Welcome everyone again. My name is Caleb Yu. I am the graduate and international student career coach from the career services. And today joining me is my colleague, Christine Holmes. I'll let Christine introduce herself. And I'm the director of post doctoral studies at Cornell, I'm located in the graduate school and work with graduate students and postdocs. Awesome. So today we're going to look at this topic about exploring careers outside of academia. So this is sort of unofficially part 1 of a two-part series. So today we're going to look at sort of exploring careers outside of academia from more of like, why and how. And then I believe in two weeks we have another session that's about kind of more focused on the resources, the websites, and also going to look at careers outside of academia in the States as well as outside of states. So that's in two weeks. But the information should be on Handshake, so feel free to check out that workshop information and register if you're interested. So let's take a look at the agenda today. So we're going to sort of talk a little bit about some untold stories of leaving academia. And then we're going to look at strategies to find career options that really sort of fit you outside of academia. So we're going to talk a little bit about like, how do you, how can you understand yourself, like what you want, what your goals are? And also how can you redefine yourself in a way that that industry people can understand some of your skill sets, et cetera. Then we're going to look at four strategies to identify your career options beyond academia. Lastly, we have some tips at the end for international graduate students and postdocs. And then we'll end the presentation with kind of a time of Q&A. Okay, So without further ado, let's dive right in. So when we think about like leaving academia, we're looking for a job in industry. I think these three faces could very well represent most of the thoughts or emotions, right? So there are different reactions to it. Some people are very happy or very excited because that's exactly what you wanted to do. Some people are sort of not sure, kind of in the middle, like neutral. But some people are really kind of freaking out and you don't know what's going to happen or what's out there. So for us to better understand where you're at, I'm going to launch a quick Zoom poll. So if you can answer this question and it's anonymously, so don't worry, people won't see your name. So. If you see the question, where are you at when you're thinking about leaving academia? And we have four options there. Please. Just choose the one that sort of best represents where you're at in this journey. Okay, we have, let's give it five more seconds. Okay, Great. So let's take a look. I hope that you can see the result here. So we have 50 percent of people feel that's great. 21% is in the middle. I don't know what's going to happen. Might be good, might be bad. And okay, I'm actually happy to see that no one feels entirely like freaking out. But there's still 21% is a mix. And I think this is great because I think that's probably normal. That depends on the day, times of the day you may feel like great or you may feel like, oh no, I don't know if I'm ready. Okay. So this is kinda just to give you a kind of broad idea or sense of like, okay, where you're at and where others at this, when they think about leaving academia. So make sure that you know that you're not alone. Wherever you're at, even if you are really kind of afraid or concerning what's next, you know, there's some folks, at least at certain time of the day, they're also worrying about their future when they leave academia. Okay, so let's move on. So as we said, leaving academia comes with a lot of emotions, right? There are many reasons to that. One of that could be that academia maybe is all that you know. And that's your dream when you come to Cornell and pursue a graduate program. And maybe you feel like you're overqualified. And also underqualified at the same time. Depends on how you want to sort of see yourself or, or position yourself that maybe you're just not at a good position to kind of even think about this question because you're so exhausted or overwhelmed because you worked 75-80 hours per week in your lab. Or you're, you kind of have a lot of emotions because the social expectation towards people who have especially a PhD degrees or even if you're a master's, if you went for a research master's, people will have different expectations. And, and for this, this one, especially if you're an international student, if you come from a culture that sort of weighs a lot, heavy, or puts a lot of weight on this kind of education or degree or prestige of your school or degree, then this one may even kind of be more true for you, right? Or you could kind of try to navigate, try to network, and reach out to a lot of people who have PhDs or postdocs, but you never heard back from them. And you start wondering, are they even existing? Are they real people out there? And there's some fundamental issues behind all of these emotions, right? Because the amount of degrees or doctoral degrees awarded back in 2016 was 54,809. And in the same year, the number of full-time tenure-track faculty positions was only 21,511. There is almost like or more slightly more than 2.5 times differences between the supply and the demand. And as you could imagine, this number was back in 2016. In 2019, the data for doctoral recipients was at 55,703. So the number of doctoral degrees, doctoral recipients was increasing year-by-year. And that's why there's a kinda greatly outnumber the new tenure-track faculty