In today’s era of Buzz Words and Rad Ideas, “transferrable skills” is a key word that many of us hear. These are essentially skills developed in one training environment, but which can be applied in many different situations. If you are a PhD candidate like myself, such skills will be your bread and butter for all potential career paths.

One thing that immediately comes to mind when we hear the word transferrable skills is “communication skills”. You got to learn how to talk and navigate difficult waters. This skill is key for many real-life jobs especially when you are moving up the management ladder. But that’s not the only tool in a PhD’s back-pocket. You develop time, people and conflict management skills, all of them being key down the road. Whether you have your own lab or if you are leading a team in an industry or you are helping in developing policies and advocating for science, you will need to set visions and break them down into achievable goals.

Our training as scientists in graduate school teaches us many of these skills while being in the lab environment but lab is not the end of the world. There a brave new world outside our lab cocoon awaiting us full of life lessons as well as grooming grounds for leadership and storytelling skills along with providing meaningful experiences about issues relevant and important to science but not necessarily specific to your discipline. Leading student groups can provide you with opportunities to expand your network of scientists and gaining a broader insight about progress of science fields. Often, hiring stories include the phrases along the lines of “well, I went to same gym as X and they introduced me to my next boss”.

The bottom line is as graduate students, we are presented with many opportunities which help us develop relevant skills for a plethora of potential careers. The first step to take is to identify your strengths, weaknesses and interests. You can be anything with a PhD but you need to identify what would you like to be with your PhD. Being a tenure-track professor is not the only option! The grad school experience can help you test different career paths and these transferrable skills make you very employable.