Career Planning Resources
Career Exploration
Graduate education can open the door to a wide range of career opportunities within and beyond academia. Career exploration is an opportunity to reflect on your interests, values, skills, and goals while learning about potential career pathways that align with your graduate experience. Whether you are interested in academic, research, government, industry, non-profit, or professional careers, exploring your options can help you make informed decisions and identify opportunities for growth throughout your graduate journey.
Unsure of what to make of career development or what it means to you, let CERIC's Guiding Principles of Career Development provide a foundation to help you make sense of career development and how to enhance all the outstanding work you are doing both inside and outside of your studies towards your career goal.
Visit the CERIC's website to learn more about the guiding principles, how they are anchored in research and tailored guides to help reframe the principles from your perspective.
Career development is the lifelong process of managing learning, work, leisure, and transitions in order to move toward a personally determined and evolving preferred future.
Career literacy is the capacity to acquire and manage the knowledge and skills required to understand career-related information, develop self-awareness of one’s values and strengths, and make informed decisions about career pathways and goals, all while considering one’s individual context and background
Career planning is an ongoing process through which a person sets career goals and identifies ways of achieving them.
Professional development is the structured, continuous learning and skill development, outside of academic coursework and the thesis to enhance the competitiveness of an individual in-market, specifically transferable or non-technical skills.
How do you know where to go, if you do not know where you are starting and what you are starting with?
By practicing meaningful reflection, you can examine your experience, skills, goals, values, and context as you work to create a career and academic plan that supports your journey. It is important to start building your reflective practices early and often to capture your experiences and insights as they happen and for future use. Below you will find more information about reflection and its importance to the career and academic journey, along with reflective models to help frame your thoughts.
SGS Professional Development has adopted the Canadian Association of Graduate Studies (CAGS) framework of professional skills that support graduate students and postdoctoral fellows.
The professional skills and descriptions provide a foundation for success in academic and non-academic roles, and further, these are the skills typically requested by funding organizations.
The framework was researched and developed by a team of experts, in collaboration with CAGS, as part of the Task Force on Excellence in Graduate Programming to foster a national understanding of the non-technical skills that graduate students should acquire and develop.
The best way to stay on track and make the most of your time at ULethbridge is to set goals.
As graduate students and postdoctoral fellows, the time you have here is limited and the time available to you to spend outside of academia is limited. Ensuring you are working toward meeting your career and academic goals as part of your journey will provide a cushion for a more supported transition to the next stage of your journey.
When in doubt, connect with a Career Counsellor, Career Coach, Supervisor, etc. and discuss the best approach to goal-setting that fits your context.
To get started, consider these two different ways of thinking about goals and goal-setting.
Career Readiness
Career readiness is about developing the skills, experiences, and professional confidence needed to successfully pursue opportunities after graduation. Throughout your graduate program, you are building valuable transferable skills through research, teaching, leadership, collaboration, communication, and problem-solving. This section provides resources to help you prepare for academic and non-academic careers, communicate your strengths effectively, and navigate future employment opportunities with confidence.
Your professional brand is how you communicate your skills, expertise, experiences, and accomplishments to others. Learn how to develop professional materials, research profiles, online presence, and supporting documents that help showcase the value of your graduate education and support your career goals.
Develop meaningful professional relationships that support your academic, research, and career goals. Networking can help you build connections, learn from others, explore opportunities, identify mentors, and become an active member of your professional community.