job openings. And so when we kind of think about seeking career options outside of academia, we want to understand, okay, then where can I begin? So when we talk about, when we think about where can I begin, then we want to understand the purpose of sort of exploring the options, right? One of that is to find career options that fit you. Maybe a lot of people would think about, okay, I want to find the best job. But the fact is sometimes the best job is not the most kind of fitting, the job that fits you the best, right? So you want to think about your skill sets, your experience, and also what this job provides you and see, okay, which one fits you the best that fits your situations, fits what you want and whatnot. And also decide a primary career choice. So you can have a lot of sort of goals, but you want to have sort of priorities or different tiers, right? My first priority, I want to shoot for this. If not, this is my second priority and that's my third priority. And so in order to explore career options, there's something I think a lot of people sort of ignore or overlook. Which is you want to first understand who you are, what your interests are, what are some of your values or what do you value? What are some of your strengths? And what are your career goals? And so if you see this wheel on the right hand side of the screen, this is the career development wheel. Career Services, we at career services like to refer to when we talk about a full circle of career development. And it always starts with this, understand yourself, then move to explore options. And then eventually, we want to see you take actions. Because if you don't take actions, sometimes we know as grad students, you will just be lost in the exploration process and being like, Oh, there's so many things out there, but I'm still so lost. And so how to find the best fit? Like I said, you want to understand yourself first, like who you are, but most importantly, know your skills. And also know how do you talk about your skills in a way that the people in the field that you want to go into would understand and appreciate. Next is to explore career options available, right? Know the directions that you want to go into. Third one, which is also an important one, is to remove career options that are not aligning or that are not aligned with who you are, aligned with your values. And this can happen in different times. This can happen after you understand yourself. You understand what values to you, what value, what values do you kind of have? And then you realize, oh, I had three options, but option two was not aligned with my value. Okay, let's scrap it. Or it could happen after you explore different options and you feel like, oh, I thought I liked consulting, but after I talked to a few consultants, I realized the lifestyle they have is not the one that I like because they don't have a good work-life balance. Then okay. Then scrape, scrape it, or you move that down another kind of tier and focus on something else that aligns with your value most. So, understand yourself. There are a lot of ways that you can understand yourself. One of that is through self-assessment. And here at career services, we have different self-assessment tools to help you facilitate this process. So if you ever wonder, okay, how, how can I kind of better understand myself or what tools are out there? Feel free to reach out to me and we can have a conversation about this. But in short, when you sort of do this self-assessment, there are some things that you want to kind of understand. One is your interests, right? What do you like to do? Have these changed? Maybe you liked doing research when you first started your program. But then two years, three years into your program, you realize, you know, research is not really my interest. I probably like teaching more. That, that happens all the time for students. And you want to understand your skills, right? What are you good at? Both hard skills and soft skills. And I want you to sort of think more specifically, because a lot of time when I talk to grad students, especially PhD students, I ask them, what do you do? What are some of your skills? Oftentimes, they will answer, I spend a lot of time in my lab, I just do research, but that is very broad. So you want to go more specific like in my research, this is the skill I use: data analysis or I know how to operate machineries to work on some kind of engineering project and stuff like that. The third thing that you want to understand is your value. What do you seek in your career and life? And while you're understanding all these things, there's something that I want to point out that sort of applies to some graduate students, right? Which is your family or your personal situations. And that, this is just one kind of example like how do your personal or family situation affect your career decision. For example, being a parent, maybe you have a child and time is something, a luxury to you. So you want to understand then how can you kind of find a job that has a better work-life balance or have a good policy in terms of like supporting working parents, right? Or if you're at a situation that you need to be close to your family, then location is something that you want to consider. And so that's something that kind of comes into play a lot and it's totally normal, right? So I want to affirm you that if your personal or family situations will impact your decision or career search decision, I want to affirm you that this is normal and, and we can, we can meet and talk about how can we sort of think about your career development or options, taking those