What If Grad School Was Useful, Actually?

Jaime Hough
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A hopecore professionalization podcast for graduate students and postdocs curious about how to transition their academic skills into other jobs. Three times a month we share why the skills you've learned in grad school make you a great candidate for your dream job. We cover the non-academic job search and unlearning bad habits using real examples from grad students and academic professionals just like you who have found their dream job. The website for the show is not quite finished yet but feel free to leave questions or topics for other episodes in the comments!

  1. Apr 22

    Welcome to Season 2!

    In this episode, we go over what we're bringing back and what we're starting for Season 2 of What if Grad School Was Useful, Actually?

    5 min
  2. 10 Transferable Skills and How to Use Them in Your Non-Academic Job Search

    11/07/2025

    10 Transferable Skills and How to Use Them in Your Non-Academic Job Search

    Continuing from last week, we tackle another section of transferable skills from Dr. Kelsky's, "The Professor Is In" job guide giving examples of how you might phrase them on your resume, put them in your cover letter or use them to shape your job search itself.

    47 min
  3. 100 Skills That Translate Out of the Academy: Part 1

    10/31/2025

    100 Skills That Translate Out of the Academy: Part 1

    In this week's episode, we go through the list of over 100 transferable skills in Karen Kelsky's "The Professor Is In." While Dr. Kelsky's list of skills is a great place to start, in this episode we go through over 20 skills giving examples of how they might appear in your resume, help you in a resume, or narrow your job search.

    42 min
  4. Why the "Why"--Where People Often Get Stuck in Translating Their Skills

    10/05/2025

    Why the "Why"--Where People Often Get Stuck in Translating Their Skills

    As promised a few weeks ago, today's episode digs into the third, and trickiest, question in my 3-part formula for identifying the skills that you cultivated during grad school. In honor of a new follower who is about to finish their PhD in History today's examples are almost exclusively drawn from that discipline. If you'd like examples specific to your discipline in a future episode feel free to leave comments here or head over to the Gram at ifgradschoolwasuseful and message me there.

    31 min
  5. Cover Letter Makeover: From Higher Ed to Nonprofit Manager

    09/11/2025

    Cover Letter Makeover: From Higher Ed to Nonprofit Manager

    In this episode, I share a recent client's cover letter before and after edits. This client has worked in Higher Ed for almost a decade. While they are an excellent writer their cover letter was full of terms a non-academic audience cannot easily interpret. We start the episode by going over what's good about their original cover letter then we move on to the changes we made paragraph by paragraph before comparing the first and final version. If you are curious about how to transition your academic skills, especially teaching skills, to a nonprofit audience use this as a step-by-step example.

    28 min
  6. So, you want to go to grad school!

    08/08/2025

    So, you want to go to grad school!

    Today's episode is dedicated to those starting, or returning to, graduate programs in the fall term. In this episode, we elaborate on one of the core beliefs of this podcast: that engaging with grad school for any amount of time--ANY--amount of time, builds skills you can use to get your dream job. We also cover the importance of starting to prepare for all career options as soon as you can. As always, please leave your questions or requests for future topics in the comments.

    30 min
  7. Unlearning the 4 Academic Skill Sets

    07/21/2025

    Unlearning the 4 Academic Skill Sets

    4 big buckets contain all academic contributions. 3 important questions can help you identify what skills you're developing while pursuing your academic goals 2 find your 1 dream job!

    21 min
  8. "Non-Academic" Jobs

    07/15/2025

    "Non-Academic" Jobs

    In this episdoe I go over why I use the phrase "non-academic" when talking about jobs for graduate students and postdocs. Lately, there has been a trend to move away from the phrase "non-academic" when talking to grad students and postdocs about career options. I think the theory is great, but until the rest of the academy catches up, I'm going to keep using this phrase for the reasons shared here. Let me know what you think!

    10 min
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About

A hopecore professionalization podcast for graduate students and postdocs curious about how to transition their academic skills into other jobs. Three times a month we share why the skills you've learned in grad school make you a great candidate for your dream job. We cover the non-academic job search and unlearning bad habits using real examples from grad students and academic professionals just like you who have found their dream job. The website for the show is not quite finished yet but feel free to leave questions or topics for other episodes in the comments!

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