Internships

Many companies hire PhD students as summer (or even academic year) interns. Tips for finding/landing these internships:

• Search your desired field + "Intern" or "PhD Intern" (e.g., "Data Science Intern) on Google or Glassdoor.
• Customize your cover letter! Even if different job postings look very similar, customized cover letters go a long way.
• Reach out to UConn faculty. Many have industry connections (e.g., faculty involved in SLAC).
• Add basic skills to your resume by taking online courses. For example, many Data Science internships require some SQL knowledge, which can be learned in less than a week.

Fellowships

• Society for Research in Child Development Policy Fellowships: predoctoral and postdoctoral fellowships at the federal and state level.
• Insight Data Science Fellows Program: Designed to bridge the gap between academia and data science. Apply for the session that begins right after you graduate, as you are expected to start a new position in a company once the program has concluded.
• The Data Incubator Data Science Fellowship: Same as Insight, just a different group.
• Strategic Data Project Fellowship: 2-year fellowship where you use data to improve education. Placements are located all over the country.
• Education Pioneers Fellowship: Offers both summer and 10 month fellowships again applying data science to education.

Translating Keywords

Academia and industry do similar things, but don't use the same words for them. Below is a guide to help you get through the auto-screen of a company's ATS.

• Interdisciplinary -> cross-functional
• Experimental design -> A/B testing
• Conclusions/future directions -> insights

Using Networking Tools

Networking is hard! It feels weird to contact someone out of the blue and ask them to help you with a job search, especially if your connection is minimal or if you haven't spoken in a while. The truth is that most people want to help others out, and those who don't will probably just ignore your email. So reach out! Even if it seems weird.

LinkedIn is a surprisingly good resource. When looking at a position, you can type the company's name into the search bar and filter individuals by that company. Then, you can search for keywords to find people who work in the department or team that you are applying to. This is especially useful for finding the hiring manager's name for your cover letter.

LinkedIn also auto-places people with whom you have a shared connection at the top, so you know who to reach out to first.