---
title: "Industrial-Organizational Psychologist"
description: "Apply principles of psychology to human resources, administration, management, sales, and marketing problems. Activities may include policy planning…"
canonical: "https://nuecareer.com/careers/industrial-organizational-psychologist"
last-updated: "2026-10-09T10:57:55.138Z"
---

# Industrial-Organizational Psychologist

**Category:** Life, Physical, and Social Science · **SOC code:** 19-3032 · **O\*NET-SOC code:** 19-3032.00

Apply principles of psychology to human resources, administration, management, sales, and marketing problems. Activities may include policy planning; employee testing and selection, training, and development; and organizational development and analysis. May work with management to organize the work setting to improve worker productivity.

Also advertised as: Consulting Psychologist; I-O Practitioner (Industrial-Organizational Practitioner); I-O Psychologist (Industrial-Organizational Psychologist); Industrial Psychologist; Management Consultant; Organizational Consultant; Organizational Development Specialist (OD Specialist); Organizational Psychologist.

## At a glance

- **Median annual wage:** $193,950 (BLS OEWS, May 2025)
- **Median hourly wage:** $93.24/hr
- **Wage range (10th–90th percentile):** $79,010 to $247,220, with the middle half between $107,310 and $222,280
- **Total US employment:** 790
- **Typical entry education:** Master's
- **Preparation required:** Considerable preparation — O\*NET rates this "Job Zone Five: Extensive Preparation Needed"
- **Projected growth:** +6.5% over 2025–2035 (BLS EP, 2025–2035)
- **Annual job openings:** 300 openings a year
- **AI-resilience score:** 21/100 — a NueCareer heuristic over O\*NET work activities and context, not a BLS or O\*NET figure

## Pay

National wage distribution, BLS OEWS, May 2025, across 790 US jobs.

| Percentile | Annual wage |
| --- | --- |
| 10th | $79,010 |
| 25th | $107,310 |
| 50th (median) | $193,950 |
| 75th | $222,280 |
| 90th | $247,220 |
| Mean (average) | $170,230 |

### Pay by state

The 2 highest-paying states, by median annual wage. The cost-of-living-adjusted column divides the state median by that state's BEA Regional Price Parity, so the columns answer different questions: the first is what the job pays there, the second is what that pay buys there.

| State | Median annual wage | Cost-of-living adjusted | Employment |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| OR | $174,980 | $169,290 | 60 |
| TX | $139,520 | $143,751 | 40 |

## Outlook

BLS projects employment to move from 4,000 in the 2025–2035 base year to 4,300 by the end of the cycle — a gain of 300 jobs, or +6.5%. Faster than average: 6.5% against 3.5% projected for all occupations over the same cycle. About 300 openings a year are expected on average, counting openings from growth as well as from workers leaving the occupation permanently. Source: BLS EP, 2025–2035.

## How to get in

- **Typical entry education:** Master's degree (BLS Employment Projections).
- **Preparation level:** Considerable preparation — O\*NET's preparation band for this occupation is "Job Zone Five: Extensive Preparation Needed".
- **Related work experience typically required:** None.
- **Typical on-the-job training:** Internship/residency.

### Education people in this job actually hold

O\*NET surveys incumbents, so this distribution describes who is in the job today and can differ from the BLS entry requirement above.

| Education level | Share of workers |
| --- | --- |
| Master's Degree | 57.7% |
| Doctoral Degree | 30.8% |
| Some College Courses | 3.9% |
| Associate's Degree or other 2-year degree | 3.9% |
| Bachelor's Degree | 3.9% |

## What the work involves

- Provide advice on best practices and implementation for selection.
- Develop and implement employee selection or placement programs.
- Analyze data, using statistical methods and applications, to evaluate the outcomes and effectiveness of workplace programs.
- Develop interview techniques, rating scales, and psychological tests used to assess skills, abilities, and interests for the purpose of employee selection, placement, or promotion.
- Observe and interview workers to obtain information about the physical, mental, and educational requirements of jobs, as well as information about aspects such as job satisfaction.
- Facilitate organizational development and change.
- Analyze job requirements and content to establish criteria for classification, selection, training, and other related personnel functions.
- Advise management concerning personnel, managerial, and marketing policies and practices and their potential effects on organizational effectiveness and efficiency.

