Many graduate students and postdocs understand the importance of planning their next career move, yet often feel lost in the career exploration process. The sheer volume of career options available to doctoral graduates, both within and outside academia, can be overwhelming. Gathering information about even a few possibilities can quickly become a daunting task, especially when combined with current job responsibilities.
Adding to the complexity, career exploration can be an emotional journey, filled with a mix of excitement, disappointment, anxiety, and hope. If these challenges resonate with you, there’s good news! This article introduces a valuable tool designed to help you progress steadily through these complexities.
This tool, known as the Personal Career Exploration Road Map, is designed to help you: 1) visualize the career exploration process, 2) track your progress effectively, and 3) pinpoint your most strategic next steps. Ideally, it should be easily accessible, perhaps posted on a wall, and reviewed periodically. Many individuals in advanced training find this road map particularly helpful when initiating their career exploration, as it provides a conceptual framework for a process that can often feel unfamiliar. Others find it invaluable when they feel stuck, offering a way to break through inertia and regain momentum.
The Personal Career Exploration Road Map was originally developed for graduate students and postdocs at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) participating in the Motivating INformed Decisions (MIND) program. This program, supported by an NIH Broadening Experiences in Scientific Training award, is designed to be career-neutral. Many participants are actively considering both traditional faculty positions and diverse alternative career paths. If you are exploring multiple career options simultaneously, this tool can assist you in managing, prioritizing, and dynamically adjusting your efforts to optimize your time.
The road map guides you through six distinct stages of career exploration. (Refer to the Career Exploration Road Map Graphic as you read along.) As noted by Herminia Ibarra, a professor of organizational behavior at the London Business School, in her influential book Working Identity, career exploration is fundamentally an iterative process. This iterative nature is reflected in the cyclical design of the map. The process begins with self-assessment (green), progresses to investigation (yellow), then reflection (orange), and synthesis (red). This culminates either in planning and implementing a job search (purple) or in reassessment (blue) followed by renewed investigation (returning to yellow).
Career Exploration Road Map Graphic
Within each stage, the map presents a series of questions that can be addressed in any order. For example, during the self-assessment stage (green), you are prompted with questions like: “What are my strengths?”, “What genuinely interests me?”, and “What values and priorities are most important to me?”. These questions can be approached intuitively. Alternatively, you might find formal assessments like myIDP (for natural sciences) or ImaginePhd (for humanities and social sciences) helpful.
Following the initial self-assessment, you move into investigating potential careers (yellow). We recommend a three-pronged approach to investigation: 1) gathering information about a career through resources like books and online materials, 2) engaging with professionals in that field through informational interviews (guidance available here and here), and 3) seeking opportunities to experience typical tasks associated with the career, such as through brief job simulations, consulting projects, or internships).
Two particularly critical, yet often overlooked, stages follow investigation:
- Reflection (orange): This stage involves evaluating the alignment between your self-knowledge and what you’ve learned about a specific career path.
- Synthesis (red): Here, you take a step back to reassess your level of interest in each career you have been exploring. The goal is to decide: Should you invest further effort in exploring and preparing for this career, or is it time to remove it from your list of possibilities?
While reflection and synthesis may seem logical, many individuals seeking career guidance find them challenging to implement effectively. The road map breaks down these vital stages into a series of straightforward questions, making them more manageable.
Let’s delve into key aspects of each stage, beginning with the reflection questions:
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While it’s important to aim for a career that aligns with your skills, interests, and personality, it’s also realistic to acknowledge that no job is perfect. Therefore, in addition to asking, “Will this career allow me to engage in work I find interesting and stimulating?”, the reflection stage also prompts you to consider, “Does this career involve an acceptable amount of work that is not inherently interesting to me?”
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Drawing on Ibarra’s concept of professional identity being significantly shaped by colleagues, one synthesis question encourages you to assess your compatibility with potential coworkers: “Do I connect with the people in this field? Do I aspire to be like them professionally?”
