CEHD Career Services for graduate students

Pursuing a graduate degree is a rewarding and, at times, strenuous experience. Throughout your program, it can be helpful to start exploring how you want to apply the knowledge you learn in a work setting. This can ease some of the stress when it comes to the question of “so what's next?”.

As a graduate student in CEHD, we offer confidential one hour long appointments regarding non-academic job searches strategies, making connections, and preparing job search material such as resumes and cover letters for non-academic job searches. We encourage you to meet with career services staff on questions you may have!

CEHD Career Services events

CEHD Career Services hosts events for graduate students throughout the academic year. Find upcoming events on the Career Services home page and in our graduate student newsletter, sent twice a semester.

Graduate school experience

All of our programs are unique and lead to many wonderful opportunities to build your academic and career profile. No journey is an individual one though! We encourage you to engage with students from other programs within and outside of the U of M. This is the best way to build connections and expand your network. There are also department specific organizations that you can get involved in. Just ask your faculty!

University community

The Twin Cities Multicultural Directory, available through the Graduate School, provides a list of student organizations and resources for students to engage around a variety of interests and communities.

GradSEHD represents graduate and professional students in CEHD and is a great way to connect and build connections across disciplines.

The Council of Graduate Students (COGS) is a university wide student organization that represents, advocates for, informs, facilitates communications among, and supports Twin Cities graduate students (students who are seeking a research degree: a PhD or a masters that is associated with a PhD program).

Broader graduate community

The GradHacker blog is written by graduate students and is a great way to hear from other graduate students about their experiences.

PhDivas Podcast, hosted by Liz Wayne and Christine “Xine” Yao, is about academia, culture, and social justice across the STEM/humanities divide. An engaging conversation between friends and scholars, PhDivas fills a niche for witty and insightful discussion and proves that PhDs in engineering and English literature have more in common than meets the eye.

Alternative academic job search

Alternative- Academic or alt-ac is a term that is fairly recent. It refers to careers within industries that may be an application of the academic program a PhD graduate pursued. These careers are often outside of the university and i s an alternative path to tenure-track professor opportunities. View job titles of CEHD PhD alumni outside of academia. CEHD Career Services offers individual appointments for graduate students focused on resume/CV review, cover letter writing, and the non-academic interview and job search. Schedule an appointment online.

Career resources

Beyond the Professoriate is a mission-driven organization of PhDs who want to empower graduate students and postdocs to launch meaningful careers.

Imagine PhD is a free site to support PhD in exploring a variety of career options based on industries and individual interest areas.

The Professor is In is a book and a blog providing job search support for PhD candidates starting the process. Be sure to check out this article on translating a CV into a resume!

Columbia University provides a breakdown of industries that are accessible to transition into from academia.

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill provides a job board for general alternative academic job searches and specific sites for Humanities and Social Sciences.

Evaluate and Expand your skills

Take stock of the transferable skills you have and understand how to apply and translate them to careers beyond academics.

Community engagement, fellowships, grants, and assistantships provide opportunities to build connections, experience and knowledge.

The Digital Arts, Sciences, & Humanities (DASH) program supports faculty and students looking to employ digital methodologies and technologies in their teaching, research, and creative work.

Beyond Academia is a non-profit organization run by UC Berkeley graduate students with the goal of empowering graduate students and postdocs to expand their career options beyond the traditional academic track.

Academic job search

Seeking academic positions such as teaching and doing research at an institution can be highly rewarding ways to use the knowledge you have learned. We highly encourage you to connect with faculty and individuals in your fields of interest. Strong relationships between advisors and faculty can lead to many opportunities such as conference presentation and paper publications.

Career resources

Center for Educational Innovation collaborates across the University system to advance effective teaching and engaged learning.

The Graduate School Academic and Career Development Workshops connects you with programs, resources, and events to help you identify potential career paths both inside and outside of academia, compete for in-demand positions, and manage your career.

TheNational Center for Faculty Development and Diversity provides support throughout your journey as a graduate student to tenure track and administration level. Sign up for the Monday Motivator newsletter to get a positive boost to start your week!

The Carnegie Classifications of Institutions of Higher Education allows you to search for colleges and universities to compare institutional fit.