For doctoral students considering a postdoc position, SfN has created a toolkit for exploring career options. Its contents include advice on how to:
Read more and download the toolkit presentation here.
The NIH Center for Scientific Review (CSR) has released two new peer review videos for applicants. The first, “What Happens to Your NIH Grant Application,” gives viewers insight into the review process. The second video, “Top 10 Peer Review Q&As for NIH Applicants,” features 10 experts from CSR as they address frequently asked questions.
Read more here.
Penn Career Services offers a number of CareerMail newsletters through Handshake. These are a great resource to hear about internships, jobs, postdoctoral opportunities, networking events, workshops, career fairs, employer info sessions, career development tools/resources, and more.
For step-by-step instructions on how to sign up, click here.
Included among the many valuable resources Penn Career Services provides is a detailed guide to informational interviews. Informational interviews are a critical component of any well-thought networking strategy. As the guide explains:
“If you don’t know what informational interviews are, they are simply opportunities for you to talk to people to gather in-depth information about career fields and positions that interest you. Talking to different people can help you understand what skills are needed for particular roles, learn the language and vocabulary that are commonly used in a career field, and develop your own professional narrative as you explore careers.”
The resource details with whom, when, and where these interviews should be conducted. It also provides an email template to request such an interview, as well as sample questions. Finally, it concludes with instructions on following up after the interview, common mistakes to avoid, and additional resources.
Read more here:
The American Society for Cell Biology has compiled a list of resources for early-stage graduate students. The sites listed contain information on a number of topics, including excelling in grad school, developing communication skills, and more.
Explore these resources here.
Penn Career Services has released a new Careers page, dedicated entirely to doctoral students and postdocs. The content-rich page features the following topics:
Each of these sections features useful links, including preparing for postdocs & faculty careers, preparing for careers beyond academia, digital resources, and more.
Explore here.
The American Society for Cell Biology’s Committee for Postdocs and Students (COMPASS) has compiled a list of career perspectives. These profiles are an excellent resource for students considering different industry careers; they provide detailed information on the various professionals’ current positions, their academic and research backgrounds, how they conducted their job search, and many other important topics. Featured interviewees encompass diverse positions, from audit assistant to bioinformaticist.
The NIH’s Office of Intramural Training & Education (OITE) provides a number of useful career development resources, including videos as well as guidance on resume and cover letter writing and a number of other professional skills. Students exploring careers in different industries might be especially interested in their guideline to informational interviews. This document provides a definition of informational interviews, tips on how to request such a meeting, and a sample of general informational questions to ask.
iBiology has compiled a series of talks about science policy. The videos cover a variety of topics, including publications, science education, and more.
This Science article discusses a survey of 3,803 science and engineering Ph.D.s working in various industries. Survey respondents revealed that while many believe they began developing important professional skills while in grad school, there are a number of skills that they have found very important at work that were not a central focus of their Ph.D. training (for example, personnel management.)
The article’s authors developed an interactive graphic based on the survey’s data. It compares the extent a skill is developed in grad school with its importance in 12 career sectors, including research, consulting, teaching, and more. It is intended to give doctoral students an overview of the day-to-day duties and responsibilities of jobs in a variety of sectors and to shed light on which skills should be prioritized, either within their Ph.D. training or through extracurricular activities.