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A crucial part of reflection, and one that many program participants find particularly challenging, is evaluating whether the career aligns with your core values: “Does it align with what truly matters to me?”. Because core values are deeply personal, this question will prompt different reflections for each individual. For example, if you prioritize financial security or a specific geographic location, you might ask, “What are my job prospects in this field and desired location?”. Alternatively, if teamwork, flexible work arrangements, or intellectual challenges are paramount, different questions will take precedence.
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While carefully considering the compatibility of a career with your values is sensible, don’t be discouraged if defining your values precisely feels difficult. Uncovering deeply held preferences and priorities takes time. The challenge is compounded by the need to differentiate your own values from those perceived in mentors, family, or friends. For these reasons, some individuals tend to prioritize their more readily articulated skills and interests over their values. However, experience shows that gaining clarity and confidence in your values empowers you to articulate your career desires compellingly, lending momentum and purpose to your career exploration.
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Finally, you are prompted to consider, “What steps are needed to enhance my marketability for this career, and am I willing to take them?”. For instance, are you prepared to pursue an MBA or JD, or complete a specialized certification program? For international scholars, marketability raises additional questions: Which country do I prefer to live in, and what are the marketability requirements there? If remaining in the United States is the goal, what are the visa or green card prospects, and which career paths are most promising in this regard?
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Important Note: If any reflection question proves difficult to answer, it likely indicates a gap in your knowledge that can be addressed by returning to the investigation stage. This iterative process of moving between reflection and investigation is common and productive.
The subsequent synthesis stage focuses on two key questions that help determine whether to continue pursuing a particular career:
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First, “Have my answers to the reflection questions been validated by multiple reliable sources?”. It’s important to clarify: this doesn’t mean writing an exhaustive report on a career you’re losing interest in. However, if you encounter concerning information about a career that initially excited you, don’t abandon it based solely on a single source or casual comment. Instead, return to investigation mode and seek input from several established professionals in the field to verify the information’s accuracy.
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Second, you are asked, “Reviewing the reflection questions that are most important to me, have I mostly answered yes or no?”. Your responses – predominantly yes, mostly no, or a mix – will guide you to different branches of the road map.
If you answered “yes” to most reflection questions, the road map directs you to the purple “plan and implement” branch, culminating in securing a fulfilling next career step – congratulations!
However, if you mostly answered “no,” it’s likely time to discontinue pursuing that specific career path.
Letting go of a career you’ve envisioned or invested time in can be disheartening, sometimes causing a loss of momentum. However, eliminating a career option is a form of progress, even if it doesn’t immediately feel that way. To help recognize this progress, the road map guides you to the reassessment loop (blue), prompting questions like: “What career exploration skills have I strengthened while exploring this career?”. For example, perhaps you initiated an informational interview with someone you didn’t know or practiced articulating your interests concisely. These newly acquired skills will streamline your subsequent career explorations.
The reassessment loop also asks, “What insights have I gained about my preferences or priorities by investigating this career?”. Even when ruling out a career, you often gain valuable self-awareness. This self-discovery can then inform your choice of which career to explore next.
For instance, one student decided against patent law because, while technical writing remained appealing, they realized their stronger motivation was to translate technical information for patients rather than patent officials. This realization highlighted that – for them – the value of helping others outweighed working at the cutting edge of knowledge. Recognizing their reaction to the investigated career revealed a previously unrecognized aspect of their interests. This discovery helped them focus their efforts and networking during their next investigation phase (yellow), which centered on medical writing.
If your reflection questions yielded a mix of “no” and “yes” answers, the road map leads you to a crucial question: “Can I identify a niche within this career that would be a good fit, given my concerns about …?”. For example, a trainee concerned about the extensive travel often associated with management consulting, which seemed incompatible with starting a family, inquired with contacts: “Are there management consultant roles that involve less travel?”. They discovered that while consultants at large firms often travel frequently, smaller boutique firms typically serve local clients. This trainee then focused on networking with boutique firms, expressing interest in potential openings. Months later, a boutique firm contacted them about a new position serving a local client – a perfect fit.
While career exploration demands time and is inherently iterative, it doesn’t have to be discouraging. The Personal Career Exploration Road Map demonstrates that every step, including those that lead you to redirect your path, is a step forward in your career journey.
