives do psychologists have in Poland"
That depends on the psychologist. I think you mean prospects.
DominicB  - | 2706  
30 May 2014 /  #4
I'm about to finish my studies in Psychology and was wondering what kind of perspectives do psychologists have in Poland. In general I'm open for anything as long as my bachelor degree suffices as a qualification (I am graduating from a prestigious German university).

Basically none. Poland is awash with unemployed psychology graduates, and even those with a masters degree have a difficult time finding work. Furthermore, healthcare and public sector work in Poland is extremely poorly paid, especially at the starting level. Without a good working knowledge of Polish, there is basically nothing you can do in a clinical setting.

Your only chance is to find work at a western company and get transferred to Poland and work for western wages. Probably in something like HR or marketing. This is not likely to happen, though, for an entry level flunky, especially in a non-technical field.

Otherwise, it is extremely likely that the only work you will find is cold-call sales and low level debt collections for a call center, a truly lousy job that pays too little for you to survive on as you don't have any salable skills or experience.

Your mistake was studying psychology instead of something useful engineering, science or other math-intensive fields. There is a worldwide glut of psychology graduates. If you were an IT engineer, there might be a chance of finding work in Poland, although at wages much lower than in the West.

At this point, the best bet for you would be to return to school and get some serious salable qualifications in a math-intensive field with good job prospects. You can use your bachelors from a prestigious German university to get into a good graduate program in a math-intensive marketable branch of applied psychology like market research analytics or econometrics. The factor that is most strongly correlated with future earnings and savings potential is the amount of advanced applied mathematics you have studied.

The other thing you can do is really beef up your language skills and get work as a translator. However, that's not all that easy to do if you are not a native speaker of English and don't have an in-demand specialty like law, science, medicine, finance or something like that. I did that myself, and made a lot of money by Polish standards translating clinical science into English.

Bottom line is that I can't see even the faintest hint of a future for you in Poland. At best, a very poorly paid dead-end job that you will end up trapped in. Sorry that this is not what you wanted to hear, but at least you have a way to make up for past mistakes and position yourself nicely on the job market if you invest the time and energy. Moving to Poland at this stage in your life would be career suicide.
OP Ethanolbrah  3 | 9  
30 May 2014 /  #5
Uh, I guess I forgot to mention that I am not looking for a job in the clinical sector.

Your remarks on psychology not being useful and that everyone lacking a STEM degree should pursue one just for the sake of it (despite actual aptitude for math) are laughable. Not everybody can nor wants to become an engineer or an IT. The day everybody follows your piece of advice is the day where even engineers will have a hard time finding a job.

I can translate texts (even scientific ones), but I guess you need a degree or an official certificate in order to be hired as a translator.

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