Effective career planning begins with reflection. Taking time to assess your skills, values, and interests can help you make informed decisions about your professional direction. This section offers tools to help you better understand your strengths and motivations, evaluate your skillset, and explore how they align with different career paths. Once you’ve gained clarity, you can use an Individual Development Plan (IDP) to set goals, identify skill gaps, and create a strategy for your time at Yale and beyond.
1. Do a Self-Assessment
Self-reflection is a critical part of career planning. Ask yourself:
- What motivates and energizes me?
- What are my core skills and values?
- What other priorities are important to my career decision-making? Some common priorities include income, location, family
- What are my short-term vs. long-term career goals?
As you progress through your time at Yale, your priorities and skills may evolve. Revisiting your self-assessment every 1–2 years can help you refine your career direction and update your development plan accordingly.
Get Started – Use one of these free assessment tools:
- Design Your Career: Online Tool: The Empathize page guides you to reflect on your values, interests, skills.
- Imagine PhD (Hum/Soc.Sci)
- MyIDP (STEM)
2. Identify Your Transferable Skills
Your professional skill set is not limited to your subject matter expertise. Your PhD or postdoc experience has equipped you with a broad set of transferable skills—competencies that are valuable across roles and industries, regardless of your specific research focus. These skills are developed through teaching, mentoring, research, service, and even extracurricular activities. They include:
- Written and oral communication
- Project and time management
- Critical thinking and problem-solving
- Collaboration and teamwork
- Leadership and adaptability
Transferable skills empower you to pivot between sectors, communicate your value to employers, and thrive in diverse professional environments. Employers across all sectors consistently seek candidates who can demonstrate these abilities in real-world contexts. Therefore, transferable skills are a key input into the professional narrative that you will employ in your resume, cover letter, and interviews.
When exploring possible careers:
- Take stock of the transferable as well as technical skills you’ve built through academic and personal experiences
- Match them to the requirements of roles you’re exploring – read job descriptions to understand the skill sets required
- Identify skills gaps and find opportunities to develop them while at Yale.
Get Started – Learn about PhD transferable skills from:
- Exploring your Skills (Inside Higher Ed)
- Transferable Skills for PhDs in the Humanities – Worksheet from Connected Academics (MLA)
- Make the most of your transferable skills (Cell Mentor)
- Key Transferable Skills for PhD candidates (Doctalent4EU)
Loking for ways to enhance your transferable skill set while at Yale? Below is a list that can get you started.
- Teach a class or become a research or teaching assistant.
- Learn new technology tools. Check out these campus organizations which offer classes, workshops and other resources:
- Mentor students
- Manage lab supplies and equipment
- Take a leadership role in a GSAS student organization
- GSAS students are invited to become a McDougal Fellow or GPE Fellow
- Seek out an internship or part-time opportunity either on or off campus
- Perform volunteer work
- Hone your writing skills
- Work on a consulting project through the Yale Graduate Consulting Club or Tsai CITY
- Improve your Excel skills, learn Python or master basic accounting by taking an online course! Check out the offerings on LinkedIn Learning (free to Yale students, staff and faculty through this portal
3. Map Goals with an Individual Development Plan (IDP)
An Individual Development Plan (IDP) is a personalized, strategic tool that helps you set professional goals and map out a path to achieve them. Whether you’re aiming for a faculty position or exploring careers beyond academia, an IDP can help you:
- Clarify your career interests and values
- Explore career options aligned with your goals
- Identify skill gaps and create action plans
- Set research and professional milestones
- Track your progress over time
Using an IDP early in your training can help you stay focused, make informed decisions, and invest in experiences that support your long-term success.
Get Started – Try these free IDP Planning tools:
- ImaginePhD – for humanities and social sciences
- myIDP – for STEM fields
- ChemIDP – for chemistry and related disciplines
Need more suggestions about mapping out a career plan? Connect with an OCS career adviser.
