Reflections on writing a career planning book for doctoral students
Generally speaking, the flexibility of working and re-choosing a job after graduation is much smaller than that of undergraduate or master students, so it is very accurate to choose a job after graduation. For doctoral students, career planning is definitely something that needs time to think and put into action. Imagine that when you graduate, you start to think about your job in a hurry, and the students who have made plans have already got the dream offer, then you are much more passive, and the career you get is not necessarily what you want. Doctoral students who are still at a loss about what to do in the future, after reading this article, must have a target career as soon as possible, and career planning is never too late. I have many friends around me. When they were graduate students, they didn't make any special preparations for their future work, which wasted a lot of time. Many years after graduation, they will regret it more or less. I hope that's not you.
Here are some simple steps to make career planning. Although the occupation is different, the planning steps are basically the same for your reference.
Determine the target occupation
From the beginning of graduate school, think about some careers that interest you and consider how to prepare for employment. Try to answer these questions: What kind of job do I like to do? What abilities does this job require? Can I do this job in my present state? How can I achieve my goal? In the first semester of graduate students, you can spend some time thinking about the possible development of these target occupations. Consider your career aspirations and corresponding occupations, such as "achieving academic achievements-becoming a scientist", "wanting to be rich-becoming a financial practitioner" and "wanting to take hobbies as a lifelong career-becoming a photographer (dancer, painter, etc.). ) ".Think of many options one by one. After defining your ambition, choose a career, list the types of knowledge and skills that this job may require, and plan the postgraduate stage.
Choose a career development model
After you have a target career, you should think about your future career development. There are usually four ways of career development, namely, straight upward, expert, spiral upward and temporary.
Straight-line ascending type: it is a method of constantly advancing to higher positions or more powerful positions within the system; Usually the longer the time, the greater the rights and achievements, such as working in state organs, institutions, colleges and universities.
Expert type: generally out of love for the profession, focusing on the accumulation of knowledge and technology in a certain field; There is no traditional so-called promotion in rank, and the highest is from apprentice to master. People who choose to engage in this profession need to have some superior skills, such as writers who are good at writing and photographers who are more aesthetic than ordinary people.
Spiral rising type: this is a lifelong rising mode. Periodically (usually 7- 10 years), you will engage in cross-industry, cross-field and cross-professional work. Before you leap, you will spend enough time to achieve a high or competitive ability in a certain industry or field. People who choose this profession hope to have higher creativity and stronger personal ability.
Temporary type: often working in different or unrelated fields (usually 3-5 years), which is an unconventional employment method. People who choose this way of doing business like change and independence.
Learn to do SWOT analysis
Doing SWOT analysis is a process of self-knowledge, which refers to the competitive advantage of strength; Weak competitive disadvantage; List the opportunities and threats one by one, make a matching analysis of all the factors, and then compare them with the target occupation, from which you can decide what occupation is suitable for you.
Doing SWOT analysis will help you understand your weaknesses and threats, make corresponding adjustments and changes, make yourself more competitive, and focus more on how to prepare for your future.
Advantages and disadvantages: summarize your own advantages and disadvantages, maintain your own advantages, and avoid or enhance your own shortcomings. Postgraduate stage is the most suitable period for hanging head and stabbing stocks. As long as you don't relax in the postgraduate stage, you can achieve your goals smoothly. And people are often consciously willing to do things that can amplify their strengths, and often exercise their strengths, while they tend to ignore their shortcomings, and the imbalance between strength and weakness will become more and more obvious. Therefore, while training strengths, we should also pay attention to training weaknesses. Think more about ways to make use of your advantages, enhance your advantages and create opportunities for you.
Opportunity: When you are studying, you should learn from the seniors who graduated before you, and see what occupations they have engaged in, how they have developed, whether there is your target occupation in their occupations, whether they have met your expectations, and how they have done it. It is very simple and important to learn and summarize the mature experience around you. Talking to a colleague who is very concerned about his career goals can better formulate his own strategy. Always discuss your career goals with your mentor. He may give you some advice or help and provide you with some opportunities.
Threat: refers to uncontrollable factors that may hinder your career planning. For graduate students, the biggest threat comes from not graduating smoothly. Threats are potential, and even poor physical condition is a factor that hinders future career development. Think more about the potential threats to your future career development and try to contain them to the maximum extent.
athletic ability
The core of career planning is ability planning. After determining the target occupation and self-awareness, the next step is to train the target occupation in a planned way. Give two examples. For example, if you want to engage in scientific research in the future, you must cultivate innovative thinking, writing ability, reading ability, speech ability, project management ability and time management ability. For another example, if you want to be a lawyer, you must train your expression ability, logical thinking ability and learn some psychological knowledge. It is the last and most important part of career planning to exercise the ability for the target occupation.
Give an example of a career planning process.
1. What do I want to do?
I want to engage in scientific research in the future.
2. Am I suitable for scientific research?
Scientific research is a very special occupation. You need talent, you need hard work, you need luck, you need to invest a lot of energy continuously and passionately-even so, you may not be able to achieve the so-called success. The main motivation to engage in scientific research should be "liking" and the excitement of exploring the unknown world. If you feel that you like scientific research after evaluation, then your target job is a researcher in a university or research institute.
3. What reserves do you need to make if you want to engage in scientific research?
Diligence and interest in scientific research are the basic qualities of scientific research workers; The abilities that researchers need include innovative thinking, writing, reading, speaking, project management and time management. The assessment of scientific research personnel is generally scientific research achievements, academic qualifications and services. In scientific research, the pressure you face is to apply for projects, promote professional titles, take students and publish papers. Evaluate, what abilities do you still lack? Can you meet the evaluation requirements? Can you work under pressure?
4. How can I get this job smoothly?
There are usually two ways to engage in scientific research:
First, directly enter domestic scientific research institutions;
The second is to go to foreign research institutions,
Or return to China after doing a stage of scientific research abroad.
Directly into universities or research institutes, universities and research institutes recruit a certain number of researchers every year.
It is not difficult to do research, publish articles, participate in projects and enter universities or research institutes at the doctoral stage.
After graduating from abroad, you can also choose to be a postdoctoral fellow in a foreign laboratory. After leaving the station, you can find a job in a foreign laboratory, you can choose to stay abroad, and you can also apply for some projects to go back to China to engage in scientific research. This is a favorable choice. People who have overseas scientific research experience will have some differences in mentality, thinking and communication methods with those who have graduated from doctoral programs in China. English level is a big advantage, and academic training is different from that in China. Having overseas research experience will make your vision more international, and communication with foreign counterparts will also broaden your research ideas. So going abroad for scientific research will be of great help to your future career development.
5, put it into action, needless to say.
Career planning is my own thinking and design for the future. With this step, my target career will be easier to get. Nevertheless, we must realize that career is only a platform, and there are many factors that determine career development. We will talk about these factors later. In addition, the doctoral stage is only an experience of life, and it is not necessary to suppress the inner pursuit of career because of academic qualifications.