Defining (And Refining) Your Transferable Skills

In a 2013 article, The Atlantic editor Jordan Weissmann confirmed what we basically already knew to be true: Regardless of discipline, most doctorate holders do not, in fact, go on to work in academia. Weissmann broke down data released by the U.S.-based National Science Foundation, reporting that around 20 per cent of Ph.D. students had found an academic job by graduation (see Weissmann's chart below). Although we can’t know for a fact that those students weren’t then hired into a university job later, that’s still a pretty good indication of the number of students whose career options did not include a tenure-track professorship.

That being said, that doesn’t mean you have to throw everything you’ve done in your grad school years out the window once you leave.

Instead, vitae columnist Elizabeth Keenan recommends reframing your perception of exactly what you’ve learnt in grad school - and how you can apply those skills to the “outside world”. Keenan is an ethnomusicologist who, following years as an adjunct instructor, made a switch to real estate. In “Ph.D.s Do Have Transferable Skills” she writes: “Knowing how to do research is a skill (the one that made my bosses hire me, in fact). Writing well is a skill. Patience with students (and senior faculty and administrators) is a skill. Organizing, planning tasks over an extended period of time, working on deadlines, working well with others, public speaking, and critical thinking are all skills.”

Keenan identifies three steps to moving out of the academic world: identifying your transferable skills, figuring out how to use them, and showcasing those skills to potential employers.

Online resources like About.com’s transferable skills worksheet can help with that first step. The University of Victoria offers a competency assessment worksheet (where you rate your mastery of each skill on a spectrum from “no demonstrated achievement” to “exemplary”) as well as a list of department-specific competencies.

The great thing about starting this process before you graduate (and for some of you, as you begin your graduate career) is that you not only define the skills you’ve already acquired - you can also identify areas where you want to improve. That’s where GradProSkills can help. Many of our workshops will not only help you get through grad school, but also wherever life takes you next.

For example, you can check GradProSkills' page for upcoming workshops in various transferable skills such as project management, Adobe Photoshop, and even volunteering.