Preparing for the academic and nonacademic job market as an applied economics PhD student

Today a PhD student in a US agricultural and applied economics program who is not yet on the job market asked me: how do I prepare myself to be competitive for both academic and nonacademic jobs when I graduate?

I’m sharing what I said to them here, as I think others would benefit from hearing the answers as well. As always, my perspective is just one perspective on all this, but I hope it's helpful.

Suggestion 1: Inventory your skills and take steps to develop new skills

What skills are you developing in the process of working on your dissertation and working as a research and/or teaching assistant? Skills might include: survey design, data collection, data analysis, data visualization, project management, budget management, grant writing, communicating technical information to a broad audience, knowledge of specific coding languages or other tools, seeing a project from inception to completion, meeting deadlines, working with a team, and more. In the academic job market, this bundle of skills is generally presented via the job market paper. For nonacademic jobs that don’t ask for a job market paper, you will want to be prepared to communicate directly about these skills in your résumé and application. Nonacademic employers are likely to care more about the specific skills you developed than about the job market paper itself.  

Once you’ve determined the skills you have, it’s important to figure out what skills you need. Take a look at job postings for nonacademic positions that interest you (check out my job board, Applied Econ Jobs, for example). What skills are required? What skills are desired/preferred? Some of these skills are things you might already have or being working to build. But for skills you don’t have, which of these could you build while you’re completing your PhD? Also, of course, which skills are in demand change over time, so be cognizant of what’s on the horizon in terms of skills.

One skill that I want to highlight that I think is particularly important for nonacademic jobs is communicating technical information to a broad audience. If you are in a Land Grant institution, one way to build your communication skills is by developing outreach and Extension outputs like fact sheets, white papers, blog posts, websites/dashboards, or other stakeholder-facing communication based on your research. This may be something your faculty advisor has expertise in, or it may be something you will need to work with department communications staff or Extension faculty to produce. This skill and the outputs that you produce can then go on your résumé and CV.

Another way you can build new skills that might be required or desired by potential employers is through a graduate internship. I'm seeing more and more internships and consulting opportunities that are specifically targeting graduate students. Currently I am not posting these on Applied Econ Jobs, but I do share them on LinkedIn when I see them.

Yet another way to build new skills is through some extracurricular activities at your university or in the community. Examples at your university could be through union organizing with your graduate student union or serving as a club leader or graduate student representative on a committee. In the community, you could find a role in a local organization. For example, I served on the Board of Directors of a consumer-owned food cooperative when I was doing my PhD (including serving as Board President during a national search for a new General Manager). While I would not necessarily recommend this level of service to everyone, as it did probably extend the time that it took me to finish my PhD, the point is, I gained useful transferrable skills and knowledge (meeting facilitation skills, knowledge of employment laws, etc.) that continue to serve me well and helped me stand out on the job market.

Suggestion 2: Take advantage of resources at your university beyond your department

Universities—particularly well-funded universities like the R1 Land Grants that house many US agricultural and applied economics programs—tend to have quite a few resources available on campus to help students build their skill sets (e.g., a workshop on a particular coding language, a project management certification program, an institutional subscription to an online resource). Seek out and take advantage of these various resources on campus while you are still a student. Although budgets are increasingly squeezed, many campuses offer a veritable buffet of resources. Once you graduate, you will be paying for all of these resources à la carte.

One resource that I think tends to go underutilized by PhD students is the university Career Center. Some faculty feel that Career Centers do not offer support that's specific enough to the discipline to be useful for PhD students, but I disagree. In my experience, Career Centers at large universities do have career advisors that support graduate students. They won’t have specific disciplinary knowledge but may be organized around a set of disciplines (e.g., social sciences) or a specific college (e.g., College of Agriculture). You can meet one-on-one with a career advisor to talk about your career goals and get some specific feedback on developing a professional résumé (which is distinct from a CV). Also Career Centers have workshops available to graduate students. Some of these workshops are about getting to know yourself and the way you work. The more you know about who you are and what you want, the better fit you can find in a job right out of the gate when you graduate.

Suggestion 3: Be proactive in networking within and outside of academia

Another thing that I encourage PhD students to be doing well before the job market is networking. Say yes to every opportunity to network! Go to the networking events at the conferences you attend. If you know one person in a group, walk up to that group and ask them to introduce you (and hopefully they will do so even without you asking). If you are not very comfortable speaking to strangers, that's a skill that you can build (again check out university opportunities or other organizations in your community like Toastmasters). You want people to know who you are before your application ever hits their desk. Look for conferences and events that bring together academics and nonacademic practitioners and seek out relevant professional associations (for those people interested in industry jobs, I recommend checking out the National Association for Business Economists).

That brings me to another point. During your PhD (before you go on the market) is a great time to do informational interviews with people whose jobs interest you. Informational interviews can help you learn what the day-to-day work is like in different types of jobs and help you determine what kinds of jobs you want to apply for when the time comes. Ask people questions about what they do, what their job looks like day-to-day, what excites them about their job, what doesn't excite them about it, what skills they think are most important for that type of job, etc. Ask them what conferences, events, or activities you should be participating in to get further connected with people in their area of work. Returning to an earlier point, if you’re not familiar with informational interviews, Career Centers tend to have useful resources to help you learn about what they are and how to do them.

Wrapping up

In closing, I want to say that all these activities can help you prepare for both the academic and nonacademic job markets. Rather than thinking about developing two separate portfolios, I suggest building one portfolio of skills and work and then thinking about how you are going to frame and present that portfolio differently for different potential employers. There's much more that could be said on this topic and I encourage folks to comment on this post or on LinkedIn about what other things you think PhD students not yet on the job market can do now to make sure they are well prepared for a range of potential jobs.

Additional resources to support your job market journey

The Erdős Institute

The Storytelling Professor

From PhD to Life

The Professor is In

National Center for Faculty Development and Diversity (many institutions have memberships)