Career Exploration

Self-assessment

• Majors & Careers and Career Assessment Options (Career Center)
• A Harvard career counselor explains self-assessment (Chronicle of Higher Education)
• What Color is Your Parachute: Assessment links

Identifying transferable skills

• Sample transferable skills for PhDs (Career Center)
• Chronicle of Higher Education columns: How to transfer your skills to the “real world” and Recasting yourself for non-academic jobs.
• Identifying and communicating your transferable skills (WRK4US discussion)
• Using Humanities & Social Science Research Skills in a Professional Setting (U Penn)

Career options

• Exploring Career Options: Myths and Realities (PhD Career Options Symposium).
• Science’s Next Wave career transitions
• Career ideas for graduate students (WRK4US)
• Alternate career paths from Escape Pod
• Employer Spotlight

Researching options

• Researching a company or organization (Career Center)
• Internships or volunteer work (Career Center)
• Trade and Professional literature
• Informational interviewing (Career Center)
• Informational interviewing 101 (Chronicle of Higher Education)

Networking

• UM Alumni Association Career Center: choose Alumni NetWorks to find information about volunteer career coaches (for association members). Category searches are occasionally incomplete (i.e., search under “writers” brings up no results, however a search under “telecommunications” bring up one writer).

Transition stories of PhDs working outside the academy

• Success stories from the Escape Pod for the Humanities
• Sellout: A resource for Humanities PhDs considering careers beyond the university