Essential Skills for a Career in Industry

How to Be More Employable in the Private Sector!

Keywords: Private sector careers, Industry career preparation, Scientist career options

Introduction to the course topics:

Are you wondering what working in the private sector is really like? While the private sector is a very exciting and dynamic environment that is full of rewarding career options for scientists, it is also very different than the career path we were trained for.
Do you feel confident you can impress a hiring manager when you describe the very specialized research project you just spent years pursuing? And what kinds of jobs can a scientist do well at a company anyway?
This workshop, taught by an instructor with more than 20 years’ experience hiring and managing scientists and engineers in the private sector, helps you with these questions and many more about the exciting world that awaits scientists in the private sector!

Course aims:

• What habits are required to be successful in a private sector career?
• How does a scientist design a rewarding career path and find jobs in the private sector?
• How to describe your experience and value to an industry hiring manager
• Overcoming common job search challenges
• Important skills and knowledge for an industry career that are not taught in a STEM/MINT education

Teaching methods: The course is highly interactive, mostly based on lectures, discussions and interactive exercises. We aim to bring together the skills and experiences the trainer has gathered in academic and industrial settings.

This course fits doctoral candidates in the following phase: during the doctorate │ at the end of the doctorate

Participation requirements: none

Literature: none

Technical requirements: none

Additonal information, notes: There is a workbook for this course that has notes and exercises that the participant will be able to keep for future work and reference. For online presentations, these are delivered in PDF format.

What participants say about this course:

• The course gives specific and highly relevant insights into the possible careers of scientists
• This course gave me more confidence by focusing on my strengths
• The course is well-organized with several different modules and vivid examples
• It was a terrific experience and David showcased the impact of his advices with his own personality and experiences, which is way more powerful than reading the same advices in a book for example
• I liked the laid-back atmosphere with real stories, cases and examples as well as the good advices and explanations. The exchange of the trainer's personal experience was also very interesting.