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UCLA Career Center
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Career Tools & Resources to Help You Succeed

Learn how to keep yourself ahead of the curve.

Online Resources

Chronicle Vitae ChronicleVitae

The Chronicle of Higher Education’s online platform for academic job resources.

 Forage logo Forage

Build real world skills direct from leading organizations through virtual experience programs.

 Handshake Handshake

UCLA's platform that connects Bruins with internships, jobs and career opportunities.

 ImaginePhD Imagine PHD

A career exploration tool for PhDs and postdocs in the humanities and social sciences.

 InterSECT InterSECT Job Simulations

An online platform for PhD level scientists and humanists to explore career options.

 Life Values Inventory Life Values Inventory

An assessment tool developed to help you clarify your values and guide decision making.

 MyIDP MyIDP

A career development and planning tool for PhD students and postdocs in the sciences.

 Occupational Outlook Handbook Occupational Outlook Handbook

A resource for career and industry trends, salaries, and job outlook.

 Parker Dewey Parker Dewey

Paid micro-internship opportunities for UCLA students of all majors, years, and degree levels.

 Career Prep Toolkit UCLA Career Preparation Toolkit

A career preparation toolkit for UCLA graduate students and postdoctoral scholars.

 VMock VMock

A smart resume platform that allows you to build your resume and get detailed feedback anytime, anywhere, 24/7.

Resources on Handshake

GoinGlobal GoinGlobal

A career resource to aid your international job and internship search.

 Interview Stream InterviewStream

A mock interviewing tool that will help you prepare for your next interview.

 First Hand Logo First Hand

Find out what it's really like to work within a specific industry or profession with First Hand.

Career Exploration Tools

A Letter to PhDs Seeking an Alt-Ac Career

UCLA PhD Melanie Ho offers insights into how to conduct a successful informational interview.

 Creating My Development Plan for Graduate Students and Postdocs

Use this resource to identify your professional development needs and create a development plan to guide your future.

 Crowdsourcing Platforms for Skillbuilding

Crowdsourcing platforms provide opportunities to gain experience working on real projects across industries. Explore this list of crowdsourcing platforms that can be useful to help build your portfolio and develop new skills.

 Job Offer Evaluation/Negotiation Worksheet

This worksheet is intended to help you organize your values/needs in a position compared to the job offer. It is not intended to suggest that you negotiate on all points, just to merely consider what is most important to you.

 Job Search Action Plan

The average time to secure a job is typically 6-12 months. The closer you are to completing your degree/training, the more time you should dedicate to the job search. Use this worksheet to develop a plan of action and guide your job search time.

 SWOT Analysis

Use this worksheet to help you identify your strengths as a candidate for a particular job, areas of improvement, and networking/training opportunities.

 Transferable Skills Analysis

Use this list of transferable skills to start identifying and prioritizing your skills gained as a graduate student, postdoc, and through other experiences.

 Values Worksheet

Use this worksheet to reflect on the values that are most important in your current and future work.

 Internship Search Guide

A quick overview of the filters and sorting tools on Handshake to help optimize your job/internship search experience.

Navigating Handshake for Students

Learn about the variety of resources and benefits available to students on Handshake.

Resume Tools

Academic Cover Letter Template

The academic cover letter communicates your scholarly fit with a position, organization and department. Use this template to help build a cover letter than expands on your accomplishments and outlines your future trajectory.

 Active Verb List

Enhance your resume or CV with this list of active verbs.

 Cover Letter Template

A Cover Letter is a tailored one -page document that provides context and in depth examples of your skills, knowledge, experience and ft for the position. Use this template as a guide when preparing a cover letter for your application materials.

 CV vs Resume

What's the difference between a CV and resume? See this guide for the answer.

 Humanities and Social Sciences PhD Resume Example

View an example of a well-written resume for Humanities and Social Science PhD students.

 Job Description and Tailored Resume Example

Each resume should be specific to the job position for which you are applying. See an example of how this PhD-level resume is tailored to the position.

 North Campus Master's Resume Example

View an example of a well-written resume for North Campus Master's students.

 PhD-level Curriculum Vitae Template

Learn the components of a CV with this non-discipline specific template.

 South Campus Master's Resume Example

View an example of a well-written resume for South Campus Master's students.

 STEM PhD Resume Example

View an example of a well-written resume for STEM PhD students.