Graduate Student and Postdoc Career Resources

Unsure whether you want to stay in academia? Curious about alt-ac or non-ac career options? Stuck writing those tricky academic job documents? Our career advisors can help you with these issues and many more! Schedule online to talk with an advisor via phone or Zoom for help with exploration, searching, networking, application materials, interviews and more.

For a full, searchable list of Career Center programming, visit the Career Events page. Searching for “graduate” will bring up all programming designed for grad students and postdocs.

The Job Search Series

A series of workshops that will teach you the skills you need to succeed in your career search. Beginning with self-assessment, moving to exploration and then to searching, the Job Search Series will give you the confidence to begin this process.

Below are several workshops we offer:

• Identifying, Translating, and Developing Your Transferable Skills
• Effective Search Strategies for Careers in Industry, Government, and Nonprofits
• Curating Your Digital Presence: LinkedIn and More
• Developing Your Professional Network: Collecting Contacts, Career Stories, and Advice
• Tailoring Resumes & Cover Letters
• Interviewing & Acing Questions
• Evaluating & Negotiating Job Offers

Career Months

Each Career Month will consist of programming designed to provide students with information about a specific field or career path. Events may include alumni panels and talks, workshops, etc.

If you represent a department or student group and are interested in having a representative of the Career Center hold a workshop for your population, please complete this form and we will do our best to accommodate you.

The first step in choosing a career is exploration. Before you can know what kind of career you want to pursue, you need to have a clear sense of 1) what skills you already have, 2) what skills your masters or PhD program can help you develop, and 3) what career paths exist that require those skills. The resources gathered on this page will help you as you tackle each of these three major fact-finding missions.

• • Imagine PhD – A Career Exploration Tool for PhD students. Set up a free account and check out the terrific Assessment tools, Planning Tool, and Job Family Resources.
  • The Versatile PhD – Provides Career and Job Information, Discussion Forum, and Blog. Free registration!
  • My IDP – Individual Development Plan for Science Careers.
  • WashU Alumni LinkedIn page – Find WashU Alumni for your network. See someone who has your dream job? Have a look at their LinkedIn page to see how they got there or reach out to them to see if they would be willing to answer some questions in an informational interview!

We all have gaps in our professional skillsets. While you will gain many professional skills through your coursework and research, here are some ways to fill in some of those gaps online.

• LinkedIn Learning– All current WashU students, faculty, and staff now have access to LinkedIn Learning’s resources, which cover a broad range of topics from Adobe to Zoom, including many software programs.
• United States Institutes of Peace – The Self-Paced Micro-Courses Catalog includes a wide range of foundational topics in conflict management and peacebuilding. Through these courses, you can sharpen your skills to prevent and manage conflict and earn certificates upon completion.
• Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) deliver online courses for free or for a small fee. Paid courses often grant you a certificate.
  • Coursera– Hundreds of free courses give you access to on-demand video lectures, homework exercises, and community discussion forums. Paid courses provide additional quizzes and projects as well as a shareable Course Certificate upon completion.
  • edX – Founded by Harvard and MIT, edX is home to more than 20 million learners, the majority of top-ranked universities in the world, and industry-leading companies.  It is the only leading MOOC provider that is both nonprofit and open source.

• The Graduate School plans to offer the Pivot 314 Fellowship program. The Pivot 314 program provides an opportunity for graduate students to gain internships with local startups.
• Important: Be sure to communicate with the graduate school before accepting any internship to make sure that doing so will not impact your student status.

• Looking for a student group to join? Interested in creating a new student group? Follow this link for a list of current student groups and instructions for how to register a new one: https://grouporganizer.wustl.edu/organizations

• Self Introductions – Want to know how to introduce your professional self? Here’s a guide to get you started.
• Informal Career Conversations – Create a career conversation plan.
• Networking and Informational Interviews (PDF) – Learn how to grow your professional network through various methods, including Informational Interviews: exploratory conversations with professionals in which you can find out information about trends in their field, day-to-day tasks and activities, and ways to prepare yourself to pursue a similar career path.
• Informational Interview Questions – Some great question samples for informal career conversations such as an informational interview.
• WashU LinkedIn Alumni Page– Use the Washington University LinkedIn Alumni page to find alumni connections to talk to for career conversations!
• WashU Communities and Networks– WashU alumni, parents and friends live and work in communities around the world. Alumni Networks are groups of alumni, parents and friends within each community organized on the basis of geography, shared interest, culture, or professional interest. Browse the communities and networks for your career, interests, and locations.
• How to ask for a referral – Asking for a referral for a job can put your job application on the fast track.  How to Ask for a Referral Without Embarrassing Yourself and How to Intelligently Ask for a Job Within Your Network both have some great suggestions for how to ask these challenging questions.

