Employment statistics today tell us that, though many of you start out your doctoral studies and postdoctoral training to pursue a career in academic research, the majority (the latest figure is about 70%) wind up in careers outside of academia. This change in focus may occur gradually over time or may be precipitated by a specific event and happen much more rapidly. This changing employment demographic means that a great number of you will need to sit down with your PIs or mentors to inform them of your new career path.

In celebration of St. Patrick’s Day, we decided to take another look at what luck really looks like.  If you search the word “luck” on this very career blog, many of the results include interviews with NIH alumni who have attributed some part of their career to luck. This is a small example which reflects a larger sentiment.  Many individuals feel that their career path has unfolded by chance and they somehow just got lucky.

Recently, the staff here in the OITE had a dose of our own medicine.  Our boss asked us to complete a document about our professional goals and needs. This document reminded many of us about how we tell trainees to “fill out an IDP”. For a group of professionals in the career development field, we were all surprised how hard this document was to complete.  Now, we have a whole new appreciation of what our trainees struggle with when we ask them to do the same thing.