Career Coaching for STEM Professionals

Strengthen your value proposition with prospective hiring managers.

For over 10 years we’ve worked with thousands of clients across the globe to help them find exciting, high-paying jobs.

In today’s skills-based hiring environment, there is great competition for jobs and employers are increasing their use of applicant tracking systems (ATS) and artificial intelligence (AI) in the hiring process. STEM graduates must understand the impact of these tools and be able to identify and articulate their value to prospective employers.

Clients use our Career Coaching in a variety of ways:

  • Receiving constructive feedback on their resumes and CVs
  • Increasing confidence with networking and conducting strategic informational interviews
  • Learning how to prepare and impress at job interviews
  • Negotiating better total compensation with job offers
  • Receiving step-by-step support throughout the entire hiring process
  • Navigating career challenges and helping you focus on career growth and development

We encourage you to work with us and utilize our comprehensive services that span the entire career placement process.

HOW WE HELP STEM GRADUATES LAND THEIR DREAM JOB

As our client we assist you with…

1. Career Exploration and Alignment

  • Identify the numerous and diverse career paths available to STEM graduates.
  • Understand your passions, innate talents, and how to align them with career opportunities.

2. Skill Development and Articulation

  • Learn what technical and nontechnical skills you possess and how to effectively articulate them in writing (e.g. resume/CV) and verbally (e.g. job interviews) during the hiring process.
  • Increase transferable skills to strengthen your candidacy for new roles.
  • Write effective CVs, resumes, and cover letters to communicate your value.
  • Create and personalize an elevator pitch to confidently speak about yourself.

3. Networking, Job Search, and Negotiation Strategies

  • Maximize professional social networks like LinkedIn.
  • Network effectively, build relationships, and leverage connections for job opportunities. Dynamically respond to position descriptions to show you are a competitive candidate. Prepare thoroughly for interviews, including valuable tips and techniques.
  • Learn proven strategies for confident and effective salary negotiation.

4. Continued Professional Growth

  • Develop a plan to continue your professional growth for increased responsibilities, promotions, enhanced compensation, and greater career satisfaction.
  • Identify professional skill gaps and/or limitations to career growth and discuss ways to overcome them.
  • Help with navigating career challenges, conflicts at work, or difficult conversations.

MEET YOUR CAREER COACHES

No one is more qualified to help you get your next position or advance your career than the STEM Career Services team.

Josh Henkin, PhD

STEM Career Services founder Josh Henkin, PhD understands the idiosyncrasies of job placement in the ultra-competitive science, technology, engineering and math fields. In addition to having earned a STEM PhD, completing a postdoc, being awarded an AAAS Science & Technology Policy Fellowship, and holding numerous jobs in industry and government, Josh has over 15 years of experience reviewing resumes and interviewing candidates as a hiring manager.

Josh’s coaching style and success has been recognized by numerous prestigious science organizations who have invited him to deliver career development workshops and serve as an ‘in-house’ coach for their trainees and fellows.

Daniel Olson-Bang, PhD

Daniel Olson-Bang, Ph.D. is the founding Director of Professional and Career Development in the Graduate School at Syracuse University, a role that he has held since 2017. Previously, he was Associate Director of Graduate Career Services, also at Syracuse, beginning in 2014. As Director, Dan works with master’s and doctoral students as well as postdoctoral scholars in all areas of career and professional development, specializing in work with STEM doctoral students and postdocs.

He has consulted with national career platforms, government labs, and advised graduate students and postdocs from institutions across the country on honing their academic job materials, practicing interviews, and guiding their negotiation processes to successful conclusions.

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

If you don’t find your question answered here, just contact us directly and we’ll be happy to help!

There are four reasons why STEM Career Services should be your TOP choice for career counseling if you earned your BS, MS, or PhD in a STEM-related discipline.

1. We only focus on STEM graduates. We are experts in your disciplines and understand the STEM workforce from both the candidate’s perspective as well as the employer’s perspective.

2. Our career counselors also received MS degrees and/or PhDs. We understand the challenges of the academic environment, working in a laboratory, getting published, the lack of career support at institutions, etc. We empathize with your struggles and we know how to help you.

3. Our career counselors currently work in STEM careers in a hiring capacity. Therefore, we know what hiring managers across the industry are looking for in candidates, and we understand the hiring process for jobs. We can share this “inside” information with you so that you can be more informed than your competition when you apply for positions.

4. We have built a solid reputation over our 10+ years in business which can be attributed to our specialization in STEM fields, a wide range of personalized services tailored to each individual client, and a commitment to staying current with industry trends and hiring practices. There is no other career coaching service available that is more experienced or qualified to help STEM graduates at all levels of their careers than STEM Career Services.

The easy answer to this question is 100%.

