Although the Italian poet Pietro Aretino made his powerful state­ment about the value of ruling your­self during his lifetime (1492-1556), it is timeless. More than four hundred and sixty years later, the quote applies to graduate students and postdoctoral scholars in a very immediate way.

As early career researchers, you will be able to easily navigate (or efficiently rule) your career and life as long as you are aware of your strengths, weaknesses, options, and values.

Although you alone rule your de­velopment, many people and resources help you advance toward a successful and satisfying career and life. Those who help you along your way are your men­tors. Resources can include your gradu­ate or postdoctoral education program, or tools such as individual development plans (IDPs).

Let’s shine some light on some of the resources that will assist you in rul­ing your career. A good place to start is by reviewing what national organiza­tions report regarding the state of the U.S. graduate education system and some changes needed to provide better support for graduate students and postdocs—you.

Organizations such as the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) and the Council of Graduate Schools (CGS) looked at the graduate education system in the United States and asked whether it provided the proper education for changing workforce needs. Overall, the system produces well-trained graduates. However, the findings indicated that institutions of higher education lacked high-quality mentoring and advising for graduate students. The American Chem­ical Society (ACS) issued their own findings regarding graduate education. They reported that career mentoring for graduate students and postdoctoral researchers in the chemical sciences was inadequate. They recommended that the use of IDPs should be expanded. An IDP is an online career-planning process that is personal, interactive, and dynamic. It helps students build self-awareness, understand the full range of available occupations, identify career preferences, and establish training and career goals.

The value of an IDP has been further established by federal funding agencies such as the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the National Sci­ence Foundation (NSF), who require grantees to report on how trainees are mentored. The NIH Biomedical Re­search Workforce Working Group con­cluded, “NIH should require IDPs for all NIH-supported postdoctoral research­ers, whether on training grants, fellow­ships, or research project grants.” Today, the NIH requires grantees to report on the use of IDPs for supported graduate students and postdoctoral researchers. Applicants for NSF funding must sub­mit a “Postdoctoral Researcher Mentor­ing Plan” that describes the mentoring provided to all postdoctoral researchers supported by the project

Professional science organizations have recognized the need to provide free online career planning tools that support trainees’ advancement in their respective fields. For instance:

• Hobin, Fuhrmann, Lindstaedt, and Clifford (2012) developed the myIDP tool, which is based on an IDP frame­work proposed by the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB) in 2003
• The myIDP online tool was launched through the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in 2012
• ImaginePhD is a career exploration and planning tool for Ph.D. students and postdoctoral scholars in the hu­manities and social sciences and was launched in 2017 by the Graduate Career Consortium (GCC)
• The American Chemical Society also recognizes the value of an IDP in helping chemists chart their own cours­es. The ACS Presidential Commission report underlined the need for struc­tured career guidance for trainees in the chemical sciences. Further, the ACS Graduate Education Advisory Board recommended assessing the need for an Individual Development Plan tool for gradu­ate students and postdoctoral scholars. As a result of research funded by NSF I-Corps L funding (NSF 1514274), ACS found that graduate students and postdoctoral researchers would benefit from a field-specific IDP and, in response, developed ChemIDP^TM, an interactive career-planning tool which was launched in 2016. ACS also discovered that those who used an IDP considered it most beneficial when coupled with guid­ance and feedback from a mentor

ChemIDP^TM facilitates the discovery of each individual’s personal “Career Sweet Spot,” which is located at the inter­section of values, personal strengths, and job market oppor­tunities. The online tool follows a standard IDP process that includes four modules: Self-Assessment, Career Exploration, Goal Setting, and Skill Strengthening. The field specificity for chemical scientists is achieved through the latter three modules.

More specifically:

• The Self-Assessment module facilitates reflecting on per­sonal values and rating yourself with regard both to a variety of technical skills and competencies in the chemical sciences and to more general professional skills, as well
• The Career Exploration module highlights roles, responsi­bilities, and salaries for more than 45 different careers in five career sectors (Academia, Entrepreneurship, Government, Industry, Nonprofit) where individuals with degrees in chem­istry or chemical engineering have found satisfying careers
• The Skill Strengthening module allows users to access strategies and resources based on the professional or techni­cal skills they choose to improve
• The Goal Setting module cross cuts all fields and encour­ages users to complete their career plans by defining SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Timely) goals. It also helps them track their progress and adjust their career goals over time

Currently, more than 3,000 users benefit from ChemIDP^TM, and in the autumn of 2018, ACS launched an updated version of this career planning tool.

The ACS NSF I-Corps L findings further suggested that it is useful to revisit the career plan at least once a year to maxi­mize the IDP’s efficiency. Anecdotal evidence from faculty mentors in the chemical sciences suggests that discussions with their mentees were more productive when the latter completed IDPs (e.g., ChemIDPTM) before the meetings oc­curred. This observation suggests that completing an IDP may help graduate students and postdoctoral researchers to gain clarity regarding their goals and progress toward them and to identify possible challenges and barriers standing between them and their goals prior to a mentoring meeting. A well-thought-out IDP that has been shared may additionally help mentors tailor advice.

Despite an interdisciplinary consensus that IDPs, when used properly, provide a framework for helping graduate students achieve their career goals, there is little alignment among STEM disciplines and institutions about the specific, measurable outcomes of IDP use. This inhibits the availability of reliable effective practices for IDP use and its wide adop­tion among educators.

It is exciting that ACS recently obtained additional NSF funding (NSF 1806607) to help define core goals for the IDP process used across STEM disciplines and to develop tools that measure the impact of IDPs on the professional develop­ment of graduate students in STEM. Those project outcomes will catalyze the generation of evidence regarding the effec­tive use of IDPs—evidence needed to scale the use of the IDP process, support and inform additional investments in career planning and graduate education, and foster growth in the field of Ph.D. career development. Ultimately, results from this project have the potential to improve educational outcomes in higher education and to better prepare the U.S. workforce.

There is a large community out there that is interested in helping you and other graduate students and postdocs. So, take advantage of the resources (in particular, ChemIDPTM) they have developed to help your mentors give you the support you need to rule yourself and truly have the experience that:

“I am, indeed, a king, because I know how to rule myself.”

“Best wishes to all who strive to master themselves!” - Joerg