Career Toolkit

• Beyond the Professoriate – Beyond the Professoriate’s Career Training Platform helps graduate students, postdocs, and PhDs successfully transition into academic or nonacademic careers. Through two programs of study on Academic Careers and Professional Careers, graduate students and postdocs can explore career options and learn job search strategies to secure employment in academia and beyond.
• Beyond Graduate School – Beyond Graduate School is a one-of-a-kind online career training platform for master’s students. The platform provides on-demand, self-paced learning modules that allow master’s students to explore career options and learn proven job search strategies to secure employment after graduation.
• Imagine PhD – ImaginePhD is an online career exploration and planning tool for graduate students and postdoctoral scholars in the humanities and social sciences.
• LinkedIn Learning – LinkedIn Learning is an online educational platform that helps you discover and develop business, technology-related, and creative skills through expert-led course videos. With more than 5,000 courses and personalized recommendations, you can discover, complete, and track courses related to your field and interests. You have free access to it as a student.
• Knowledges and Skills Learning Resources – UW–Madison created a knowledges and skills hub for employees (including you as a grad student) who want to develop their skills, stay relevant in their career industry, or want to learn something new.
• The Delta Program – The Delta Program in Research, Teaching, and Learning engages graduate students and postdocs in professional development in teaching, mentoring, outreach, and advising.
• Professional Development – The Graduate School Office of Professional Development supports graduate students to learn skills that benefit them academically and support them to pursue a wide variety of career paths, from academic to non-academic careers.

• Career Services at UW-Madison: LinkedIn – Career Services has a webpage dedicated to LinkedIN, which features helpful tips to use LinkedIN
• Build Your LinkedIn Profile – This page from Northwestern University outlines how to get started with LinkedIn by going over key considerations for building your LinkedIn page.
• 7 Networking Tips for Graduate Students – Check out Northeaster University’s seven bits of advice for how to network as a graduate student
• Networking – The Graduate School has advice for students on how to network authentically. This page also has a 50 minute lecture from Dr. Torsheika Maddox guiding graduate students through the process of networking and how to do so genuinely and authentically.
• Networking as a Graduate Student – this page by Northwestern University goes over relationship development, goal-driven outreach, and how to start a conversation authentically
• Professional Connections and Networking – the Career Center at the School of Education has a page dedicated to resources for effective networking and building professional connections

On-Campus Resource

The UW-Madison Writing Center has developed a manual titled: The Writer’s Handbook. This manual is a compilation of instructional materials developed for Writing Center teaching. Though it was developed with teaching in mind, the materials are easy to understand and are chock full of useful tips, guides, examples, and information.

One section of The Writer’s Handbook that is pertinent to this section of the Career Tool Kit is Academic and Professional Writing. In this section, students can find guides on: Writing Cover Letters, Resume Writing, CV Writing, and Diversity Statements

Off-Campus Resource

The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign’s Writers Workshop has a page dedicated to Job Search and Application Writing where students can access guides on: Academic Cover Letters, Teaching Philosophy Statements, Diversity Statements, Cover Letters, Resumes, and Curriculum Vitae (CV).

• Big Interview – Big Interview helps students to learn, practice, and improve their interviewing skills, whether it’s in the job search process or negotiations. This online platform combines training and practice to help you improve your interview technique and build confidence
  • Use the Mock Interviews feature to practice in simulated interviews
• Preparing for your interview – SuccessWorks at the College of Letters & Science has prepared a page filled with tips on how to best prepare for an interview
• Interview – the Career Center at the School of Education has a page dedicated to resources for interview preparation, information about the different kinds of interview formats, questions to ask the employer, and so much more
  • Please know that the mock interview service offered on this page is reserved only for students at the School of Education
• Tips for Grads: Questions to ask in an informational interview

• Evaluating and Negotiating Offers – the Career Center at the School of Education has a page dedicated to evaluating and negotiating job offers
• Negotiate a Salary Package – Cornell University Graduate School has a page outlining how to effectively and confidently negotiate a salary package
• Evaluating and Negotiating Your Offer Table – University of California Santa Cruz’s Career Success team have created this table for the purpose of helping you determine how your needs and wants compare to your job offer
• Negotiating an Offer – University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign’ Graduate College has compiled a list of resources for what a student should do for when they receive a job offer and advice for how they should negotiate it