Identify Your Experience Gaps
Compare several positions that interest you. What skills, experiences or credentials appear repeatedly that you haven’t developed yet? Look for patterns rather than trying to match every qualification in a single posting.
Ways to Gain Experience
Experience doesn’t have to come from a traditional job or internship. Consider opportunities such as:
- Internships, fellowships and micro-internships
- Assistantships, campus employment and research
- Teaching and mentoring
- Consulting, applied projects or industry partnerships
- Professional associations and leadership roles
- Volunteer and community work
- Independent or collaborative projects
Choose Experience Strategically
Don’t collect experiences just to fill your résumé. Consider what each opportunity can help you develop or demonstrate — technical skills, applied experience, leadership, industry knowledge, portfolio evidence or professional relationships. Prioritize experiences that help close the gaps you’ve identified and move you toward your career goals.
Building Experience for an Industry Career
If you’re considering a career outside academia, look for opportunities to apply your knowledge in settings beyond your academic program and build evidence of skills valued in your target field.
Consider internships, fellowships, consulting projects, micro-internships, industry partnerships, entrepreneurship, policy work, campus employment or leadership opportunities.
Look for projects or collaborations that allow you to apply research, technical expertise or disciplinary knowledge to organizational or community needs.
Consider the purpose of a postdoc: A postdoc can be valuable when it provides skills, methods, publications, partnerships or research experience that directly support your target career path. It isn’t automatically required for careers outside academia.
Building Experience for an Academic Career
Academic roles may require evidence of teaching, research, scholarship, service or other contributions beyond completing your degree. The experiences you prioritize should reflect the type of academic career you’re considering.
Seek opportunities such as teaching assistantships, guest lectures, workshops, curriculum development and mentoring. Save examples of course materials, student feedback and other evidence of your teaching.
Look for opportunities to contribute to research, publications, presentations, grants, conferences or other scholarly work appropriate to your discipline and career goals.
If teaching is important to your target roles, begin collecting materials for a teaching portfolio, such as your teaching philosophy, course materials, learning outcomes, student feedback and mentoring experience.
Academic hiring timelines can begin well before the anticipated start date. Learn the expectations and typical hiring cycle in your discipline early enough to build the experiences you’ll need.
Build a Plan That Fits Your Goals
You don’t need to pursue every possible experience. Focus on opportunities that help you develop the skills, knowledge and evidence most relevant to where you want to go.
Not sure what you’re missing? Bring a few positions that interest you to a graduate career coaching appointment. A career coach can help you identify experience gaps and prioritize your next steps.