Reference no: EM133717508

1. How can an applicant stand out when applying for jobs similar to yours?

2. How is success measured at your job, and what actions do you take to feel successful?

3. Can you describe the key skills and qualities that you believe make a successful school psychologist?
4. In your experience, what are some effective strategies for building rapport and maintaining positive relationships with students, parents, and other professionals in the field of education?

5. What are some common challenges or obstacles that school psychologists face in their work, and how do you recommend overcoming them to ensure success in this role?

Here are my interviewees answers:

1. Applicants can stand out when applying for school psychology jobs by having a variety of experiences and knowledge. This can be difficult for new graduates, but they can try to ensure that they get a variety in their practicum and internship experiences.

2. The hardest part about jobs in education is you never truly know if you made a difference or were "successful". You have to just do the best that you can to make sure that kids get what they need and that families feel heard and involved in their student's education.

3. The key skills and qualities a school psychologist needs are to be skilled at understanding and using data for decision making and being a good communicator/listener. You have to be willing to work collaboratively with teachers and other staff to develop the best plan of action for students. You have to be open minded to other viewpoints and flexible with your thinking and time.

4. Good communication skills are the most important aspect of building positive relationships with staff, students and parents. This includes listening and valuing others points of view. The best strategy for this is asking questions. What are their concerns? What do they think would help? With students it depends on the age, but getting a sense of their interests so you can build rapport around what they like. Really, whether it's staff, parents or students, if people feel they were heard and their opinion mattered then teams function in a healthy manner.

5. One big obstacle for school psychologists is the breadth of knowledge and skills that we are expected to have and keep current on. These include but are not limited: having a thorough understanding of special education law, conduction comprehensive evaluations which includes being knowledgeable about all the different assessments out there for cognitive ability, achievement, social/emotional development, executive functioning, etc, having knowledge of evidence based academic and social/emotional interventions, providing said interventions, and the list goes on. With all of that another big obstacle is time. There simply isn't enough time in a day. You have to work with your district on where your strengths lie and determine if there are other roles that can take some of the load (social workers/counselors for example). When applying and interviewing make sure districts are clear with you on what the role entails. The role can look very different from district to district. You'll have to learn to prioritize workload and set boundaries or you will burn out.