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OITE professional career counselors meet individually with trainees to provide career advice and assistance. They are available most days in Building 2 on the Bethesda campus as well as some days in Frederick and Baltimore. They can help you in the following ways.
With career planning:
- By asking important career planning questions to help clarify your goals.
- By helping you learn how to make career decisions in a meaningful rather than a haphazard way.
- By administering career interest inventories and personality assessments to help you to understand yourself better and relate this self-knowledge to career choice.
- By discussing the appropriateness of further formal study in various advanced degree programs to prepare you to meet your career goals.
With the job search process:
- By strategizing with you about how to approach a job search.
- By directing you to print and Internet resources to learn more about careers and to support your job search.
- By conducting mock interviews to prepare you for actual job interviews (or graduate or medical school interviews).
- By reviewing your resume or c.v. to improve its effectiveness in describing your background and skills to increase your chances of receiving interview requests.
With considering careers outside the lab:
- By stimulating your thinking about ways to use your scientific training other than in the traditional academic research career.
- By identifying transferable skills you possess that can help you transition to a non-traditional career.
- By brainstorming with you ways to use your unique background and skills.
- By coaching you about the process for conducting informational interviews to become better informed about careers outside the laboratory.
With developing the skills necessary for career success:
- By teaching you assertiveness skills to enable you to get what you want from both your experience at NIH and your career after completing your training at NIH.
- By assisting you with developing negotiation skills.
- By helping you identify gaps in your professional preparation and appropriate mechanisms for closing them.
With continuing your efforts in the face of adversity:
- By offering encouragement and support to assist you in achieving your goals.
Career counselors will not:
- Make your decisions for you.
- Get you a job.
- Tell you exactly what you can expect to earn in a given career field.
- Provide you with a list of people with whom to conduct informational interviews.
- Write your resume or c.v.
- Put you in direct contact with employers.
- Research careers, companies, graduate or professional school programs for you.
- Outline, in a specific, highly detailed way, every possible career path you could pursue.
- Expect you to hold the same values as the counselor.
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