Concordia announces new career exploration tools for postdocs
Niyusha Samadi: “When you have a plan in place and resources to support you, it helps you achieve greater success.”
In the fast-moving world of the 21st century, opportunities for postdoctoral fellows are changing. Today, few postdocs secure tenure-track faculty positions after completing their fellowships. This means they need to pay more attention to career and personal development.
To support postdocs, Concordia’s School of Graduate Studies (SGS) will be offering them access to Individual Development Plan (IDP) online tools starting this fall. The IDPs will help postdoctoral fellows identify their career-related skills and interests, short-term research and professional development needs, long-term career goals and progress toward their objectives.
The career-planning and exploration tools — currently available in select universities across North America — are excellent resources for postdoctoral scholars and graduate students seeking to find their way in the ever-more-competitive world, both within and outside academia.
“It’s something we’re encouraging our postdocs to explore,” says Niyusha Samadi, postdoctoral development coordinator for SGS and a former postdoctoral fellow herself.
Postdocs will have access to two different IDP tools, depending on their field of study. The myIDP portal is for researchers in science, technology, engineering and math, while ImaginePhD is for scholars in the humanities and social sciences.
Both IDP tools are available free online. Postdoctoral fellows may share the information with their supervisors and mentors for setting appropriate goals and progress tracking.
Concordia’s Graduate and Professional Skills program (GradProSkills) will also be offering free IDP workshops starting this October.
According to the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, postdoctoral fellows with a written career plan submit 23 per cent more papers to peer-reviewed journals and 30 per cent more first-authored papers.
“This shows that IDPs really work,” Samadi says. “When you have a plan in place and resources to support you, it helps you achieve greater success.”
Find out more about Concordia’s Individual Development Plan tools for postdocs.
