Grad School to Career Career Pathways
Your graduate education prepares you for a variety of careers possibilities. A graduate education from the University of Saskatchewan provides training beyond your discipline. Your graduate journey builds an array of competencies that will aid you in your career path.
There are three main pathways from your graduate education into your career: industry, academia, and entrepreneurship.
Industry
Apply your graduate training in disciplinary industries to create opportunities.
Academia
Continuing your contribution to academia through a career in research, education and scholarship.
Entrepreneurship
Pursing a career in creating economic and/or social opportunities through entrepreneurial ventures.
Industry
The most expansive pathway to potential careers from a graduate education is working in industry. We are using industry in this context to reflect all career possibilities outside of academia and entrepreneurship pathways. The potential for industry careers vary vastly across disciplines. We can separate industry opportunities into two separate sectors:
Public Sector
Non-project organization, policy development, government administration, health care
Private Sector
Research, product development, clinical work, organizational governance, business
Both sectors provide substantial opportunities to progress your career. In exploring this pathway, it’s important to identify the potential careers based on your discipline, program, and passions. These three elements will help further narrow what opportunities you may want to consider and explore. The Individual Development Plan resource helps guide and walk you through this process.
Academia
If you have desire to constantly learn, research, and teach, academia might be a potential career path for you. Being passionate about research and knowledge creation is a requirement for a career in academia. Roles within academia vary strongly amongst disciplines, departments, colleges, and universities.
A career in academia revolves around three main functions:
Teaching
Focuses on teaching undergraduate and graduate classes, developing new courses, and supervising undergraduate and graduate student projects. As faculty you are key to developmental of the next generation of researchers and scholars. Helping students find their passions, acting as a sounding board, and advising them on important career decisions are all part of the job.
Research
Involves conducting independent research, developing research partnerships and collaborations (both internal and external to the university), pursuing research grants, and distributing knowledge through conference publications and journal publications. Faculty are also key players in facilitating the creation of knowledge in your research area.
Service
Includes serving both the academic institution and larger community. Faculty are paramount with contributing to the operations and growth of their institution. Service may including sitting on academic committees, leading administrative operations (e.g., department head, dean), participating as editorial boards of journals (i.e., editor, reviewer), or volunteering and supporting community initiatives.
Entrepreneurship
As a graduate student you are part of leading the production of knowledge and innovations. A graduate education trains you in developing ideas and solutions that are innovative, the perfect environment for building an entrepreneurial mindset. The research journey parallels the entrepreneurial experience, requiring similar skills and abilities from a variety of disciplines.
Entrepreneurial ventures are the pursuit of innovative opportunities that create social and/or economic impact. Your graduate journey can help develop your innovation, creativity and entrepreneurial skills and abilities you can apply to entrepreneurial opportunities.
Career Preparation Resources
The University of Saskatchewan is committed to your success in achieving your desired career. At USask, we have an array of resource available to support you in any pathway you choose to enter your career.Career Services
Career Services is dedicated to student career success and offer guidance and expertise to advance career education at the University of Saskatchewan. Career Services can support you in all areas of identifying your career and job search.
Explore potential career options, set goals, map your career path, identify and enhance your job search strategies to locate your career entry position
Develop, discuss, and enhance your career search documents (e,g,, resumes, cover letters, and CVs)
Develop, practice and polish your interview skills to help you be successful in the interview process
Understand yourself so you can establish clear career goals and make informed career decisions
Network and learn about specific industries and key information directly from employers
Career coaching, ResumeTalks, mock interviews, and campus career events are available free of charge to all newly admitted and current students, and alumni of USask.
Learn more about career services Meet with a career educator Career guides & resources
Beyond the Professoriate (BtP)
Finishing your graduate program can be an overwhelming process as you step into the unknown and being launching your professional job search. Aurora is a professional development training platform with careers online exploration and planning tool that will support you in learning and developing successful job search strategies.
Aurora offers students support into two different programs:
- Academic Careers Pathway program
- Professional Careers Pathway program
Successfully transition into academic or nonacademic career paths through:
- Video library of interviews with PhD holders working in all career sectors: academic, government, higher ed, industry, and non-profits.
- Research-based, structured curriculum that will help you through each stage of your job search.
- Video lessons, workbooks, and assessments that will facilitate your learning experience.
- Monthly live events where you can learn the latest in industry hiring trends.
- Members-only podcast to learn how PhDs successfully build meaningful careers.
Opus Incubator
Opus is a pre-accelerator program designed to help USask founder mobilize on campus innovations through access to programming, infrastructure, and a network of mentors and advisors. Grow your business knowledge and network through the Opus Incubator to help bring your innovation to life.
Independent Development Plan
Map your journey from completing program requirements to successful entry into your career by creating an Individual Development Plan (IDP). The IDP toolkit is designed to create a process that facilitates developing a map of where you want to go, how you plan to get there, and provide manageable actions that can help you mobilize movement towards your destination.
Benefits of creating an IDP:
- Explore and evaluate your career choices, taking into account your skills, interests and values
- Identify your strengths, weaknesses, and areas of focus required for your chosen career path
- Formulate a cohesive strategy and plan of action to simultaneously achieve your personal goals, aiding your holistic development
- Prioritize course work, projects, extracurricular activities, and professional development opportunities based on their relevance and alignment with your goals
- Plan day-to-day activities based on their degree of alignment with your goals
