Announcing the 5th annual online career conference for PhDs

Jennifer Polk and I are thrilled to present the 5th Annual Beyond the Professoriate conference on Saturday, May 5, and Saturday, May 12, 2018. (Can’t attend live? No problem. All sessions will be recorded and available to stream on our website from May 15 through June 15, 2018.)

I can hardly believe our fifth conference is coming up! We’ve hosted this event each May since 2014, and it’s wonderful to see it continue to teach and inspire graduate students and PhDs – more than 500 of them last year alone.

Back in the fall of 2013, I approached Jen with an idea: host an online career conference for PhDs. I imagined a series of webinars about topics I knew were important for individuals considering a career transition after graduate school or leaving academia. We decided to host the conference on two consecutive Saturdays, with career panels on one day and job search seminars on the other. A few months later we welcomed 100 attendees to our first ever Beyond the Professoriate event!

Here’s what attendees can expect this May:

Day 1: Professional Development Day (live on May 5)

Launch Your Non-Faculty Job Search… Tomorrow!
Presented by Jennifer Polk, PhD, and L. Maren Wood, PhD

Understanding & Navigating Hiring in Today’s Economy
Presented by Catherine Maybrey, PhD

How to Use the Internet to Get the Job You Want
Presented by Heidi Scott Giusto, PhD

Getting Landed: Writing Impact-Based Resumés
Presented by Chela White-Ramsey, PhD

Day 2: Career Day (live on May 12)

Panel: Careers in Higher Education
Featuring Cherese F. Fine, PhD, Paul Martin, PhD, and Eliza Sanders, PhD

Panel: Careers in Government
Featuring Monica A. Evans, MLIS, PhD, James McKee, MA (ABD), and Uzma Urooj, PhD

Panel: Careers in Business
Chris Cloney, PhD, P.Eng., Raj Dhiman, PhD, and Yeesheen Yang, PhD

Panel: Careers in Non-Profits
Featuring Maura Elizabeth Cunningham, PhD, Kevin Hoy, PhD, and Mahadeo Sukhai, PhD

The full conference program, including speaker bios, is available on our website.

Who should attend the conference? Jen and I think all PhD students would benefit from attending, and that includes individuals who are committed to securing an academic position after graduation. It is critical that students understand what it takes to land a job beyond the professoriate, and to start exploring what sort of jobs might be of interest to them. Postdocs, sessional instructors, and other PhDs interested in learning more about what’s out there should join us as well!

Single tickets start at US $49 (+ Eventbrite fees), with discounts available for bulk purchases. We’ve welcomed groups of students from universities across Canada, the U.S., and even the U.K. in years past, and individuals from over 15 different countries. Once again, we’re happy to partner with Mitacs, a Canadian national not-for-profit organization. Thank you, Mitacs, and all our speakers.

Interested in attending? See you online this May! Register for the conference – to participate live, or watch the replay later – via our Eventbrite page.