Land your Target Job: Post-Graduation Career Planning
Presentation Type
Tutorial Presentation
Abstract
The job market in academia is rapidly changing: presumably, at least in part, due to the financial challenges universities face across the U.S., only about 10% of PhDs secure a tenure-track position now (Fernandes et al., 2020; Roy et al., 2024). Given the extremely competitive situation, simply putting effort in is not enough. Graduate students also need to be strategic. However, do students really know what universities want from candidates? In this tutorial, I will provide ingredients for developing a successful roadmap to achieve students’ career goals. Some critical factors include citations, publications, career development awards, and the programs students are enrolled in (Tregellas et al., 2018; Wapman et al., 2022). Additionally, individuals with master’s or Ph.D. degrees predominantly described networking as the most important factor (personal data from interviewing N = 43). Building upon these data, I will introduce tangible strategies to build students’ resumes and required experience based on their career goals: The continuum of research-intensive and teaching-intensive positions, drawn from my own experience of living at both extreme ends (a postdoc fellowship at an independent research institute and tenure-track faculty at a liberal arts college). Specifically, I will introduce the expected responsibilities of faculty members in different settings (i.e., the proportion of service, research, and teaching), as well as some reality checks (e.g., financial capacity, teaching/research assistants, and how they impact faculty’s work). Then, I will guide students to reconsider their career goals (‘do you want to teach or research at a university or do you want to work in an industry?’). Given the career goals, I will discuss the timeline for these experiences to be built around the general application deadline. By taking these steps, students can learn to allocate their time in the graduate program to become more competitive and develop effective and realistic objectives to achieve their career goals. Some of the information may provide harsh reality; however, the primary message I would like to deliver is that it is only the probability. Students can beat the odds, and eventually, everything boils down to what they are really passionate about.
Land your Target Job: Post-Graduation Career Planning
The job market in academia is rapidly changing: presumably, at least in part, due to the financial challenges universities face across the U.S., only about 10% of PhDs secure a tenure-track position now (Fernandes et al., 2020; Roy et al., 2024). Given the extremely competitive situation, simply putting effort in is not enough. Graduate students also need to be strategic. However, do students really know what universities want from candidates? In this tutorial, I will provide ingredients for developing a successful roadmap to achieve students’ career goals. Some critical factors include citations, publications, career development awards, and the programs students are enrolled in (Tregellas et al., 2018; Wapman et al., 2022). Additionally, individuals with master’s or Ph.D. degrees predominantly described networking as the most important factor (personal data from interviewing N = 43). Building upon these data, I will introduce tangible strategies to build students’ resumes and required experience based on their career goals: The continuum of research-intensive and teaching-intensive positions, drawn from my own experience of living at both extreme ends (a postdoc fellowship at an independent research institute and tenure-track faculty at a liberal arts college). Specifically, I will introduce the expected responsibilities of faculty members in different settings (i.e., the proportion of service, research, and teaching), as well as some reality checks (e.g., financial capacity, teaching/research assistants, and how they impact faculty’s work). Then, I will guide students to reconsider their career goals (‘do you want to teach or research at a university or do you want to work in an industry?’). Given the career goals, I will discuss the timeline for these experiences to be built around the general application deadline. By taking these steps, students can learn to allocate their time in the graduate program to become more competitive and develop effective and realistic objectives to achieve their career goals. Some of the information may provide harsh reality; however, the primary message I would like to deliver is that it is only the probability. Students can beat the odds, and eventually, everything boils down to what they are really passionate about.