Psychologist — skills, knowledge and links
Where this job sits in the official classifications, what those classifications say it demands, and what it connects to. Every block names its source: our own judgements, the U.S. Department of Labor's O*NET, or the U.S. Department of Education.
How it connects#
O*NET also lists (no page here yet): Mental Health and Substance Abuse Social Workers · Marriage and Family Therapists · Psychiatrists · Healthcare Social Workers · School Psychologists · Neuropsychologists · Clinical Neuropsychologists · Advanced Practice Psychiatric Nurses
In the official classification#
Clinical and Counseling Psychologists
Fit with this page: covers part of this page
Job Zone 5: extensive preparation
See it on O*NET OnLine ↗School Psychologists
Fit with this page: covers part of this page
Job Zone 5: extensive preparation
See it on O*NET OnLine ↗In Europe, internationally and in Singapore
Psychologists
Fit with this page: closest match, not the same job
Clinical psychologist
Fit with this page: covers part of this page
Educational psychologist
Fit with this page: covers part of this page
What O*NET rates highest#
From O*NET 19-3033.00 (Clinical and Counseling Psychologists). Ordered by O*NET's importance rating; the words are O*NET's own scale anchors.
Transferable skills
- Social PerceptivenessVery important
- Service OrientationVery important
- Complex Problem SolvingVery important
- Judgment and Decision MakingVery important
- CoordinationVery important
- PersuasionVery important
- InstructingImportant
- Time ManagementImportant
Knowledge
- PsychologyExtremely important
- Therapy and CounselingExtremely important
- English LanguageVery important
- Education and TrainingVery important
- Customer and Personal ServiceVery important
- Sociology and AnthropologyVery important
Work activities
- Establishing and Maintaining Interpersonal RelationshipsExtremely important
- Making Decisions and Solving ProblemsExtremely important
- Assisting and Caring for OthersExtremely important
- Documenting/Recording InformationVery important
- Getting InformationVery important
- Updating and Using Relevant KnowledgeVery important
Abilities
- Oral ExpressionExtremely important
- Written ComprehensionExtremely important
- Oral ComprehensionVery important
- Problem SensitivityVery important
- Written ExpressionVery important
- Deductive ReasoningVery important
Essential skills
- Reading ComprehensionExtremely important
- Active ListeningVery important
- WritingVery important
- Critical ThinkingVery important
- SpeakingVery important
Each task in O*NET's terms#
O*NET describes work as detailed activities. Each of this page's 5 tasks is matched only against the activities O*NET lists for this occupation, with a stated fit; 5 match at least one. The alignment and its fit are this site's judgement, made task by task by its AI agent (Claude) on 2026-09-26; O*NET does not align tasks like ours. The activity names are O*NET's, the translations ours.
- Giving standardised testsAdminister standardized physical or psychological tests.the closest O*NET has, not the same · Staffing Organizational Units · O*NET 31.0
- Writing the assessment reportWrite reports or evaluations.the closest O*NET has, not the same · Documenting/Recording Information · O*NET 31.0The same activity in: Social worker
- Intake and diagnosisCollect information about clients.covers part of this task · Getting Information · O*NET 31.0Diagnose neural or psychological disorders.the closest O*NET has, not the same · Making Decisions and Solving Problems · O*NET 31.0
- PsychotherapyCounsel clients on mental health or personal achievement.the closest O*NET has, not the same · Providing Consultation and Advice to Others · O*NET 31.0Modify treatment plans to accommodate client needs.covers part of this task · Thinking Creatively · O*NET 31.0The same activity in: Counsellor
- Notes, letters and paperworkMaintain records, documents, or other files.the closest O*NET has, not the same · Documenting/Recording Information · O*NET 31.0
Tasks O*NET proposes to add#
O*NET's analysts propose new or reworded task statements for future data collection, drawing on what surveyed workers write in, research into new technologies and professional associations. They are candidates, not yet part of the rated task list, and they say nothing about whether automation is involved. This site does not fold them into its own task judgements.
- Analyze schoolwide academic performance to determine students' needs.New task · 2026-08 · from occupational experts · O*NET 31.0
- Supervise and instruct students on internship assignments.New task · 2026-08 · from occupational experts · O*NET 31.0
Rules that bind this work#
Laws, regulations, court rules, regulators' guidance and collective agreements that this page's verified records read — each with the verb that matters and whom it binds. Read from each record by this site's AI agent (Claude) on 2026-09-26. Official names stay in their own language.
公認心理師法
第四十二条第二項 · must · binds a person (licensed or not) · requires a person to do, decide or answer for it → Psychotherapy
第二条 · defines · binds a person (licensed or not) → Intake and diagnosis
2025-06-01 · the record →Digital front door technologies to gather service user information for NHS Talking Therapies for anxiety and depression assessments
1.1–1.3 · may · binds an organisation (employer, deployer, operator) → Intake and diagnosis
2025-07-24 · the record →Wellness and Oversight for Psychological Resources Act
must not · binds a person (licensed or not) · requires a person to do, decide or answer for it → Psychotherapy
may · binds a person (licensed or not) → Notes, letters and paperwork
2025-08-01 · the record →Our task judgements#
O*NET says what this job demands. It does not say what automation is doing to it — that is what this site's 5 task judgements are for: 4 backed by a verified event, 1 platform inference. VOLO judgement
Sources and rules#
- Each block says where it comes from: this site's own judgements, O*NET, the U.S. Department of Education's CIP–SOC crosswalk, the European ESCO classification and its official crosswalk to O*NET, the ILO's ISCO-08, Singapore's SSOC 2024, or something computed mechanically from those. Nothing on this page is a rating we made up.
- O*NET's importance ratings are used only to order and shorten the lists. They are never combined with this site's impact index or evidence counts.
- The fit between our page and an O*NET occupation is our judgement and is stated per code: same job, broader, part of it, or only the closest there is.
- The ESCO and ISCO-08 fits are derived mechanically from the official ESCO–O*NET crosswalk; where we override it, we say why in our data (for example, the crosswalk pairs radiologists with radiographers, which is a different job). The SSOC 2024 fit is our reading of the Singapore Department of Statistics' own titles and definitions. Official names are shown as their publishers write them; we do not translate them.
- Each task is matched only against the detailed work activities O*NET lists for the codes this page maps to. Where nothing fits, the page says why instead of forcing a match: work O*NET does not describe yet (used only for tasks we judge to be emerging), or nothing in O*NET's list for this occupation. An alignment never changes a task's direction, its basis or the impact index.
- Rules are read only from this site's verified records. A rule's official name must appear word for word in a record that reads it, so no name is made up; a policy mandate is read only as 'must', 'must not' or 'funds', because 'should' and 'in principle' are not a mandate. Reading a rule never changes a task's direction, its basis or the impact index.
- How these pieces fit together — objects, links and the actions that change them — is drawn as one diagram: The VOLO ontology
- ESCO (European Commission), occupation records from the ESCO API; CC BY 4.0. ESCO–O*NET crosswalk, ESCO Secretariat with the U.S. Department of Labor/ETA, version 1 (Sep 2022), O*NET-SOC 2019 ↔ ESCO v1.1.0; CC BY 4.0. Singapore Department of Statistics, Singapore Standard Occupational Classification 2024 and its correspondence with ISCO-08.
- O*NET 31.0 Database, August 2026 release, U.S. Department of Labor/Employment and Training Administration, CC BY 4.0. O*NET® is a trademark of USDOL/ETA. The translations of O*NET descriptors on this page are ours, not O*NET's.