UCMGradPRO: Career Guidance and Prep

• Key experiences to pursue (e.g., internships, teaching)
• Milestones like completing your CV or LinkedIn profile
• Target dates for applying to jobs or fellowships

Check out our timelines for academic and industry careers.

Academic/Research careers

The academic job search is a structured, multi-stage process, and while expectations vary by discipline and institution type, most pathways share a common set of milestones and materials. The most important first step is to learn what “strong” looks like in your specific field—typical timelines, what counts as independence, how publications are evaluated, and which experiences (teaching, mentoring, grants, collaborations) matter most for the roles you’re targeting. Start by speaking with your advisor and committee members, then broaden your perspective through conversations with recent alumni, postdocs, and faculty across different institution types (R1, teaching-focused, and national labs). With a clear understanding of norms and fit, you can build an application plan that is both realistic and competitive—and avoid last-minute scrambling when positions and fellowships open.

From there, it helps to choose a primary direction early enough that you can build the right evidence—and the right application packet—over time. While many skills overlap across academic and research careers, the emphasis differs substantially depending on the pathway you pursue. To make planning easier, we’ve organized guidance into three common tracks. Each track includes a suggested timeline of milestones, recommended experiences, and key materials to prepare so you can align your activities with the expectations of the roles you plan to apply for:

Postdoc → R1 Research Faculty

A postdoctoral position is a mentored, research-intensive step after the PhD that helps you deepen expertise, expand your publication and collaboration record, and demonstrate growing independence as you transition toward long-term roles such as faculty, staff scientist, or national lab researcher.

If this is you chosen career path, here is a timeline to help you prepare.

• National Postdoctoral Association
• GRAPES
• GSAS Postdoctoral Fellowship Database
• Postdoc Jobs
• Faculty —especially your committee members—can be your best conduit to postdoctoral opportunities. They often know who is hiring, which groups are growing, and where strong matches exist, and they can make introductions that move your inquiry from “cold email” to a real conversation. It’s also worth knowing that many postdoc roles never appear as formal postings: a PI may have flexibility on a grant and can bring someone on when there’s a clear fit and a timely research need. Because of that, don’t limit yourself to listings.

Teaching-Focused Faculty:

Teaching-focused academic positions center on student learning and academic mentorship, with success defined less by the volume of publications and more by instructional effectiveness, inclusive pedagogy, and meaningful contributions to curriculum and advising. These roles span community colleges, primarily undergraduate institutions, and teaching professor/lecturer lines at research universities, and they often value evidence that you can design engaging courses, assess learning thoughtfully, support diverse learners, and help students persist and thrive. A strong candidate typically brings a coherent teaching philosophy, a well-documented teaching portfolio (sample syllabi, assignments, evaluations, reflections), and a track record of mentoring—while maintaining a scholarship or professional engagement plan that fits the institution’s mission and workload.

Here is a timeline for this path.

• HigherEdJobs (Faculty Jobs)
• HigherEdJobs (Two year Colleges)
• Adjunct/Part-time
• The Chronicle of Higher Education Jobs
• Inside Higher Ed Careers
• CommunityCollegeJobs 
• California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office – Job Opportunities

National Labs/Staff Scientist:

National lab careers offer a mission-driven alternative to the traditional faculty path, with roles that emphasize high-impact research delivered in teams—often at larger scale, with specialized facilities, and with clearer near-term deliverables tied to national priorities. Positions range from postdoctoral appointments to staff scientist and research scientist roles, and they typically reward deep technical expertise, strong publication or project outputs, and the ability to translate research into reliable results for complex programs. If you’re energized by collaborative R&D, large instrumentation platforms, and problem statements defined by real-world constraints, U.S. Department of Energy-affiliated labs and similar national research institutes can be an excellent fit.

Here is a timeline to help prepare for applying to National Labs.

And the link where all the job listings are available.