factors into consideration. So when you do all these, then I want you to sort of go back to your skill and to think about, okay, these are your skills. Okay how can you then talk about some of these skills or all of your skills in a way that a nonacademic audience will be able to understand. In another way people in industry would appreciate or understand. Maybe research jargons are very kind of normal to you because that's what you do. And when you talk about some things you do, you throw out all these jargons and it makes sense to your academic audience. But if you're talking to someone who's in industry that does not come from the same background as you are, then the other person will get lost. And I'm in that situation a lot. When I meet with students, I always ask what do you do? And some, some situations like when the students start talking, I just get lost because I don't know some of those jargons. And so you want to understand, okay, how do I talk about some of my skills using the language that people in industry would understand and appreciate. And that's why we say you want to kind of redefine your academic skills and experience and see yourself through non- academic employers' eyes. So remember if you want to go into industry and if you know that you're going to talk to people who might not come from the same background as you, you want, you can choose the right language to use. You want to focus on results and outcomes rather than specific content of your research tasks. And this is very important. You want to translate your specialized skills into transferable skills in ways, maybe your high-school younger brother can understand. Don't use very complicated terms and jargons if the other person you're speaking with does not come from the same field, your background. And for those people who are in your doctoral journey, or even postdoc, don't disregard your doctoral experience and skills, but use them to your advantage. In another way, don't just tell people I do research, but go, go into more specific stuff, like I do research. But in my research, this is the software I use a lot, so I know how to use kind of this software to analyze big and messy data. Or I spend a lot of time in lab and I do this particular research. And so I know how to operate a wet lab or this machine to make the mode and stuff like that, right? And this page basically shows you some examples of how you can talk about or how you can reframe your research experience. On the left hand column is a list of skills and competencies. And many of those come from the NACE competency, which is National Association of Colleges and Employers. So they have eight competencies for students. But here at Cornell, if you go to graduate school's website, you'll be able to find a list of transferable skills that our grad school, sort of summarized for our students. But on the right-hand column you will see sentences or bullet points of how you can reframe some of these experience, right? Let me just take the last one, management and leadership skills as an example. How can you talk about this? You can say supervise a team of five undergrad researchers to complete x project or y project to demonstrate the skill but to also demonstrate the specific thing that you do that shows your management and leadership skill. Okay, So now we're going to look at how can I do with, well, what can I do with my graduate degree outside of academia? And I'll hand it over to Christine to continue with the presentation. So thanks Caleb, for that perfect introduction to the, a little bit of the next segment. And very often, that's what we hear from our grad students and postdocs, right? It's, what can I do? All I know is academia. All I've been told about is academia, I just don't know where to look. So on our next slide, we're going to show you what you can think about in terms of outside of academia. And we picked a discipline that generally we think is more academic, right? Humanities, we think more academic. In this case, we picked somebody with a PhD in history, and look at all of the things you can do with a history PhD. Which by the way, that's not just for history, it can be for really just about any PhD. And we are looking at anything from Editor to Curator, of course, to environmental scientists, to lawyers. We do have a lot of people who go back and are looking at working in a law firm with a PhD. And too, we have people who are going into fashion design, which I know sounds a little bit outside of the, but so that's just to give you an idea that, think about it, imagine it, and go for it. You can really achieve anything you want. Your PhD is not a place to just peg you in one location. And, and that, that picture is actually perfect because then you get to the point of, how do I choose? I'm overwhelmed. I'm writing my dissertation, I have a lot of things going on and now you're telling me I have too many options. So we are going to talk a little bit about what the different options are. And this window, if some of you have taken leadership classes, you might know it as a Johari Window, which is known unknown. In this case, everything is known so it's a little bit different. But if you really look at it in terms of practice focused and research focused, higher education and outside of academia, it gives you an idea of the four quadrants you can explore. So if you decide, you know, I really want to stay within research in higher education. That's going to be your career path. But if you want still research focused outside, you are going to be looking at researcher and consultant. So maybe if you are biology, chemistry, you might be