Career

Below is a list of recommended reading to help you navigate grad school and strategize for your career.  These are some examples and there are many more!  Many have very similar topics, so are listed together.  Pick one or two depending on where you are in your program.  You do not need to read them all! They range from helping you choose your research project, to navigating each stage of your program, to helping you select opportunities for career planning. (Note: many of these are available through the UBC library)

• Designing your Life by Bill Burnett & Dave Evans https://designingyour.life/
  • An interactive book that helps you reflect on your like and work, and design a strategy for pursuing your life and career goals
• Work Your Career: Get What You Want from Your Social Sciences or Humanities PhD, by Jonathan Malloy & Loleen Berdahl
  • A practical, interactive Canadian guide for navigating graduate school while considering both academic and non-academic career options from the outside.  Relevant for masters and PhDs and all disciplines.
• Where Research Begins: Choosing a Research Project that Matters to You (and the world) by Thomas S. Mullaney and Christopher Rea https://whereresearchbegins.com/the-book/
  • An interactive book with exercises to help you choose a topic, turn it into a compelling research question, track your research, and design your research project
• The Deliberate Doctorate by Leela Viswananthan, https://www.ubcpress.ca/the-deliberate-doctorate
  • An interactive book for producing a personalized roadmap to your PhD and aligning your values and goals
• Applying Indigenous Research Methods: Storying with Peoples and Communities, edited by Sweeney Windchief and Timonthy San Pedro
  • Collection of Indigenous scholars discussing their research methods in conversation with other scholars, teachers, and community members (including some UBC faculty). Addresses the importance of IRMs in all qualitative scholarship.
• Research as Ceremony: Indigenous Research Methods by Shawn Wilson
  • This book highlights how important relationships are to Indigenous scholarship, and how Indigenous research is the ceremony of maintaining accountability to these relationships.
• Indigenous Methodologies: Characteristics, Conversations, and Contexts by Margaret Kovach
  • Provides a conceptual framework for implementing Indigenous methodologies and serves as a useful entry point for those wishing to learn more broadly about Indigenous research.
• The Successful TA: A Practical Approach to Effective Teaching, by Kathy M. Nomme and Carol Pollock, https://www.ubcpress.ca/the-successful-ta
  • A short, accessible guide to university teaching including expectations, classroom management, assessment, and more.
• Deep Work by Cal Newport
  • A book that provides actionable advice you through strategies for developing time management habits to focus without distraction on cognitively demanding tasks.
• Writing your Dissertation in 15 minutes a day: A Guide to Starting, Revising, and Finishing Your Doctoral Thesis by Joan Bolker
  • Recommended by a colleague as 'the' book that helped them through their PhD
• A Field Guide to Grad School: Uncovering the Hidden Curriculum by Jessica McCrory Calarco
  • Overview of all of the unwritten and often unspoken knowledge and skills you need for thriving in grad school
• Succeeding Outside the Academy: Career Paths beyond the Humanities, Social Sciences, and STEM- edited by Joseph Frusicone & Kelly J. Baker
  • A novel that provides stories and advice for pursuing careers outside of the academy work
• “So What are you Going to Do with That?” by Susan Basalla & Maggie Debelius
  • Practical guidance for finding careers outside of academia
• The Professor is In by Karen Kelsky
  • A guide for turning your PhD into your ideal job.  More at https://theprofessorisin.com/
• The Power of a Positive No, William Ury
  • Learning how to decide what to say 'yes' to and what to say 'no' to.  If you say no, what are you saying 'yes' to

Other readings and student/colleague recommendations:

• Becoming an Academic Writer: 50 Exercises for Paced, Productive, and Powerful Writing, Patricia Goodson
• Making Time to Write: How to Resist the Patriarchy and Take Control of Your Academic Career Through Writing, Cathy Mazak
• Anne Krook's articles and practical advice for graduate students and posdoctoral fellows for how to seek non-academic employment. annekrook.com
• Getting What You Came For: The Smart Student's Guide to Earning an M.A. or a Ph.D. , Robert L Peters
• Advice for New Faculty Members, Robert Boice
• How to Write a Lot: A Practical Guide to Productive Academic Writing, Paul Silvia
• The Clockwork Muse: A Practical Guide to Writing Theses, Dissertations, and Books, Eviatar Zerubavel
• Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life, Anne Lamott

Have a recommendation?  Email graduate.pathways@ubc.ca to add it to this list!

