Beyond Academia: Design Your Job Search Strategy with AI-Powered Guidance

Aims

This two-day course supports doctoral and postdoctoral researchers in building a structured and realistic transition plan toward careers beyond academia. Combining reflective tools, career strategy frameworks, and AI-powered guidance, participants will clarify their motivations, articulate their value, and build a concrete roadmap toward their next professional step.

Content

The course is structured around four key themes, with two weeks between sessions to allow for deep reflection, targeted assignments, and peer feedback. Artificial intelligence (AI) tools will be used throughout the course to support participants in their reflection and exercice.

Day 1 - Explore & position
Translate your career drivers and motivations into a job search strategy
Map your academic and non-academic competencies using the “Knowledge in Context framework” and learn about job roles, clusters, and industries.

Day 2 - Shape & connect
Build your personal branding strategy (CV, cover letter, online presence, interview best practice) with the support of AI tools.
Design and practice your networking approach and finalize your personal action plan.

Methods

The course offers a dynamic combination of interactive plenary discussions, individual reflection, and collaborative group activities. Participants will be supported with practical tools such as structured worksheets and career frameworks. In addition, tailored AI-based support will be introduced to enhance learning and facilitate key steps in the career transition process. Structured preparatory tasks and intersession assignments are intentionally embedded in an active learning approach fostering ownership of one’s learning path and long-term integration of insights.

Target Group

All Doctoral Candidates & Postdocs

Requirements

Participants must bring a personal laptop (PC or Mac) for in-session exercises and AI-based tools.
Participants are expected to complete guided exercises before and between sessions as part of a structured learning process that encourages personal reflection and strategic thinking.
English proficiency (working level)

About the Trainer

Dr. Joëlle Bédat is a governance and HR strategist, consultant, and university lecturer with a background in both academic research and business practice. Founder of Gouvernance RH, she is a solo-entrepreneur since 2017 with the mission to support boards of directors, executive committees, foundation and institutions committees in addressing issues related to human management. She has extensive experience in executive recruitment, competency assessment, workshop facilitation, career coaching, executive coaching and training.
She holds a PhD in Management from Jean Moulin Lyon 3 University (2024), a Postgraduate Master’s in Human Management from the University of Geneva (2016), and a Bachelor's in Political Science from the University of Lausanne (1997). She became an ICF-certified coach in 2008 and holds certifications in psychometric profiles such as the AECdisc Method (behavioral preferences and motivation) and EQ-i (emotional intelligence and leadership). Certified in adult training programs (FSEA), she is trained in graphic facilitation.

Workload

Course attendance: 2 x 8h
Preparation & Assignments: 14h

Feature

Once registration is open, applications will be collected for 24 hours and course places allocated by lot. All registrations received after the initial 24h period will be put on a waiting list and assigned on a first come, first served basis.

Course places/places on the waiting list will be confirmed by e-mail. Course registrations can only be canceled before the registration period ends (send an e-mail to grace@unibas.ch). Full course attendance is mandatory. Participants who fail to attend a course without prior notification or withdraw after the registration deadline are subject to a fee of CHF 30. In addition, participants who cancel their course registration at a later point in time, are absent without an excuse or do not attend the entire course will, for reasons of fairness, not be considered for course registration in the following semester and will be removed from other courses offered in the same semester. Please find the detailed regulations on the Transferable Skills Homepage.