looking at biotechs. If you are, and here are again, some, if you're sticking to the history PhD, then we are going to be looking at editors, curators, writers, authors for the non-academic sector, but research focused. And let's not forget that in higher education there are position aside from tenure-track faculty. So if you do want to stay in higher education, you do also have other things you can do, such as what Caleb and I are doing also, where we are working with students postdoc and exploring their careers. So we are going to give you, and I mentioned when we started that we will give you the PowerPoint. And all of those are link to the different resources that we're going to talk about. You can go down a rabbit hole with all the resources. They have a lot of resources we are going to talk about. And sometime it's really easy to be distracted and start exploring in many ways, Career Services has put together a Canvas development toolkit, career development toolkit that is on Canvas, that is absolutely fantastic. If any of you are exploring careers, I really, really strongly suggest you start with that. Handshake is a system that we use at Cornell for our grad students and postdocs to be looking at position, to see programs coming up, to see employers coming on campus to look at all of the events. So I really, really strong, strongly, strongly suggest that you make sure you complete all of the requirements to have full access to Handshake. If you are looking at careers in higher education, HigherEdJobs, ChronicleVitae, and then also job site that might be in your discipline are great places to look for a position. Government, USAJOBS is a place to go for government job. Remembering government jobs can be at times fairly cumbersome in the application phase. They also can be cumbersome when you start working there, but that's a different discussion we could have, but applications for government position is generally fairly lengthy and is not as straightforward as other position, so just be aware of it. And I'll make a note here that if not all, very often, the government jobs has a citizenship requirement. So compared to other jobs, it's not as friendly towards international students as other jobs. Yeah. And I was  also going to mention, make sure when you fill out USAJOBS that you actually fill out everything. Because if you forget one small thing, you will be kicked out and they will not, they will not let you know and they will not review your application. So you could be highly qualified and not get a job without, or even an interview without knowing why. I am not trying to discourage you, I'm just giving you some tips. Careers in non-profit. We also have a lot of graduate student looking at non-profit, World Bank, of course, being a really great place, and UN jobs, also being a good place to look at. And then if you are going to be looking at other places for careers in industry, you would be looking at LinkedIn. And we've talked about LinkedIn a little bit more further down and Simplyhired. Make sure that when you look for those type of positions, you always have PhD if you're a PhD or if you're a master student, master in the search to get the jobs that really are best for you. So you need to research the employers and you need to research the field that are of interest to you. And that can take time, which is why you might want, you know, I, I notice that some of you are fairly young in your PhD. And it's a great time to start exploring your option. It's a great time to start looking at what is out there. Doctoral Career Outcome is a great place to also see where other students in your field are going. Careers beyond academia is a wonderful library guide. So our, our colleague in careers beyond academia also will meet with students and post-doc and also can help you brainstorm where you want to go in your future career. And they have put together a great guide for looking at careers outside of academia. Again, LinkedIn. Linkedin is really a wonderful platform and I hope that all of you, have a LinkedIn profile. I'd be curious if you use a yes or no function in the chat. It's under chat or participant. Can you put yes or no whether you have a LinkedIn profile. I'm just curious to see how many people have one, so far it's all yes, Which is wonderful. So if you want to keep on answering as we go along, go ahead. There are also a lot of websites and blogs that can be really useful as you are doing the exploration part. Versatile PhD can be a wonderful resource in particular. And because you are graduates, you are students at Cornell and post-doc at Cornell, you have full access to their website. And there's a part of the website that I really like where they will have somebody, for example, with a PhD in history, just because we were talking about history earlier, who is now working in consulting. And that person will have written up everything about how did he get to consulting, including the material that they submitted for the position, resume, cover letter, and also they write a brief essay about what is consulting like for exam. So if you are exploring again, that can be really, really useful to look at Imagine PhD is a fairly new website. Well, now it's two or three years, which is for humanity and social sciences for a PhD. A great, a great, again there is a job board and great stories. PhD at work also has a podcast and can give you an idea of what it's like. Very often, Caleb and I hear that, you know. What does it mean, industry? What do they do there, I'm not familiar with it. It's scary. You know, I've been in academia now for 25 years. Or, you know, if you study well, 