CS 591 Ph.D. Job Search Seminar, Fall 2026

The goal of this seminar is to prepare senior Ph.D. students (those who are a year or two from graduation) to apply for jobs in academia (including postdocs, teaching faculty, and tenure-track faculty) or research (including research faculty, industry labs, or government labs). The seminar is not focused on non-research industry jobs or internships. Most meetings will have one or more guest speakers including senior faculty with experience in running the hiring process, young professors, and recent alumni who have secured academic or research jobs. Enrolled students will have the opportunity to draft and receive feedback on their application materials (if going on the job market this year) and to practice "elevator pitches" introducing their own research.

Time and location

Fridays, 11:00AM - noon, 1214 SC

Organizer

Svetlana Lazebnik (slazebni@illinois.edu), Director of Graduate Studies

Academic Job Search Pointers

Schedule (tentative)

Date Topic/speaker
August 28 Seminar overview
September 4 Student introductions
September 11 Discussion of publicly available application materials
September 18 Discussion of publicly available job talks
September 25 Discussion continued
October 2 Feedback on student materials
October 9 Faculty guest speaker(s)
October 16 Faculty guest speaker(s)
October 23 Faculty guest speaker(s)
October 30 Faculty guest speaker(s)
November 6 Alumni guest speaker(s)
November 13 Alumni guest speaker(s)
November 20 Student elevator pitches
November 28 THANKSGIVING BREAK - NO CLASS
December 4 Wrap-up