How to plan your career
Whether or not you have some ideas about what you'd like to do when you finish your PhD, you may find the idea of career planning a little daunting - especially if you've been focused on gaining qualifications, rather than identifying a career goal.
This section is designed to help point you in the direction of useful resources, whatever stage you are at in your career planning. You can also arrange to speak to an Adviser in the Careers, Placement and Experience Centre to talk through your options and ideas at any time.
What careers have other PhD researchers gone into?
If you're lacking inspiration, a good starting point can be to see some examples of what other researchers have done.
You can see Case Study examples of University of Reading students or Case Study examples from other institutions. You can also see an overview of what PhDs do nationally. To find out how to generate career ideas, look at researching your Career Options.
How do I decide what I want to do?
The career planning process remains the same whether you have no idea, a few ideas or are very focused about what you want to do after your research degree. The process can be divided into 4 stages:
- Identify your strengths. If you want to enjoy the job you do, you need to be able to do work which plays to your strengths. Identifying your skills, interests, values and personal qualities is very important.
- What skills do you have? You will be asked to give evidence of your skills in applications and interviews, so you need to be aware of them. But which skills are your strongest, and which ones would you really like to use in a job? Assess your skills by using the career planning section of the Vitae website. This exercise is designed to help you assess your competency as a researcher and is based on the Joint Statement of the Research Councils' skills training requirements for research students. The Research Councils play an important role in setting standards and identifying best practice in research training and have agreed that these skills would be expected to develop during a doctorate.
- You can also reflect on your skills on Destinations.
- How might your interests affect your career choice? Sometimes, interests (which may or may not coincide with what you're researching) can be of importance to you and your career choice. Maybe your area of research is your greatest interest and that's where you see yourself working. However, sometimes people have other interests, not related to their research which they'd like to incorporate into their career.
- What's really important to you? Being aware of your underlying values - the attitudes and beliefs you have about what is important in life. It is crucial to know what these are. You also need to be aware of the values that different organisations have as you may find it difficult to get job satisfaction if you work in an organisation with which your values are not aligned.
- What kind of personal qualities have you got to offer an employer? How would your family or friends who know you well describe you in terms of your personality? - are you a fairly private person, or are you quite outgoing? Are you good at working with detail or do you prefer looking at the bigger picture? Do you plan and organise ahead or are you pressure prompted and do everything at the last minute?
- Be aware of what jobs are out there and what employers are looking for. Careers Advisers call this "Opportunity Awareness" - it's about researching all the different areas of work you may be interested in, and what employers are looking for.
- Match your strengths to the opportunities you have identified. You need to be able to articulate your reasons as to why your strengths, interests and motivations match well with the type of work you're applying for. At this stage you may need to weigh up the pros and cons of several possibilities. You can arrange to speak to an Adviser in the Careers, Placement and Experience Centre to talk through your options at any time.
- Make applications. By submitting applications and attending interviews, you can find out more about the suitability of the options you are considering. Reading up about a particular career or employer is only part of the story - the selection process and a visit to the organisation can tell you a lot more.
Other useful resources
To help you with your career planning, look at Windmills Online and Prospects Planner.
