As my dates for defense and graduation are rapidly approaching, naturally, question marks have been popping in my head as to what the future holds for me. It’s no big secret that upon graduation, I will be taking a break (perhaps a permanent break) from bench research.

In hopes of getting a better understanding of what jobs are available in today’s economy, occasionally, I browse the “Classifieds” section for employment opportunities. One particular job posting intrigued me, but the job listing did not provide specific details for the job requirements.

Now, if I were to apply to that position, I was thinking, I can highlight a number of things that I have learned as a graduate student… critical thinking skills, troubleshooting, handling criticisms (from committee members and reviewers), communication skills (presentations and writing), etc. In addition, I have had a long standing interest and experience in web development and marketing.

However, I realized that while those skills are useful to a non-science job, I lacked industry-specific experience and knowledge, which is often what employers are searching for. Interestingly, this topic was somewhat featured in an article in a recent issue of Science Careers titled Transferring Skills Into Career Options.

The article highlights some of the challenges as well as presents potential solutions for postdocs who would like to capitalize and apply their sets of skills on alternative career options.

The bottom line is that working in the lab day and night will most likely fail to provide you with the necessary knowledge/skills to cross over to an alternative career. The solution is to get involved in different things that interest you. Not only will this help you learn about the specific sector, but this will demonstrate your interest in that sector.

In addition, as the article states, there is a number of professional societies that focus on helping and providing career advice to post-docs. If you are a post-doc, seek out professional societies from which you can benefit. However, do not just attend workshops to learn about the skills – get out of the lab and apply those skills.

While many graduate students and post-docs often times feel pressure to only focus on research and may be indirectly discouraged from pursuing other experiences outside the lab, I think more PIs are becoming more open-minded about this.

One final encouraging note (and I have heard this from many credible sources): the skills learned from being a scientist are often the core requirements for success in any field. Learning the industry-specific information can be done on the job.