Researcher Education and Development Scholarship Conference

Mrs Karen Cavu, Researcher Developer (Careers Specialist) (ORCiD), Dr Keri Billingham, HDR Language and Learning Educator (ORCiD), and Dr Abbe Winter, Writing Coach (ORCiD) Queensland University of Technology, Australia.

Our project began with a pretty simple question: What wouldhappen if we stopped treating career development as something separate from researchers’ writing, and instead wove the two together?

It turns out… quite a lot

The idea didn’t come out of nowhere. This question grew out of years of collective experience, but it was also shaped by a body of literature that challenges universities to rethink how career learning is supported. In undergraduate programs, embedding career development learning into the curriculum has been well established for years (Bennett, 2021; Dean, 2025). There’s strong evidence that students understand career concepts better, and engage more meaningfully, when those ideas are presented in the context of what they’re already learning and doing, rather than through opt-in and siloed careers workshops. Despite this evidence, even in the undergraduate space, embedding careers in the curriculum is still contested by overloaded academics (Daubney, 2022).

But in postgraduate research training, things look very different. There is minimal formal curriculum in research programs, making it difficult to embed career thinking into content that largely doesn’t exist (Barnacle and Cuthbert, 2021). Postgraduate research students are often overloaded, milestone-driven, and (understandably) focused on the dissertation (Masters or Doctoral) above all else. They can feel pressured (by their own career ambitions and by prevailing academic habitus (Winter et al., 2025)) to prioritise publications over career planning.  That means career thinking easily gets pushed into the “later… maybe” category.

Yet our research shows that ‘later’ doesn’t work. Many PhD graduates report limited career knowledge, low engagement with career development during their candidature, and a heavy reliance on whether their supervisor happened to bring careers into the conversation (Spronken-Smith et al., 2024).

So, we tried something different

Keri and Abbe – both academic writing educators – never struggle to attract research students to their programs. Writing is urgent, concrete, and directly tied to the next milestone. Careers? Not so much.

So, we experimented with partnering our expertise: bringing career thinking into the writing spaces that postgraduate research students (Masters and Doctoral) were already attending. Our goal wasn’t to bolt on another ‘careers session’, but to create small but powerful prompts that connect a writing skill to a career concept:

• A literature review becomes a form of job market research.
• A research question parallels identifying career direction.
• Peer review mirrors networking and informational interviewing.
• The discussion section maps onto articulating professional value.
• Findings relate to demonstrating impact in job applications.

These connections allowed us to meet research students where they already were – in the weeds of their dissertation – and bring the ‘future’ into the ‘present’ in ways that felt natural rather than distracting.

What happened when we tried it

The short version? It worked.

Once their immediate writing needs were supported, students were willing to think about their future – often with real curiosity and relief. Many told us that they’d simply never seen the parallels between research practice and career development before. Framing unfamiliar career concepts in familiar writing terminology removed pressure, and small actions created momentum. They also responded strongly to quick, practical actions: small prompts, short videos, follow up tips they could use immediately. And because Karen was embedded into writing sessions as a peer reader rather than an external add-on, the trust built far more quickly than can be achieved in a standalone career workshop.

In other words: when we stopped asking research students to choose between ‘writing’ and ‘careers’, and instead connected the two, engagement felt easier – for them and for us. Keri noticed that her confidence and skills to ask about a student’s next steps after their PhD grew, because of her own exposure to Karen’s future-thinking coaching shared in the sessions. Similarly, Karen’s skill and confidence in academic writing improved. Abbe found other opportunities to loop Karen into group workshops and student support sessions. Referrals between academic writing and careers increased. Research student communities where students felt ‘held’ by an integrated, collaborative team – rather than simply connected to an individual writing coach – fostered a stronger sense of belonging.

Where this work is taking us

The more we collaborated, the more obvious it became that research students don’t think in the same organisational and work silos as our academics (and researcher development peers and leaders) still often do. Staff might separate ‘writing’ from ‘careers’, but candidates experience their learning holistically. Our next steps involve continuing cross-functional work, strengthening the village of researchers, educators, and professional staff who support research students, and making career development visible throughout research programs – not just at the end.

Where this work could take you

If you run research student writing programs, consider adding a career educator as a peer reader, even if they are not organisationally a part of your team. Bring one prompt that links the writing focus to a specific career action. Leave behind a short resource. Repeat. Over time, engagement and confidence – for both staff and students – grows. Most importantly, future-focused research students learn that career thinking isn’t just for ‘future me’ but takes root at the beginning of their research program and is grounded in research writing principles they’re learning now.