20 years for most of you probably at least, if you started kindergarten when you were five years old. And jobs on toast, I love the name by the way, is a UK, a UK based website with very, very practical, practical advice. So I mentioned LinkedIn earlier, but very often when we think about network, we often think about LinkedIn, but you do need to build your network and do not wait to build your network until you are looking for a position. So you need to start building your network early on. And your network can be very, very wide. Your network is everybody that you have met. Right now, meeting means via Zoom, it might not be in person. When we are back, able to attend conferences and go to seminars and have speakers come in. That will be in person, but you're still meeting people, you're still attending seminars in your department and you have speakers coming in. Join a network, you know, be part of those people networks. It can be, it can be really important to know people in different industries, especially when you are going to be starting looking. And certainly network with your colleagues, with you, also graduate student and postdoc at Cornell. A very wide network is, is really important. And certainly network with alumni in your area. Don't forget the power of your alumni network and that is network at Cornell, as well as where you have been before. So if you're a post-doc that could be alumni from your PhD and undergraduate institution. If you are a Cornell graduate student, it will be Cornell and wherever you went before that. And so how do you do that? Here we go back to LinkedIn because it is a very, very powerful network. And I hear more and more stories about people, about our graduate student and postdoc who have a very strong presence in LinkedIn and will be approached by a recruiter, or who are approached by companies themselves. Who are looking at people would meet their specification for a particular job. When you start getting to the PhD level, there are fewer and fewer of you. It seems that's not true in Ithaca and it's not. We have so many Ph.D. in Ithaca it feels like everybody has a PhD. But we know that across the US, only about 1.9% of the population has a PhD. So it's a very small number of people. So LinkedIn, companies are using LinkedIn also to recruit And LinkedIn is a powerful tool for you to see who is out there and maybe working in a firm you might be interested in. And as all of you I believe are students, CUeLINKS, which is from Career Services, is a powerful Cornell Alumni Network. And the alumni mentor who are on it do want to help you. So they become mentor and they are on the platform because they do want to help you. Could be great for a job shadowing or for information interviews. Also in your own department, you might want to talk to career services and see if they have a database of alumni you can talk to. So think about what experiences, right? We have been talking to you about your skills and your experience and how do you, how do you get more skills and experience? Really, and most people would say my, when we ask about skills, the only skills they will come up with are technical skills. You know, I know how to use, to do a PCR. I know how to use, you know, crystallography. I know, you know, very specific technical skills in your, in your field. There is so much more than skills. So think about any type of leadership hall you could be having while you are a student, maybe you want to join a student organization. Maybe you are going to be joining. You are going to be teaching middle schoolers about whatever is interesting in your field, then that will give you communication skills and teaching skills at a different level. Maybe you want to be part of committees in your department. Don't forget all of the opportunities in Ithaca also that could be outside of Cornell. And don't forget all the volunteering opportunities that there can be. University service also can be a great place to be. Maybe you want to organize a conference in your department or organization that you belong to. So really think widely about what you can do. And remember that all of those can be, can give you also leadership opportunities, collaboration, and also will really allow you to develop a bigger network. You're going to meet other people and do other things. So here, again are other ideas of what you can, you can look at student organizations that you might want to participate in. Look at Volunteer Match, which is in another place. And then I will have, we had mentioned earlier our colleagues at career beyond academia. And they do have, they do have, they have a list and they are able to help our students do small, small internships and shadowing other people. Okay. So as we sort of went through some of the strategies that you could have in terms of helping yourself find the right fit in your career. I think a good place to start is to kind of make a plan. Come up with a short list of things that fit your profile, right? So you want to kind of take actions. That's what we were talking about, the last stage. And regardless where you're at on the career development wheel, it's never too late for you to start taking actions to kind of make progresses and to kind of better understand yourself. So you can connect your interests and value and skills. Or even your major to different career options, right? How is my interests in x connects to my, connects to this position? Or how can my skills in coding connects to that job, et cetera. Or you can identify a common grounds between you and the career options, right? Check out company's mission statement or vision statement to