SSA members enjoy complimentary webinars, workshops and mentoring sessions.
Navigating Career Transitions – Register Here
This four-part virtual workshop is complimentary for SSA members (membership must be valid through 2025 to participate in the course).
Led jointly by geophysicist, Ross Stein, and career coach, Ellen Shulman, this workshop is intended to help you explore alternative career paths, identify your goals and unique characteristics, learn how to convey your strengths in your CV and online career profiles, expand your network of supporters, and find employers who value you.
The workshop will be immersive, allowing you to practice skills and apply them to your situation. For example, you will have the opportunity to network in small groups, evaluate your resume and LinkedIn profile, answer job interview questions and give a job talk opening with live feedback. The workshop will also feature nine special guests, young scientists who found careers outside of academia and federal agencies. They will share their career journey and answer your questions.
This will be a welcoming environment and none of the sessions will be recorded in order to protect the privacy of participants. So, we strongly encourage you to attend all four sessions and to keep your video on throughout. Whether you are just starting out or established in your career, this workshop seeks to equip you to navigate the rapidly evolving career prospects in seismology and the earth sciences.
➤ Session 1: What do I want to do, and where do I want to do it?
Monday, June 16, 9-10:30am Pacific
A job search begins with soul searching. Through a series of exercises, discussions, and stories, you will identify your distinguishing strengths and attributes, which are the bedrock of your career path. In the current job market, you’ll need to ponder whether you are willing to change locations to stay in your field, or change fields to stay in your location. We’ll also peruse job sites, summarize our understanding of the state of the job market, and explain potential opportunities created by this changing market.
➤ Session 2: Developing materials to appeal to my target employers
Wednesday, June 18, 9-10:30am Pacific
This session is all about the job hunt: You now know what you want, so how do you get it? The two elements are building your ‘brand’ (professional value) and contacting companies or institutions that will value you. We’ll focus on what makes a great LinkedIn profile and CV, and the power of low-stress informational interviews to widen your reach and build your network. We’ll hear from others who have begun this process and show you their before/after LinkedIn profiles and CVs.
➤ Session 3: Refining my job interview skills
Tuesday, June 24, 9-10:30am Pacific
Now you’ve gotten an interview; how do you prepare? The goal of a job interview is to advance your candidacy with each reply by actively shaping and enriching the conversation. By all the means at your disposal, you need to learn what the interviewers are looking for and work to make a personal and professional connection with each person you meet during the interview process. We’ll role play with standard questions that you need to have concise answers prepared for, and spontaneous questions that will require you to improvise. More than you might think, a job interview is storytelling, it is conversational, and personal as well as professional.
➤ Session 4: Refining my job talk opener
Thursday, June 26, 9-10:30am Pacific
Many employers ask for a job talk, which could be about your research or your vision for the company. The final session will focus on the first two minutes of your job talk, which is by far the most important part of any talk, and the most often misused by speakers. In the opening, you plant your scientific flag and forecast the arc of your presentation. You are not telling them what you did, but instead what you discovered, or what you will argue for. A job talk differs slightly from a typical institution talk, as you are also showing what’s in your ‘toolbox,’ your range of skills, interests and experiences. The job talk highlights your accomplishments while communicating your future scientific or commercial agenda. It’s more about your value to the employer and where you will take them than it is about what you have accomplished.