Importance of Career Exploration
Evaluating Career Options
Researching Career Options in Print
Researching Career Options in Person
Importance of Career Exploration
After you have identified your key values, skills, and interests via the resources in the self-knowledge section (or on your own), the next step is to explore potential career matches. We encourage all graduate students to explore both academic and non-academic career options for the following reasons:
- Knowing all career options that are a good fit for you will help you determine what skills and experiences you need to gain to be competitive for various jobs.
- Everyone should have a back-up plan. Today's tight academic job market means that many graduate students seeking academic positions will be unable to obtain a full-time tenure track job in academia.
- Many graduate programs are geared towards preparing you for an academic career, yet many graduate students decide not to pursue an academic career. Some enter graduate school knowing this, others realize it during graduate school or while gaining self-knowledge, and others decide after they have begun an academic career.
- During and after graduate school your priorities and hence your ideal career may change, graduate school is a good time to learn about your career options so when changes occcur, you already know what your options are.
As you research career options, you may want to evaluate your findings by considering the following questions:
- Is the career a good match for your values, interests, personality, and/or skills ?
- What is the current and predicted state of the specific job market and how competitive is it?
- What experiences and/or skills will you need to gain to be competetive?
Researching Career Options in Print
There are three main ways to explore potential careers, below are some resources to get you started.
Print: Websites and Books
People: Networking, Job Shadowing, Volunteering, Internships
Websites
Books
Note: Books marked with a * are available in the UCI Career Center Library
*Basalla, Susan and Maggie Debelius, "So What Are You Going to Do With That?": A Guide to Career-Changing for M.A.s and Ph.D.s. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2001.
Feibelman, P.J., A Ph.D. Is Not Enough! Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1993.
*Fiske, Peter S., Put Your Science to Work: The Take-Charge Career Guide for Scientists. Washington, D.C., : AGU, 2001.
To Boldly Go: a Practical Career Guide for Scientists. Washington, D.C.: AGU, 1996.
*Newhouse, Margaret, Outside the Ivory Tower: A Guide for Academics Considering Alternative Careers. Cambridge: Harvard College, 1993.
*Robbins-Roth, Cynthia., ed. Alternative Careers in Science: Leaving the Ivory Tower. San Diego: Academic Press, 1998.
Putting Your Graduate Degree to Work. Joan Schiebelbein. University of Alberta Press, 2001.
Books on Careers in Non-profits
Researching Career Options in Person
Networking