Hear me out before you judge. I realize how seriously academics take their summer vacation — and for good reason! You work hard throughout the academic year.

No one agrees that you deserve a time to breathe more than I do.  However, I also understand how important it is to maximize your time by preparing for your career options, or even the actual job search.

I’m the first one to tell you that your skills and professional profile can take you to a great nonacademic job. But, (yes, there’s a but), there’s work to be done to cultivate your postacademic career options. Here are 8 things you can do this summer between road trips and runs to the beach, that will boost your career transition:

  1. Request informational interviews
  2. Ask professional contacts to shadow them for a week or tour their workplace for a few hours
  3. Research organizations/companies of interest
  4. Reconnect with professional contacts via email or LinkedIn
  5. Attend industry events or social-networking events
  6. Convert your academic CV to a resume (I’ve blogged about how to do that here and here. It’s a huge undertaking so I also offer it as a service where we do it for you. Contact us at support@beyondthetenturetrack.com to sign up.)
  7. Update your Career Change narrative
  8. Research job fields of interest

For a comprehensive way to use your summer for the job search, consider joining Options4Success Career Transition Course, where I teach these steps and guide you through the steps above.  You don’t have to go it alone.

The summer time is invaluable – you’ll be glad you used it wisely.

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