RESEARCHER CAREER DEVELOPMENT PLAN
This Plan can be used to help you assess your career readiness, whether you want to enter an academic career, a non-academic career, or create a portfolio
career. Each section focuses on a different area of your readiness, and you can use this as a tool to assess your situation or progress at any stage during
your PhD. You can complete this independently, or you can work with a Career Consultant to assess your needs and make an action plan.
The Plan falls into four categories:
 Knowledge and Skills
 Work Experience and Career Learning
 Sector Knowledge
 Engagement, Influence and Impact
There is then a section at the end where you can begin to draw together an action plan, based on your answers to the questions in the preceding sections.
This Plan has been developed with reference to the elements of the Vitae Researcher Development Framework, so it will correspond to any planning you
are doing with that framework.
To book an appointment to discuss your Plan or your wider career goals, please email careers@chester.ac.uk and state that you are PhD student.
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KNOWLEDGE AND SKILLS
Your current status and development needs
To what extent do you want to
use your existing
academic/research knowledge
in your career plans?
What academic knowledge do
you want to use, and what
knowledge do you need to
develop?
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What are your transferable
skills, both in relation to
academic research activity, and
more widely? Where are your
strengths? Where are your
developmental areas? (There is
a skills audit list you can use to
help with this process)
What expectations do you have
about using your transferable
skills? Which skills do you most
want to use in the workplace?
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WORK EXPERIENCE AND CAREER LEARNING
Your current status and development needs
What career plans have you
made so far?
What are the most significant
areas of your existing work
experience? Consider jobs, roles
or voluntary work where you
have learned specific skills,
developed insight into your
career interests or preferences,
or which have formed a basis
for your future career.
How does your PhD fit with
your career plans? Does it add
specific measurable value, and
if so, how? If not, how could
you explain to an employer its
personal value to you?
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What work experience or
shadowing opportunities do you
need to help you make an
informed decision about
possible future choices?
What values and expectations
are you taking into the
workplace? What type of
experience do you want in the
workplace? Consider factors
such as collaboration, authority
and independence, moral or
ethical issues, work-life balance
and so on. Consider how these
factors relate to your PhD
experience; are they factors you
want to continue, or new ones
you want to introduce?
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SECTOR KNOWLEDGE
Your current status and development needs
How much knowledge do you
have of the labour market in
general? Where do you get your
information from? How do you
use it? How can it help you?
How much do you know about
the sector you want to enter?
Do you understand its
structures? Do you know how it
recruits? Do you know where it
gets its funding from? Do you
know how the sector stands in
the global marketplace? Do you
know what limitations there
might be on entering the sector
in terms of qualifications,
experience, knowledge,
geographical location etc.?
6
What specialist knowledge is
required to work in your chosen
sector(s)? Is this knowledge you
can gain within the industry, or
will you need to have it in order
to apply? Are there any
connections with your PhD
research content, or previous
academic or professional
experience? If you need this
knowledge, how will you get it?
How well do you understand
the different roles available in
the sector you want to work in?
Or, if you are interested in a
particular type of job, do you
know how widely this job
occurs in different industries
and sectors?
Which transferable skills,
aptitudes and values are most
important to work in the sector
or the roles you have
specifically identified as being of
interest?
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ENGAGEMENT, INFLUENCE AND IMPACT
Your current status and development needs
What shape is your network in?
Are you on LinkedIn, a member
of professional bodies, or
academic communities (or all of
them!)?
How recently have you audited
your network, to identify lost
contacts, unexplored potential,
or overused connections? If you
did an audit now, what might
you find?
What shape is your
employability network in? Are
you connected to people who
work in the sectors or roles that
you want to work in? How
effective are those connections
and how effectively do you
maintain them and build new
ones?
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If you don’t have connections in
relevant sectors, how can you
build them? What plans can you
make to develop new networks
that will help you gain
information you need and
access to relevant professional
contacts?
How influential are you in your
chosen professions so far? How
can you develop a more
influential profile?
What activities could you
develop to have an impact on
your chosen sector and
networks?
What could you gain from
mentoring or coaching from a
professional in your chosen
sector?
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ACTION PLAN
The sections above will have raised a number of questions, so here you can begin prioritising the areas you most need to work on. Consider dividing your
next steps into:


What do I need to learn about myself?
What do I need to learn about the sector I want to move into?
Identify areas you need to work on soon, and those which will require other steps to be taken first.
Identify who your partners are going to be in this planning: career consultants, academic peers or contacts, external networks and so on.
Also, consider your CV. Is it up to date and fit for purpose? Does it reflect the styles and requirements of the sectors you want to work in?
You can also reuse this plan at future stages in your PhD planning, allowing you to review and compare progress and how your goals evolve.
If you would like to discuss your career plans further, please email careers@chester.ac.uk for an appointment, stating that you are a PhD student.
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