Skill stacking empowers academics and post-graduate students to thrive by combining diverse skills, expanding career prospects, and making a broader impact in the working world.

PhD graduates with strong research and analysis skills can excel in post-academic careers in industry, government, start-ups, tech, non-profit organisations, and academic roles beyond post-doc positions.

Influencing stakeholders is the key to any large-scale project success. Throughout our professional careers, it’s a skill we must learn to master to really thrive. This post breaks down influencing stakeholders into an art form.

Good work habits are important throughout our professional careers. Studying offers you a chance to perfect them. Knowing how to manage your motivation, time, productivity, and prevent burnout whilst also ensuring you keep developing is key to thriving in any career whether that be in academia or beyond.

Being methodical is the key to keeping the big picture in mind. It’s important to move away from a reactive and reactional state of mind for any job. Thinking about the strategic direction for your role, team, or company will fast-track your career success.

Being a self-starter comes naturally do PhDs. Exercising this skill is an incredible asset to help support your growth and development whilst contributing to your personal brand. However, if we’re not careful, this skill can hide us from the credit we deserve.

We often take intellectual curiosity for granted, however it’s a core ingredient to help you thrive in any career you pursue. Having the desire to ask the ‘why’ questions will increase your skillset, opportunities and overall visibility, ensuring career success.

Getting stuck in is what PhDs and academics do best. Recognising this skill and tailoring it to help you develop further, grow your network, and acquire new skills will lead to improved opportunities for your academic career and beyond.

Critical thinking is a core skill most, if not all, PhD students possess. This skill enables you to evaluate concepts, articulate their flaws and opportunities for improvement without being confrontational. Being able to critically evaluate concepts outside of academic is an asset for any organisation.

Leadership and mentoring skills are often hard to foster during a PhD due to limited opportunities. However, that doesn’t mean you can’t highlight it as a transferable skill or something you can consciously work on whilst in your PhD.

Recruitment is a career many PhD students overlook. However, much of the skills acquired during the PhD set you up for success for this profession. Here we break down the skills needed for recruitment and things to consider about this career option.

Being able to synthesise and interpret information is a core skill that’s developed during your PhD. The great news is that this can be generalised and carried over to a wide range of professions and even comes in handy when you take the leap and look for new careers.

All PhDs go on to develop a core set of skills no matter what the subject discipline. The combination and integration of these core skills can open a range of opportunities and career prospects. We must first identify them, and then emphasise them.

Being creative and innovative is integral to completing a PhD as you seek to produce something novel for your field. This skill can be applied to a range of professions, careers, and future opportunities.

A PhD fosters multiple opportunities to develop your written and verbal communication skills, which can be leveraged when seeking post-PhD careers. This post provides examples of how to demonstrate these skills and make them more tangible.

Completing a PhD requires a tremendous amount of self-resilience. This is a key transferable skill to refer to when applying for post-PhD careers as it can give you a competitive edge.

Project management becomes so instinctive as a PhD student we forget it is even a skill. Being able to juggle your PhD and everything else that’s going on in your life should not be overlooked as a transferable skill.

Writing throughout your PhD is a constant practice. Eventually, we forget how good we actually are at writing. This is a core transferable skill that can open thousands of career opportunities for you. Be sure to let people know.

The ability to learn is not often thought of as a skill. Having a PhD is the reflection of how quickly you can learn new things, providing you with the ultimate skill for the rest of your life.

Problem solvers are rare and always in high demand. Fortunately for you, you’ve got excellent PhD problem-solving skills and you might not even know it.