Academia trains you to produce extraordinary research. It does not train you to answer: "What do I actually want to do — and am I positioning myself to do it?" That's where career coaching comes in. Specific, PhD-native, built around your actual credentials and field.
You have done the work. You have published, researched, presented, and built expertise that most people will never have. But somewhere between finishing your degree and figuring out your next move, you've encountered a wall that your advisors never prepared you for.
Generic career coaching doesn't work for PhDs. Résumé services that don't understand what a national lab appointment means aren't useful. LinkedIn optimization for someone with 16 publications and a USCIS petition is a category error.
You're not struggling because you're not good enough. You're struggling because nobody has translated your credentials into the language the market actually uses.
That translation is what we do. And because Sara has done it herself — from ORNL to California Energy Commission to an EB-1A petition — she can do it specifically, not generically.
National labs, government agencies, policy roles, industry R&D, consulting, and science communication are all real paths — but they have different cultures, hiring processes, and credential expectations. Most PhDs have never mapped them against their own profile.
A 12-page academic CV is the wrong document for most non-academic jobs. The translation — what to cut, what to expand, what framing the industry actually responds to — is specific to your field and target role.
If you're on OPT, STEM OPT, H-1B, or J-1, your visa status affects which employers can hire you and on what timeline. Career strategy without immigration awareness is incomplete — and potentially costly.
The US career system was not designed with international PhDs in mind. Networking norms, salary negotiation culture, and application conventions all require interpretation — and ideally, someone who has done it.
You're finishing or just finished. You need to make real decisions — academia vs. industry vs. national lab — and you need to make them now, not after six months of LinkedIn posts.
You've been postdocing for 2–4 years. You're excellent at your work and uncertain about what comes after. The postdoc feels safe. The question is whether it should be your last one.
You're at ORNL, NREL, Argonne, LBL, or similar. You want to move into policy, government, or industry — or you want to understand whether your record supports an EB-1A petition.
You want to move from academia or government into industry R&D or engineering leadership, and you need someone who understands what your research experience is actually worth in that context.
Your career decisions are entangled with your visa status. Every job offer, every role change, every move carries immigration implications. You need career strategy that accounts for all of it.
Sara's own field. If you're in energy systems, building science, climate policy, or adjacent STEM research, we have deep domain familiarity with the roles, institutions, and players.
There's no single "right" path out of academia. There are paths that fit your credentials, your interests, and your immigration situation. We help you figure out which is which.
DOE labs — Oak Ridge, NREL, Argonne, Lawrence Berkeley, Pacific Northwest, and others — hire STEM PhDs in research, program management, and policy roles. Sara spent five years at ORNL. We know how these institutions work.
Federal and state agencies — EPA, DOE, NIST, state energy offices — hire PhDs in technical advisory, policy development, and program roles. Sara now leads California's 2028 building energy codes at CEC.
Major corporations in energy, tech, materials, and manufacturing hire PhDs to lead applied research, product development, and technical strategy. The transition requires different positioning than academic job searches.
PhDs with strong communication skills and deep domain expertise are valuable in science writing, policy consulting, think tanks, and technical advisory roles that don't require traditional research appointments.
We start with your actual record — publications, labs, appointments, awards, projects, and any immigration considerations. The goal is an honest picture of where you are and what your credentials can support.
What do you actually want? Not what you think you should want, not what your advisor suggested, not the default path. We work through values, constraints, and options until you have a real direction — not just a list of possibilities.
With direction set, we build a concrete plan: target roles, target institutions, timeline, positioning, document preparation, and networking strategy. This is different for every client because it's built around your specific profile and goal.
CV-to-résumé translation, research statement revision, cover letter strategy, LinkedIn audit, and interview preparation — specific to your target sector and role type. No templates; this is built on what actually makes your profile interesting to the institutions you're targeting.
For international PhDs, every career step has immigration implications. We factor your visa status into every strategic decision — including whether your career trajectory is building toward EB-1A or NIW eligibility and how to accelerate that.
Career transitions take longer than a single coaching engagement. After the core sessions, we stay available for async questions, offer review, negotiation support, and course corrections as the process unfolds.
Six focused sessions over 8–12 weeks. We work through your credential profile, your target, your strategy, and your documents. Each session builds on the last. You leave with a clear direction and the materials to pursue it.
One focused 90-minute session on a specific question. Are you at a decision point? Evaluating an offer? Trying to figure out if a particular path makes sense given your visa status? Book a single session to get a clear answer.
I was three years into a postdoc, convinced I needed to stay in academia. Sara asked me three questions and I realized I'd been telling myself a story about what I was "supposed" to do. Two months later I had a staff scientist offer from a DOE lab.
The CV translation was the turning point. I had 9 publications and 3 years at ORNL and no idea how to make a résumé that made sense to a policy audience. Sara showed me exactly what to emphasize and what to cut. My first interview at a state agency was six weeks later.
Start with one session. Tell us where you are, what you're trying to figure out, and what's actually blocking you. We'll tell you where to go from there.