PhD Pathways - General Resources

The Yale Office of Career Strategy offers many resources to aid graduate students in the Humanities and Social Sciences in their professional development. From the time you arrive at Yale to your first job interview, you will have access to a wealth of knowledge, advising, networking events, and exclusive opportunities that can help you succeed.

Career Exploration: Finding Your Match(es)

Once you have evaluated your skills, interests, and values, it’s time to move on to the second phase of career preparation: exploring potential careers and evaluating how they match with your profile. This is a good time to take the Options4Success course on VersatilePhD, which covers the transition from self-reflection into career exploration.  It is important to keep in mind that employers hire for a wide range of job functions that require varied skill sets. The New York Times, for example, employs data scientists even though it is in the media/journalism industry; likewise, companies in the tech industry like Amazon employ non-technical content writers.

When narrowing down the possibilities, don’t necessarily limit yourself to the ones that best align with your self-assessment right now (especially if you’re in the early years of your PhD!). Consider how much longer you’ll be at Yale and what opportunities (such as classes, workshops, extracurriculars, and internships) can help you fill in the gaps between your current profile and the paths you’re interested in. Also consider whether you can leverage your dissertation research experience to help prepare you for certain paths (e.g. writing journalistic pieces related to your topic, taking a part-time or summer job/internship in the archive you work at, or leveraging the digital humanities lab to learn new skills).

For resources focused on specific disciplines, see STEM PhD Pathways and Humanities and Social Sciences PhD Pathways.

4 Resources to Get you Started

  1. VersatilePhD: PhD narratives and forums for 20+ career fields (free to Yale students)
  2. ImaginePhD:  Features 15 career families
  3. Carpe Careers (Inside HigherEd):  Advice from experienced PhD career advisors
  4. Vault Career Guides. (free to Yale students)

Exploring Careers at Yale

PhD Pathways

Read interviews with alums, see what opportunities Yale offers, and explore general resources related to a wide variety of sectors in which Yale PhDs have found success.

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Job Search Resources

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