better understanding, okay. What kind of, sort of, what's behind their company type of product, what drives their company plan in my entering this, in this field, or work on that product and then connects to sort of, oh, this is actually what I'm very passionate about or kind of, this is my story and why I am pursuing a PhD in, let's say, physics. So try to make some, find some common grounds and make connections so that employers can see not just your skills, but also to see your value that aligns with theirs and to see your enthusiasm as well. And, or you could prioritize your career choices via benefits and cause analysis. This is kind of a business term, but in another way, you can prioritize some of your choices by we mentioned earlier by some of the factors that are impacting your career choices. Like what's more important, your value, your family, your personal situations and whatnot. So come with a list of priorities and also like different tiers. So you have clear kind of action steps to take, right? So this is the first tier of kind of jobs I would like to get. Okay. Let me focus on this. And after that, if you're still in the job search field, then okay, move on to the next tier and next tier and so on. Okay, so here are some tips for international graduate students and postdocs. So I guess some of these things you already know, working authorization options. Work authorization is something that is very crucial for you if you're an international student seeking for kind of work outside of university, when you're still in the program, you can apply for CPT on the internships, on co-op and then etc. But when you're thinking about jobs after graduation, usually you want to think about OPT and and post OPT, then it comes to the H1B visa, which is the work visa that sort of authorized you to stay and work legally here in the States. But as we all know, the competition is high there. More and more people are entering the H1B world or the lottery pool. So I want to kind of strongly suggest that you consider alternatives. Don't just put everything in one bucket, Right? There are many other countries that has friendlier immigration policies that they are also attracting international talents to their countries. For example, Canada has a express entry visa program that kind of strongly favor graduate students and postdocs. Look at Europe. I know that the Netherlands has a sort of, it's called orientation year visa. Being that also kind of favors towards graduate students. So kinda go beyond the US and think about, okay, what other countries would be a nice kind of place for you to go work at. So that's the second kind of thing here. Think about your home country or even a third country career option. And in doing that, at career services, we have a platform called, we subscribe to a platform called Goin Global. So through this website, you'll be able to find career guides or country guides, actually for different countries around the world to better understand the country and understand the country in some professional lens. Especially like, are there differences in how they present resumes, or do they even use resume or CV? How do they kind of talk about themselves professionally and stuff like that. So definitely check out Goin Global as well. Or you want to identify international friendly employers as well. So that means employers that sponsor H1B. So if you want to stay in the States and that's your one and only goal. Obviously you want to find out who sponsors, not just the company, but within company, they will sponsor x position, but they will choose not to sponsor y position for different reasons. So Goin Global as well, and myvisajobs.com. They are two very credible websites for you to look for employers that have track records sponsoring international students. Or you want to connect with international alumni or alumni that live internationally to find out more information on what's happening in that country, are their career choices for me in that country or whatnot. So if you're an international student, you want to talk a little bit more about how do you explore some of these things that we just talked about. Feel free to reach out to me. We can kind of sit down, have a meeting and come up with an individual game plan for you. With that, I think that will kind of conclude our presentation today. So this is just general information. If your research, masters or PhDs, you can reach out to me we're the university- wide Career Services. You can start with your college level career services as well if they serve grad students. But if you're a professional master's student, you should visit your program office first. Very often they have a designated person or a team to sponsor you to support your program as well. But if you're a postdoc or if you're a graduate student that wants to get a postdoc position. Christine is the right person you want to talk to. And that was great. Remember that there are post-docs, in industry. So sometime it also can be an interesting way to go for a grad student, to look for a postdoc in industry and see if that's what you want. And I'm happy to brainstorm with you about that. Yes. Thanks, Christine. And before we kind of open the floor up to you guys, I think we'd love your feedback on this workshop. So if you can just take two minutes, either scan this QR code or I can send that link to you. So you can take some time to fill out a survey. It will greatly help us in our future workshop preparation and also help us to understand like, what do you want to know more? So as you do that, I'm going to open the floor up, stop sharing and stop recording.