Now more than ever, your online presence is crucial to the way you present yourself during your job search. Here are some resources to help you make a great impression online.

• Curating Your Digital Presence – How to examine and maintain a professional digital presence.
• Writing Professional Emails(PDF) – Need to write an email to inquire about a position, follow up on a phone interview, or send job materials? Check out our guide on writing professional emails!

• Creating Your LinkedIn Profile – Here are some tips and guidelines on how to create your LinkedIn profile.
• Job Searching Using Social Media (PDF) – Here are some ways to leverage your online presence to assist in your job search and in networking.

Here are some tips on how to write CVs and Resumes for academic or non-academic positions.

• Resume/CV Handout (PDF)

• LinkedIn
• LinkedIn for Job Research – This file explains how to use LinkedIn as part of your job search
• Indeed
• Non-Academic Career Options for PhDs in Humanities and Social Sciences – Columbia University Resource
• Job Sites in the Humanities – List of web sites for many humanities disciplines
• Job Star – List of Professional Organizations and Associations
• National NonProfits – Listing of Nonprofit organization positions
• Green Jobs Network – Job boards for environmental jobs and social impact jobs
• Industry Trade Groups – List of industry trade groups in the United States
• BioSpace – Jobs in the Life Sciences
• Career Cornerstone Center – Extensive STEM Career information
• NIH Office of Intramural Training and Education – Extensive source of career information and videos
• USA Jobs – Web site for all government positions

Looking for tips on how to make the best possible impression in an interview? You’ve come to the right place!

• Big Interview  – An online tool for practice and mock interviews. Big Interview offers a course of short videos that will give you tips on everything interview-related, from what to wear to how to answer difficult questions like “Tell me about yourself” and “What are your weaknesses.” With a free profile through Wash U, you can get started preparing for interviews right away.
• Interviewing Skills (PDF) – Check out our collection of tips for preparing for a successful interview!
• Effective interview for industry – links and video

• Schedule a mock interview with a Career Consultant – Our Career Consultants can help you practice your answers to common interview questions, answer your questions about the interview process, and give you advice about how to succeed.

These resources provide tips and guidelines for how to negotiate an offer, how to juggle multiple offers, and more.

• Negotiation: Salaries, Compensation packages and How to Negotiate – Check out WashU’s guide to negotiating offers! Here you will find tips on how to approach negotiating salary and benefits to ensure that you get an offer that meets your needs.
• Job Offer and Salary Negotiation Information – This resource from Yale provides more tips and information about negotiating job offers. Watch their short, helpful video and then see what they have to say about negotiating timelines, particulars of the offer, and making final decisions.
• Negotiation compensation in industry
• Talk with a Career Consultant! If time is short, the Career Center has an adviser on call every afternoon who can help you with negotiating. The advisor on call is available through the Live Chat feature on this website. If you have more time, feel free to make an appointment with a Career Consultant!

These sites will help you evaluate whether the offer you have received is fair. They will also give you an idea of what level of salary to expect from any given role and career path.

• GlassDoor
• Salary
• PayScale
• Indeed Salaries

• Resume/CV Resource

• If you are getting started with your teaching statement, or refining and improving your statements, the attached worksheet may be helpful: Teaching Philosophy Statement worksheet.docx

• Download the UCSF Checklist: “Developing a Winning Research Statement (PDF).”
• Information and examples of research statements from the University of Washington.
• For Humanities PhDs: Research Statements and Research Proposals (PDF) from the University of Chicago.
• From Cornell University, this website contains a clear outline for writing a research statement and provides several example statements to help candidates when evaluating their own.

• Please see the attached worksheet for guidance in developing content and examples for your diversity statements: Diversity statement worksheet.docx

• Higher Ed Jobs
• Chronicle of Higher Education Jobs
• Higher Education Recruitment Consortium – Has Dual Career Job Search
• Humanities and Social Sciences Net Online Job Postings

• UCSF Resource
• Big Interview: while this resource is explicitly geared toward non-academic jobs, it is valuable for academic job interviews as well. Specifically, it’s a great resource for thinking through how to structure your answers in interviews, and it can help approach behavioral questions.