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Your questions about career counseling

Counseling

‘Can you share examples of the most important questions and answers from counseling sessions? What is it that you discuss with people? What if I find it hard to formulate my question? What can I expect from a counseling session? And what will I talk to you for an entire hour?’ 

Were you wondering about these, but have not yet found a good occasion to ask? – Well, thanks to others who did, you will find out in this blog post:

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ChionisD_Axpo

PSI alumni at our partner companies: Dionysios Chionis, Axpo

Career Opportunities PSI Alumni Careers

The PSI Career Blog presents PSI alumni and their career paths, as well as the daily work and career perspectives at our partner companies. Today we get both combined: Dionysos Chionis joined Axpo after his PhD at PSI, and provides an insight into his current position as head of the Nuclear Physics Group at Axpo Group.

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Christian Bährle

PSI alumni at our partner companies: Dr. Christian Bährle, ZEISS

Career Opportunities PSI Alumni Careers

The PSI Career Blog presents PSI alumni and their career paths, as well as the daily work and career perspectives at our partner companies. Today we get both combined: Christian Bährle worked in different places after his time at PSI, and provides an insight into his current position at ZEISS.

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nonlinear paths

Why is career planning so hard when things happen to fall in place for everyone else?

Decision-making

‘It seemed so easy for all of you, but I have no idea where I want to go – how did you know?’ was a frequent comment after our Nonlinear Career Paths event in October. Why do careers seem so hard when it comes to deciding on the next step, when in retrospect, they seem to just have happened? ‘I met this person, and then one thing led to the other, and now I have my dream job’ or ‘I never imagined myself in this place but X happened, and got me interested in Y, so now I am here’, are frequent answers when asking people how they got to the position where they are today. Do you have to be lucky, or can you plan a career?

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Letter

How artificial intelligence would have written my motivation letter

Working strategies

How can we use artificial intelligence in the application process? I gave it a try and had artificial intelligence write a motivation letter for my current position with the information that I am a physicist and a coach. Here is what came back (interestingly, the content and structure are different when asking in English vs German, so it is worth to read both translations):

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Johanna Mehl

Scientist careers at our partner companies: Johanna Mehl, McKinsey & Company

Career Opportunities

Our partner companies are interested in attracting PSI's early career researchers, and we introduce scientists working at partner companies to showcase career perspectives. In today's post, meet Johanna Mehl, who did her PhD in biophysics at ETHZ and is currently an associate at McKinsey & Company. She tells us how she managed the transition away from academia, and what she is working on now.

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What is it that led you to give up your professorship?

Career Planning Decision-making

This question showed up in my LinkedIn inbox a few days ago, out of the blue, asked by a person I had collaborated with a decade ago and not had any contact since. Clearly, my decision to leave academia made an impact. But what were the reasons, anyway?

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