University at Buffalo (UB)
Career Management and Self-Development Resources for PhD Students
Obtaining a doctoral degree is often a step in pursuing a larger dream that can seem daunting, and we want to help you cut through the noise to achieve your goals. That's why we've gathered resources to assist you with your career development. Whether pursuing a career in academia, industry or government, you'll be well-prepared when you pass your thesis defense. From the beginning stages of career exploration to the final rounds of the job interview, UB offers numerous workshops and resources to help you develop professional skills that will serve you for the rest of your career.
In this section you will find resources, workshops, events and information about on-campus offices that will gladly help you reach your professional goals. We want to empower you to present your best self to contribute effectively in your chosen field.
Doctoral students can utilize the Career Design Center to help with career exploration strategies, CV writing, resume writing, and more. Attend a workshop, make an appointment with a career consultant or peruse the many online resources available.
For curated information that is specific to you, you will need to join a Career Community. Once you join a Career Community, you will receive personal guides and information, invitations to connect with alumni and employers, as well as a toolkit of resources. Career Communities are powered by your career interests that you select in Bullseye powered by Handshake.
Steps to subscribe:
- Sign in to Bullseye powered by Handshake.
- Click "Career Interests" under your name.
- Check the "Career Clusters" that interest you.
- Click "Save My Career Interests."
Join early in your career exploration journey!
Featured Partner: The Career Design Center
The Career Design Center engages with the UB community, employers and alumni to challenge students to see possibilities and seek opportunities in preparation for life after graduate school.
- Grad Connect & Reflect is a series of conversations with faculty and staff offered throughout the semester through Graduate Professional Development programming. During these casual conversations, you will learn about the various career paths of those who work at UB, their journeys, challenges they faced while pursuing graduate work, strategies that helped them push through, and unique experiences they encountered.
- The Career Design Center hosts workshops and panels with UB alumni throughout the year. These panels give you information on how the individual made professional and career decisions.
Beyond the Professoriate is a career training platform for doctoral students. UB is a subscribing institution, meaning you can access all its information and resources for free. Through two programs of study (Academic Careers and Professional Careers), postdocs and graduate students can explore career options and learn job search strategies to secure employment in academia and beyond.
Working through your graduate degree is more than a source of income, it's your opportunity to meet new people and gain valuable work experience. For those graduate students without a Teaching Assistantship (TA), Research Assistantship (RA) or Graduate Assistantship (GA), you can search for on and off-campus jobs using Bullseye powered by Handshake through the Career Design Center.
Be sure to have an up-to-date, professional-looking resume and CV. These two documents are critical to your personal and professional development. Use the templates on the Career Design Center website to create your graduate-level documents, book an appointment to review your documents with a career expert, or attend an upcoming skillshop.
Ensure you continue adding to each document as you progress in your degree program. Your resume should be tailored to specific opportunities, including jobs, fellowships and internships. CVs are more detailed with publications, presentations and committee work. Resumes are one to two-page documents that are tailored to specific opportunities.
Your online profile is an important part of your personal and professional presence. You can use platforms like LinkedIn to make professional connections by joining groups, connecting with experts in your field, and searching for jobs. The Career Design Center can help you build a professional-looking LinkedIn profile. Book an appointment in Bullseye powered by Handshake to have a career expert review your online profile.
Networking is one of the most important ways to grow personally and professionally. Networking is something you do every day. You do it by talking with friends, faculty and other graduate students. Networking is about connecting with people, both in person and through virtual platforms.
Prepare in advance for attending events and conferences where networking happens. Check out the attendee list, decide who you might want to speak with, and be ready to talk about yourself and give your elevator pitch.
Here are some ways to learn and practice networking:
- Attend department talks and events to get to know faculty, guests and fellow graduate students.
- Go to conferences in your discipline. You'll be able to meet speakers, fellow graduate students and people in your field.
- Participate in university-wide clubs and organizations. You'll connect with other graduate students who share similar interests.
- Learn how to make professional friends and get tips for starting a conversation through the Career Design Center.
- Participate in events at the Startup and Innovation Collaboratory (CoLab). You'll learn new skills and connect with alumni and community leaders.
- Use LinkedIn to connect and network using the messaging portion of the platform.
Graduate students encounter their fair share of challenges, from questioning if they made the right decision to wondering what the outcome might be to balancing their lives and investing in research and other requirements. You don't have to solve these challenges alone! The Career Design Center provides the unique opportunity to engage in a five-day curriculum with your peers to answer these questions. Based on the Stanford-developed Design Your Life practices, you can begin to open your options to your tough questions. If interested in joining the Design Your Life cohort, please email Carl Remmes.
UB coordinates a free professional clothing boutique, Hired, which is dedicated to providing students and recent graduates with gently used apparel, accessories and personal care items that will help them achieve their career development goals.
- The American Association for the Advancement of Science has a Science Careers website with career advice, career tools, job postings and job alerts. Create a job alert for positions you are interested in.
The Graduate Brief
Every Wednesday during the semester, the Graduate School emails the "Graduate Brief" to all graduate and professional students, which is a weekly selection of news and happenings within the Graduate School and its partnering offices. If you would like to be added to the mailing list, please contact grad@buffalo.edu.