We haven’t had a client yet that has not found significant value in our services, and nearly all of our services are in the domain of helping clients find jobs. We believe the more important question is “Are our clients finding jobs that are challenging, rewarding and in areas that they are passionate about?” That is the metric that we care most about, and we believe that our highly satisfied client reviews, strong word-of-mouth referrals and frequent invitations to speak at conferences, universities and institutions across the country prove that we are on the right track.

There is no magic recipe for finding a rewarding career that will happen after “X” number of hours of career counseling or after “X” number of coaching sessions. The job market is dynamic and every client has unique characteristics, preferences, skills, and career goals. This is why we employ a personalized, one-on-one approach to career coaching instead of having you download a one-size-fits-all toolkit or join a community of job seekers who are struggling to find a job just like you.

Further, the goals of our clients vary. Some are recent graduates looking for their first professional position, while others are career changers looking to break into a new industry. Some are looking for specific help with their resumes or compensation negotiation with signing bonuses. We cover all comers and provide just enough help to get you where you want to be.

Our goal is to quickly and efficiently prepare you to be successful at finding a great job and help you gain the confidence to get that job by providing you with tools and insights that allow you to work independently from us. This streamlined mentoring approach is what gains us great referrals and has earned us a reputation as being the best in the business for STEM graduates.

No. We only want clients to work with us because of the results they achieve with our support. We provide tremendous value to our clients, which is why they keep coming back for follow-up sessions and continue to work with us to find their dream job.

We charge an hourly fee for our services, so there are no surprises to you.

CLIENT SUCCESS STORIES

“One of the smartest investments I have made in my professional journey is in signing up for career coaching sessions with Josh. Among his broad array of talents, one that I am very appreciative of is his ability to help me paint a meaningful and impressive story about my career trajectory. Having had multiple prior fellowship and job experiences that may not seem connected to the untrained eye, Josh helped me to take a step back and brainstorm how to present these backgrounds in an engaging, cohesive manner… Josh was also very strategic in how I should generally present myself in my application materials, giving me tips (both small and large) to stand out in the job search. I also appreciated the supportive nature he provided during our sessions, how he challenged me to think more critically about my prior impact and my future professional desires, and how he highlighted skillsets I didn’t even realize I had… I am genuinely excited to utilize all the advice I’ve received from Josh as I enter the job market, and hopefully find the job that will be the perfect combination of elements that I am looking for out of a career, and that will allow me to thrive and make a meaningful impact.”

Agnes Varghese, PhD, Science | Policy | Communication

“As a mid-career professional who was trying to switch my focus, Josh was exactly what I needed… Josh was an amazing career coach for my job search. He knows what recruiters and hiring managers are looking for. He explained not only that, but also how to tailor my message to the exact position I was applying to. He has a great system that I have recommended over, and over, and over again to friends and colleagues. After changing my LinkedIn page, I went from 0 recruiters messaging me in a decade to about one a month. His focus on breaking down every step of the process from LinkedIn page to resume to informational interviews to the interviews themselves was phenomenal. After working with him I gained both the knowledge of how to do a job search in today’s environment and built up my own self confidence with tips he tailored specifically to me. By working with Josh I saved valuable time and likely salary far beyond what I paid to him. His services were a great investment in myself, and he was worth every penny.”

Karl Putz, PhD, Problem Solver, Team Leader, Engineer

“Working with Josh has completely changed my ability to promote myself in my resume, respond to interview questions with poise, and negotiate contracts to achieve the best possible outcome. I had a hard time taking credit for my achievements or even understanding how to determine what metrics demonstrated my capabilities. I had no idea why my resume/CV was not working for me to get interviews. Josh was able to help translate some of the rather technical jargon that I use on a daily basis to something that speaks to a broader audience… I went from having about a 10% success rate in getting interviews to 100%… I started career coaching with Josh using professional development funds from my employer but continued on my own once I saw what an unbelievable difference this coaching is making in achieving my career goals. Best use of money I’ve ever spent.”

Amanda Shores, PMP, PhD, Scientific Program Manager | Environmental Researcher | Sustainability Expert | Community Engager

“Before I started working with Josh I was struggling with confidence. I knew my resume didn’t showcase my skills in the optimal way, but I didn’t know how to improve it. Much of the advice you find online is low quality so you can spend months trying to follow bad advice without getting anywhere. Working with Josh saves you a lot of time and effort. Working with Josh gave me confidence because I finally had concrete steps to take. These steps ultimately led me to accept an excellent job offer within a few months. For anyone who’s thinking about working with Josh, he’s worth every penny. He’s highly knowledgeable and he goes above and beyond to help you.”

Patrick Drew, PhD, Data Scientist | PhD Astronomer

Read more stories on LinkedIn under Recommendations.