Exploring Careers Paths

There are many reasons why doctoral students and alumni begin to consider careers outside of the traditional tenure-track path. Some begin to feel that the academic path that they were on is no longer the best fit for them. Others find that geographic or family concerns require them to expand the scope of their job search. Others decide that in the face of a tight academic job market, it’s worthwhile to develop a “Plan B” whether or not they put that plan into action. If you have found that your priorities and career goals have changed since the time you started graduate school, you are not alone.

Approach your exploration of expanded career paths as you would any other project. This one will have three elements:

Self Assessment

What is self assessment? Self assessment means taking some time to think about your own definitions of what it means to be happy and successful in a career (and setting aside some of the messages you may have gotten from friends and family, advisers, and peers). What are your interests and values? What are the skills you would like to put into play in your next role? Self assessment can be informal (keeping a journal) or formal (taking a career assessment like the MBTI or the Strong Interest Inventory).

Research

Read everything—books, blogs, professional association websites—you can about the fields that have caught your attention. Learn the lingo. Most importantly, read job postings (see the Directory section for where to find them). Reading job postings in various fields, though it sounds a bit prosaic, can help you to see where your skills are a match for different positions (and identify gaps that you might be able to overcome with some experience).

Try Something New

Not sure if you would like working in a given field? Find a way to try it out. Do an internship or shadow someone for a day. If that seems too bold as a first step, take on a role in your program you’ve never tried. Organize a conference. Volunteer to manage the speaker series. Work on a digital project at the New Media Lab. Get active in the DSC. Trying something new is one of the most important things you can do to get your career moving in different directions.

Researching Employers & Opportunities

Your research skills will serve you well in your job search, as conducting research on employers, industries, and job functions is a big part of any job search.

Many graduate students wonder, “What can I do with my PhD or MA?” and want to see what types of fields others with their degree have moved into. Below is a list of resources that provide some insight into the many career paths available to graduate students with advanced degrees.

Online Career Resources

Our job boards and search engines database is a good starting place for finding job openings in various industries.

Our office also provides free access to a couple important online career resources:

• The Versatile PhD’s Career Finder provides users with general information about various industry sectors and success stories (including sample job search documents and Q&As) of PhDs who have gone on to work in those fields.
• Vault’s Industry Guides are great for learning the ins and outs of a given industry, as well as for getting an in-depth perspective on employers in a wide variety of careers.

And for those researching for-profit organizations, the Science, Industry and Business Library (SIBL) branch of the New York Public Library—conveniently located behind the Graduate Center—provides access to research tools such as Bloomberg and First Research.

Additional Resources

General

• So What Are You Going to Do with That?: Finding Careers Outside Academia by Susan Basalla and Maggie Debelius (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007)
• How to Leave Academia—although no longer active, this blog offers practical advice on the process of leaving academia and tips on searching for jobs

For Humanities & Social Sciences

• Imagine PhD—a career exploration and planning tool for humanities and social sciences developed by the Graduate Career Consortium
• Video recordings of “What Can You Do with a PhD in the Humanities?” panel sponsored by the NYU Center for the Humanities (Spring 2016, Spring 2017)

For STEM Fields

• myIDP (Individual Development Plan)—a web-based career-planning tool tailored to meet the needs of PhD students and postdocs in the sciences