Overview

Psychological operations officer conducts operations to convey selected information and indicators to foreign audiences. Psychological Operations leaders lead from the front and adjust to dynamic environments that are constantly changing and challenging.

Job Duties

• Commanding and controlling psychological operations and combined armed forces during ground combat
  
• Coordinate employment of psychological operations Soldiers, actions and activities at all levels of command in U.S. unilateral, joint and multinational operations

Requirements

Those who want to serve must first take the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery, a series of tests that helps you better understand your strengths and identify which Army jobs are best for you.

Training

Job training for a psychological operations officer requires completion of the Psychological Operations Officer Qualification Course, where you will strengthen leadership skills and acquire tactics, techniques and procedures and other critical information sufficient for a base of knowledge that leads to success in the first unit of assignment.

Training will also include classroom instruction combined with scenario-based practical exercises and a command-post exercise. Qualification is completed with a situational-driven field-training exercise.

Helpful Skills

• Intelligent
  
• Physically fit
  
• Able to perform under physical and mental pressure

Learn more about the ASVAB and see what jobs you could qualify for.

Compensation

Total compensation includes housing, medical, food, special pay, and vacation time. Learn more about total compensation.

Education Benefits

In the Army, qualified students can earn full-tuition, merit-based scholarships, allowances for books and fees, plus an annual stipend for living expenses. Learn more about education benefits.

Future Civilian Careers

The skills learned may help prepare you for a future within federal government agencies, such as the State Department’s Foreign Service and intelligence community’s Central Intelligence Agency, Defense Intelligence Agency or the National Security Agency.

The training you receive will prepare you for other fields, such as market research, sales and advertising or business management. Because of the time you’ll spend deployed overseas, you’ll have first-hand knowledge of foreign cultures that will help prepare you for a career in cultural anthropology, sales-management, advertising executive, systems integration, editor, social worker or counselor.