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Career Development

Career Exploration

Professional and career development should not be overlooked or undervalued. No matter your career path, professional development is an implicit expectation of your graduate education and essential to your success as you enter graduate school, move through your education and move forward in your career. Moreover, in today's climate particularly, it is vital that you are flexible and adaptable in considering your career path. While you may have a PLAN A for your career, you should by necessity consider a PLAN B and C. 

This chart from the National Association of Colleges and Employers shows that skills employers outside of higher education most want also make you competitive for the academic job market. Thus, intentionally attending to these skills and capacities makes you marketable no matter your path. 

While it may be tempting to rush into finding the job you think you want after graduate school, one of the most important steps you can take on your career development journey is taking time to reflect on who you are, where you’ve been and how you feel about that. Oftentimes, graduate students are so focused on that next step that they don’t take time to carefully consider the path they’re on and can end up confused and disappointed while looking for jobs. Instead, contemplating your values, experiences, interests and skills will prepare you well to begin your career exploration.  

Self-Assessment 

While you may or may not have completed self-assessments as part of your undergraduate experience, it’s useful to continue to do these throughout your graduate career, as almost every graduate student learns, changes and grows during this time.   

There are many resources for you to conduct a self-assessment. The University Career Center has a set of assessments that are relevant and easy to use.   

Two excellent resources particular to graduate students are MyIDP and ImaginePhD. Both free sites, while targeted for certain populations of graduate students, are useful for all graduate students, and offer values, interests and skills assessment.