The purpose of this online, on-demand course is to enhance PhD scientists’ understanding of foundational business concepts. This business coursework is unique because it is designed to prepare scientists for career transitions into both academic and non-academic settings. The course comprises a series of three modules - Business Strategy, Finance and Business Development.

This course is designed for graduate students, postdocs and junior faculty who wish to gain a basic understanding of business fundamentals. The goal is to impact participants' career readiness by helping prepare scientists who want to start their own labs, and inform scientists who want to go into industry.

By the end of the course, you will be able to:

• Explain key terms used in the business and financial management of scientific enterprises.
• Apply foundational concepts to your own research planning.
• Develop increased confidence in using business terminology during interviews or networking events.
• Identify knowledge areas within business for further study.

For further information and to register visit https://sciencecommunicationlab.org/research-skills/science-business/

Visit the graduate student career page for tools, resources, advice, and video stories to help guide your career planning and exploration.

This Career Workshop Series is run annually by the Graduate Pathways to Success Program in collaboration with the UBC Career Centre to support career exploration and development for graduate students. Participants are free to attend all or select sessions based on their interests and priorities. Recordings and descriptions of each session are provided. Please note: not all of our workshops are recorded.

You can view and register for upcoming career workshops by visiting our events page. 

Fall 2025 Sessions

Spring 2026 Sessions

We have upcoming workshops on a range of topics such as resumes, cover letter, LinkedIn, interview-preparation and so on. Registrations open on a rolling basis. Visit our events page or follow the GradUpdate Newsletter (forwarded by your program) to find out when registrations open. 

The Certificate Program in Advanced Teaching and Learning is a year-long teaching development program that supports the development of graduate students' expertise in teaching and learning. It serves both graduate students seeking excellence in teaching and learning in their future roles as faculty, as well as those who will apply the skills outside of traditional faculty roles.. Learn more.

This site provides samples and information about curricula vitae . See here for additional examples of grad-specific CV and samples.

Materials, handouts, and recordings from many past Graduate Pathways to Success sessions, including our career and statistics series, are posted online here (cwl login required)

The Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) has developed an online Individual Development Plan (IDP) and resources.  The IDP is a tool that supports graduate students and PDFs in actively preparing for the career(s) of their choice by exploring career paths, establishing career goals, and identifying skill gaps, culminating in an action plan to achieve their career goal(s).

ImaginePhD is a free online career exploration and planning tool for PhD students and postdoctoral scholars in the humanities and social sciences. The ImaginePhD project is powered by the Graduate Career Consortium (https://gradcareerconsortium.org/; GCC).
Note: This website is not hosted in Canada, and your personal information may be stored or accessed outside of Canada.

My IDP is a unique, web-based career-planning tool tailored to meet the needs of PhD students and postdocs in the sciences.  This website was developed by AAAS/Science, the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB), and experts from several universities (see authors on their site). 
Note: This website is not hosted in Canada, and your personal information may be stored or accessed outside of Canada.

InterSECT is an online platform that allows PhD-level scientists and humanists, regardless of professional stage, to explore future career options. Our goal is to provide true-to-life job simulation exercises that help individuals consider the following questions:

What are my professional interests and skills?
How do my interests and skills translate to potential careers?
What are my career options?
Which careers haven’t I considered?

All degree seeking UBC students can log in to this online tool to access resources related to consulting, including resources for preparing for case interviews, learning about what consulting is, free webinars, and finding peers to practice case interviews with. Students can log in with their CWL at https://managementconsulted.com/ubc-student-login/ 

Questions?  Contact career.centre@ubc.ca

Careers online is an online job and volunteer board for UBC students and alumni (scroll to bottom of page). This page also includes advice on job search strategies.

This site provides samples and video tutorials to help target and tailor your resumes and cover letters. See here for additional examples of grad-specific resume and cover letter templates.