Career Services (Penn)

Friday, March 19, 2021, 12:00 – 5:00PM EST

IMPORTANT: Registration for students and postdocs will open at 7:00PM EST on March 9, 2021.
Carefully review this page and the several steps required to update and/or set up your Handshake account properly so that you may participate.

The PhD Career Exploration Fellowship (CEF) program encourages non-faculty career exploration among doctoral students by facilitating networking experiences and fostering mentorship relationships with advanced degree holding professionals. This unpaid opportunity allows doctoral students to gain a better understanding of day-to-day life in administrative offices, libraries, pharmaceutical companies, museums, science outreach, and other organizations, on Penn’s campus, in the greater Philadelphia area, and beyond. In 2021, the program will be conducted virtually, which also gives students the opportunity to interact with hosts in offices all across the country. Fellows can use this experience to cultivate a stronger professional profile and grow their network in a career field. Through a series of complementary professional development programs hosted by Penn Career Services, Fellows will also develop career-readiness competencies and create a Career Individual Development Plan (IDP) to implement during and after the CEF experience.

The program was created in 2017 to help meet the need for career development among doctoral students interested in pursuing non-faculty tracks. In 2020, 36 PhD students participated in opportunities across 26 organizations both within and beyond the university to support an array of career interests. For the 2021 program, we have added several new hosts, including Walmart, Janssen, and several additional offices at Penn Libraries, among others.

This fellowship runs from February to May and typically entails 8-10 hours in total time commitment with host meetings and informational interviews. For more information about the CEF program, including program objectives and schedule, please visit our program webpage. To read about students’ experiences in the 2020 program, please visit the PhD Career Exploration Fellow Spotlight Series on the Career Services blog.

Participating Offices for 2021

The list of participating hosts is below. Full descriptions of each host office and possible projects at each placement can be downloaded here.

• Bucks County Community College
• The Center for Teaching and Learning
• Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) – Department of Biomedical and Health Informatics
• Educational and Professional Development at Penn Engineering
• The Franklin Institute
• Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies/Alice Paul Center for Research on Gender, Sexuality, and Women at Penn
• Janssen
• The Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies
• Merck- Digital Analytics and Technologies, Infectious Disease and Virology, Neuropharmacology, Quantitative Biosciences
• Penn Sustainability
• Penn Online Learning Initiative
• Penn Libraries- Academic Engagement, Area Studies, Educational Technologies & Learning Management, the Kislak Center, Museum, Research Data & Digital Scholarship
• Penn Liberal and Professional Studies – Master’s of Behavioral and Decision Sciences
• Penn Museum – Academic Engagement
• The Kleinman Center for Energy Policy- Communications
• Laboratory for Research on the Structure of Matter- Education and Outreach
• Penn Center for Innovation (PCI) – Ventures
• Philadelphia Museum of Art- Library & Archives and Publishing
• Poverty Solutions – University of Michigan
• The Price Lab for Digital Humanities
• Science Outreach Initiative
• Walmart – Applied Behavior Science

Application Deadline: Wednesday, January 13th, 2021

Eligibility: PhD students in any department or school within the University may apply. Those who participated in the CEF program or the PhD Externship program between 2017-2020 are not eligible.

Application Materials: Please apply through Handshake: https://upenn.joinhandshake.com/jobs/4251418

Candidates should prepare the following materials:

• A cover sheet detailing: your name, program, program start and anticipated end dates, and your top three ranked placement choices. Attached, on the separate pages provided, a brief statement (no more than 250 words) explaining why you are interested in working with a particular host office and what you hope to gain out of the experience. If there are particular projects you’d like to work on, let us know. (What projects Fellows complete will ultimately depend both on the needs of the host center and the student’s interests.) If you don’t have ideas, that’s ok too! Just start thinking about what you’d like out of the experience.
• A curriculum vitae or resume

If you have any questions about this program, please contact Career Services’ PhD Professionalism Fellow, Kate Webb (katwebb@pennmedicine.upenn.edu).

Tuesday, 20th October, 12-5pm
Register here: https://upenn.joinhandshake.com/career_fairs/15528

Participate in this fair if you are:

• Looking for internships
• Looking for full-time opportunities
• Exploring your future career options
• Looking for easy networking opportunities with representatives from different employers who are interested in graduate students/postdocs
• Excited to attend employer info sessions to learn more about their current and future hiring practices and opportunities
• Curious about the skills you need to develop at Penn that make you a good fit for future roles
• At any point in your academic program or postdoc!

You must register and schedule your attendance at group sessions or specific 1-on-1 video chats with employers before the event starts on the 20th October. Watch this recorded workshop on how to navigate through the Handshake virtual career fair experience: https://youtu.be/-ARh4EHOb94. You will need to complete your Handshake profile to take full advantage of the 1-on-1 sessions. Find details on how to set up your profile here: https://support.joinhandshake.com/hc/en-us/articles/360049934274. Groups sessions are especially helpful for career exploration and information gathering.

If you run into any challenges with signing up for sessions or 1-on-1s after reading this article, then please feel free to email: Dr. Joseph Barber (barberjo@upenn.edu).

Take a look at the most up-to-date list of employers here: https://upenn.joinhandshake.com/career_fairs/15528.  You can find a list of employers grouped by broad industry/career field below, but take the opportunity to explore each employer and their opportunities further as they have diverse opportunities that span across industry and career-field categories. Many of these employers still have availability for 1-on-1 sessions (marked with a *) in addition to the numerous groups sessions you can attend for the majority of employers. These 1-on-1 sessions are scheduled on a first come, first served basis. Schedule yours today!

In place of walk-ins, Career Services is offering a variety of phone and web appointments, which students can schedule through Handshake. These include the option for same-day, 15-minute appointments with a career adviser. New appointment times open up every day at 9:15 AM ET. To schedule an appointment, sign in to Handshake and click the “Career Center” tab near the top right corner.

Twitter users can also follow @PennCareerJobs, a daily automated feed that highlights new job posts. And be sure you’ve customized your email settings in Handshake to receive a weekly newsletter featuring jobs and resources tailored to you! Detailed instructions on how to do so are available here.