Careers in Research | thehdfscareerblog

What's all this?

This is a website about human development and family studies jobs or, more appropriately, jobs for students majoring in human development and family studies or similar family science programs.

The information on this site is general, not university specific. It is important to seek out information about opportunities and training at your specific university. However, this blog is designed to serve as an extra source of information to help you in your human development and family studies career search.

The Starting Lineup

These featured posts address many common concerns among HDFS and other family science majors. I recommend starting with these posts.

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Brave New World of Work

Welcome! I'm glad you're here! If you are reading this, you are probably majoring in Human Development and Family Studies (HDFS) or a similar major. This is a field that I love and in which I teach as a university faculty member. Like a lot of my students, I chose this field because I love learning about people and families, and I wanted to work in a field that I felt was directly beneficial to people. HDFS is a great fit for those interests. However, it does not always point the way to a specific career path. This post provides some thoughts to consider as you explore your options.

What Can You Do With a Human Development and Family Studies Major?

This post summarizes some of of the very best career advice I have received over the years.

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Begin With You: Identify Your Skills & Values

Before launching into a job search, I always recommend that you first take some time to consider who you are, what you value, and what skills and experience you can bring to the table. This will help you to 1) seek out the right types of opportunities based on your goals and 2) tell your story to future employers. While reflecting, I recommend doing the following:

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Begin With You: Identify Your Skills & Values

Do you feel like you don't know where to start in terms of preparing for your career? Are you frustrated by advice to obtain experience related to the career you want to pursue because you don't feel like you know exactly what that career will be? The goal is to focus your preparation based on what you know about your interests today. In other words, pay attention to what you can control. Some jobs might be eliminated. Others might be created that you can't even fathom yet. You can't control the future job market. You can focus your energy toward obtaining the best experience that you can. How can you focus your efforts?