Prepare for a Non-Academic Career
Scripps Research trainees pursue a wide variety of rewarding positions.
Exploring your options
Interested in what you can do with your PhD? Here are sample job titles for life science-trained PhDs:
| Pharmaceutical sales/marketing representative | Patent agent or patent attorney |
| Venture capital associate | Management consultant |
| Non-profit/foundation grant administrator | Product development scientist |
| Technology development officer | Science write or journalist |
| FDA reviewer | Assistant professor: PUI or teaching college |
| Data scientist | Technical support specialist |
| Museum/science center director | High school teacher |
| Public relations/communications officer | NIH program officer |
| Community engagement/outreach coordinator | Science illustrator |
| Genetics counselor | Regulatory affairs specialist |
| Medical science liaison | Field application scientist |
| Assistant professor: research university or institute | Clinical trials coordinator |
| Think tank advisor | Life sciences librarian |
| Forensic scientist/investigator | Higher education administrator |
| Public or enviornmental health scientist | and more....... |
Career exploration tools:
- Longitudinal career outcomes data for Scripps Research students and postdocs
- Intersect Job Simulations – provides representative job simulation exercises for various PhD-level careers
- Schedule an appointment with the Career and Professional Development Office
- Career paths to explore for biomedical science students and postdocs
Scripps Research offers numerous courses and workshops to help you improve your professional skills while exploring career paths. Workshops are announced via the CPDO’s weekly email newsletter and social media feeds.
- Effective Career Planning for PhDs (1-credit course offered by the CPDO through Scripps Research’s graduate program)
- Ace the Interview
- Jump Start Your Job Search
- Career Panels
- Grant Writing 101
- Academic Laboratory Management
- LinkedIn and Social Media for Scientists
- Meet the Alumni Chats
- Transition to Industry Symposia
- Practice Interviews
- And more…
And, to help prepare you for a range of professional endeavors, the Society of Fellows has a tuition reimbursement program that covers the cost of certain professional development courses and networking events.
Postdocs can also audit graduate program courses on a space-available basis.
Exploring Careers with Experiential Learning (ExCEL)
The Career and Professional Development Office has set up a program to give graduate students and postdocs opportunities to explore a variety of career paths. The Exploring Careers with Experiential Learning (ExCEL) program allows participants to meet employers in-person or virtually to gain real-world experience working on representative projects. Each ExCEL visitation experience lasts a half-day to one day and is unpaid.
Goals of the program include: providing trainees with real-world, representative cases/problems to solve re: a particular career path; connecting companies to talented Scripps Research junior scientists; increasing trainee knowledge about a specific career path and company culture; increasing trainee confidence and optimism regarding their career plans; and changing trainee behavior re: their career exploration and job search.
Past ExCEL experiences have included medical science liaison (Teva Pharmaceuticals), patent agent (Ionis Pharmaceuticals), business development (MEI Pharma), technology development (Scripps Research), management consultant (1798 Consultants), and product marketing/market research (Sciencia Consulting).
Applications may be required, and experiences are announced via the CPDO’s weekly email newsletter and social media feeds.
External internship programs
Numerous sites exist to highlight central collections that already exist online. Sentence about CPDO periodically highlighting internship.
- Federal internships for STEM PhDs
- Short-term opportunities for graduate students or postdocs curated by Institute for Broadening Participation
- Science policy opportunities curated by Johns Hopkins Science Policy Group and AAAS
Before pursuing any formal internship programs, graduate students should review the internship policies for students.
Applying for positions
For assistance with your job search, schedule an appointment with the Career and Professional Development Office
The Chemistry Department at Scripps Research offers year-round industry recruiting.
Resumes and Cover Letters
- Summary Statement Examples compiled by Scripps Research’s CPDO
- Research Experience Examples compiled by Scripps Research’s CPDO
- Resume resources from the American Chemical Society
- Resumes and Cover Letters from Stanford University's Career Development Center (PDF)
- Guide to Cover Letters from the NIH’s Office of Intramural Training and Education (PDF)
Interviews and Negotiation
- Job Interview article collection from BioSpace
- I Really Dislike Negotiating, But… article by Joseph Barber in Inside Higher Education