## Skills and knowledge

### Essential skills

- Reading Comprehension — importance 4.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Listening — importance 4.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Writing — importance 4.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Speaking — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Critical Thinking — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Learning — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Monitoring — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Science — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Transferable skills

These are the skills that carry into other occupations, and they drive the related-occupation and career-change rankings on this site.

- Judgment and Decision Making — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Complex Problem Solving — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Systems Evaluation — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Social Perceptiveness — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Systems Analysis — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Coordination — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Persuasion — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Instructing — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Knowledge areas

- Personnel and Human Resources — importance 4.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Psychology — importance 4.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Education and Training — importance 4.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Administration and Management — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Mathematics — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- English Language — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Abilities

- Written Comprehension — importance 4.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Oral Expression — importance 4.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Oral Comprehension — importance 4.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Written Expression — importance 4.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Deductive Reasoning — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Inductive Reasoning — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

## Who it suits

O\*NET rates every occupation on the six Holland (RIASEC) interest areas, on a 1–7 scale. This occupation's strongest areas are Investigative (I), Enterprising (E), Conventional (C).

| Interest area | Score (1–7) |
| --- | --- |
| I — Investigative | 5.34 |
| E — Enterprising | 4.71 |
| C — Conventional | 4.28 |
| S — Social | 3.99 |
| A — Artistic | 3.13 |
| R — Realistic | 1.05 |

### Personality fit

These scores are **derived by NueCareer**, not published by any government agency: they are cosine similarities between a personality type's trait profile and this occupation's O\*NET interest and work-style ratings, expressed 0–100. Treat them as a starting point for exploration, not as evidence that a type belongs in a job.

| Type | Fit score (0–100) |
| --- | --- |
| ENFJ | 66.4 |
| ENTJ | 66.4 |
| INFJ | 60.0 |
| ENFP | 56.2 |
| INTJ | 55.6 |

Best-fitting types: ENFJ, ENTJ.

## Related occupations

O\*NET's primary related occupations, in its own ranked order.

- [Training and Development Manager](https://nuecareer.com/careers/training-and-development-manager) — median $133,000
- [Training and Development Specialist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/training-and-development-specialist) — median $69,280
- [Management Analyst](https://nuecareer.com/careers/management-analyst) — median $101,860
- [Human Resources Manager](https://nuecareer.com/careers/human-resources-manager) — median $149,280
- [Human Resources Specialist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/human-resources-specialist) — median $75,940
- [Instructional Coordinator](https://nuecareer.com/careers/instructional-coordinator) — median $77,440
- [Educational, Guidance, and Career Counselor and Advisor](https://nuecareer.com/careers/educational-guidance-and-career-counselor-and-advisor) — median $64,330
- [Social and Community Service Manager](https://nuecareer.com/careers/social-and-community-service-manager) — median $80,390
- [Project Management Specialist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/project-management-specialist) — median $102,320
- [Business Teacher, Postsecondary](https://nuecareer.com/careers/business-teacher-postsecondary) — median $99,080

## Sources

- **O\*NET** — O\*NET 31.0 Database, August 2026. https://www.onetcenter.org/database.html
- **BLS OEWS** — BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025. https://www.bls.gov/oes/
- **BLS EP** — BLS Employment Projections, Table 1.2, 2025–2035. https://www.bls.gov/emp/
- **BLS OOH** — BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook, 2025–2035 edition. https://www.bls.gov/ooh/
- **BEA RPP** — BEA Regional Price Parities by State, 2024. https://www.bea.gov/data/prices-inflation/regional-price-parities-state-and-metro-area

---

This bank includes information from the O\*NET 31.0 Database by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA). Used under the CC BY 4.0 license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). O\*NET® is a trademark of USDOL/ETA. NueCareer has transformed the data by joining it to BLS wage and projection data and deriving facet, personality-fit and AI-resilience scores. BLS and BEA data are public domain (17 U.S.C. §105).

O\*NET content is used under [CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). How these figures are sourced and derived: https://nuecareer.com/careers/methodology

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