phd career development plan example

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Individual Development Plans for PhDs

What is an individual development plan (idp).

An individual development plan (IDP) is a personalized, interactive tool that you can use to identify and prioritize professional goals, and construct an actionable strategy to achieve them. Whether you are planning careers in academia or exploring non-academic positions, you will find IDPs to be a valuable device for managing their career and professional development while at Yale.  An IDP provides tools for you to:

• Assess your skills, interests and values
• Explore  career options
• Determine gaps in professional skills and create action plans to develop them
• Set  research and professional goals and track progress

Assessing the transferability of your research and skills will empower you with new perspectives on the value of your PhD work both within and outside of the academy.  IDP tools can also raise your productivity by helping you manage your time, direct your efforts more efficiently, and successfully meet PhD milestones and career development goals.  By achieving greater clarity of career goals earlier in their graduate career, you can position yourself to invest in professional development that will enhance your success in the job market, regardless of your intended career path.

Online IDP Tools

Free online IDP tools for PhD students and postdocs are available online.  Get started with the options below:

• Versatile PhD (MyPlan)  is for PhDs from all disciplines.
• Imagine PhD is aimed at Humanities and Social Science PhDs but useful for anyone interested in non-STEM careers.  Developed by the Graduate Career Consortium.
• MyIDP is for STEM PhDs and produced by AAAS.
• ChemIDP has content relevant to all STEM PhDs, by the American Chemical Society.

Additional Resources from OCS

The Office of Career Strategy offers many resources to help GSAS students and Yale postdocs complete each stage of the IDP. Make progress by taking the following steps:

• Meet with an OCS career advisor  to discuss any step of the IDP process, resources, and strategies
• Attend career education panels,  industry networking events, and employer information sessions   to learn about diverse careers
• Learn about humanities/social science PhD pathways and STEM PhD pathways
• Join one or more of our career communities

News from OCS

Phd transferable skills.

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Employers value many skills in addition to the technical knowledge in your discipline that you have honed while at Yale.  These skills are called “transferable” because they can be employed in a range of employer settings. The skills most cited …

PhD Pathways in Academic Administration

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Being a tenure-track professor is not the only career available at a university for PhD students and postdoctoral scholars. According to recent findings in 2014, the number of non-academic administrative positions at U.S. colleges & universities has doubled in the …

Professional Resumes for PhDs

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If you are considering a non-faculty position outside the academy, you will need to prepare a professional resume. Unlike your CV, which paints a portrait of your academic history and accomplishments, a resume is a marketing tool that selectively emphasizes …

Job Search Resources

Yale gsas program statistics and outcomes.

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Yale GSAS data about Ph.D. admissions, enrollment, degree completion, and employment, by program.

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See sample CVs, resumes, cover letters, job boards and more for a broad array of careers within and beyond the …

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You have put a lot of time and effort into pursuing your PhD degree.  Now it’s time to focus on how …

Imagine PhD

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A career exploration and planning tool for the humanities and social sciences.

Versatile PhD

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Helping graduate students and PhDs envision, prepare for, and excel in non-academic careers since 1999.

Academic Career Readiness Assessment (ACRA)

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Tools to explore, plan for and apply to faculty positions at different types of institutions.

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Office of Career Strategy

Contact & location, visiting yale.

You have put a lot of time and effort into pursuing your PhD degree.  Now it’s time to focus on how to leverage your expertise into a satisfying and productive career.  The Individual Development Plan (IDP) concept is commonly used in industry to help employees define and pursue their career goals.  In 2003, the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB) proposed an IDP framework for postdoctoral fellows in the sciences.  AAAS/ Science joined forces with FASEB and experts from several universities (see authors below) to expand on that framework.  The result is myIDP - a unique, web-based career-planning tool tailored to meet the needs of PhD students and postdocs in the sciences.

myIDP provides:

• Exercises to help you examine your skills, interests, and values
• A list of 20 scientific career paths with a prediction of which ones best fit your skills and interests
• A tool for setting strategic goals for the coming year, with optional reminders to keep you on track
• Articles and resources to guide you through the process

There is no charge to use this site and we encourage you to return as often as you wish.   To learn more about the value of IDPs for scientists, read the first article in our myIDP series .

Click below to get started.

Site authored by C.N. Fuhrmann, J.A. Hobin, B. Lindstaedt, P.S. Clifford. All Rights Reserved.