Career advising. CV and cover letter workshops. Networking opportunities. Career panel discussions. Job postings. And everything in between. OCS is a full-service career center for students and alumni of the Graduate School.
Career and Professional Development
Preparing for a variety of careers
The BBS Program, the Yale Graduate School, and University offices partner to prepare students for success in careers both within and beyond academia. Explore the resources and groups that provide career and professional development activities. Also view the career outcomes for BBS graduates.
Professional Development
The BBS Program and Yale offer numerous opportunities for students (and faculty) to develop non-bench skills. Below are key resources:
- Poorvu Center for Teaching and Learning for workshops related to writing, teaching, and presentation skills.
- Office of Career Strategy for workshops related to non-academic career preparation.
- Graduate School for a variety of workshops throughout the year.
Upcoming events offered by the BBS Program are noted below:
Faculty
Mentor Training for BBS Faculty is a multi-part course intended for both junior and senior faculty. Offered 3 times per year, the course is based on a curriculum developed by the Center for the Improvement of Mentored Experiences in Research and is facilitated by CIMER-certified instructors. The upcoming course schedule is below:
FALL
- Part I: Friday, October 3, 10:00 am-12:00 pm
- Part II: Friday, October 10, 10:00 am-12:00 pm
- Part III: Friday October 24, 10:00 am - 12:00 pm
This course is full and has a waitlist.
SPRING 2026
- Dates to be determined
Contact bbs@yale.edu for more information.
Yale Resources
Below are some of the main university resources for assisting students with both current training and future career development.
Office of Career Strategy Graduate Writing Laboratory The Graduate Writing Laboratory (GWL) helps graduate students become prolific and successful academic writers.Poorvu Center for Teaching and Learning The Poorvu Center for Teaching and Learning not only trains students to become excellent lecturers, it also teaches students how to create presentations, develop new courses, write exams, and control classroom dynamics. Those interested in careers in academia greatly benefit from this type of training.Yale Cross Campus Yale Cross Campus is an online networking and mentoring community for current students and alumni.
Student Organizations
Below are a number of student organizations that offer career exploration opportunities to Yale graduate students. Many of these groups are led by BBS students.
Yale Graduate Student Consulting Club The YGCC is a very popular club for BBS students and offers opportunities to gain real-world consulting experience to prepare graduates for careers in management consulting in the healthcare and pharmaceutical industries.Yale Biotech Club The Yale Biotech Club helps students bridge the gap between academia and the biotechnology sector. The group hosts career fairs, job treks, seminar series, and other initiatives to prepare students for future careers in the life sciences.Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine The Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine is a quarterly journal reviewed and edited by Yale biomedical faculty and students. The journal aims to showcase outstanding research articles from all areas of biology and medicine, to publish significant case reviews, and to provide both perspectives on personal experiences in medicine and reviews of the current state of biology and medicine.Yale Science Diplomats The Yale Science Diplomats are a campus group devoted to educating the public about science issues that affect them and encouraging scientists to become engaged in the political process . Motivated by the enormous impact science and technology policy decisions will have on our future and the conviction that, as scientists, we have a valuable voice that is rarely heard, our group is actively working to address and educate the public on diverse topics ranging from climate change to healthcare.Women and Gender Minorities in Science at Yale (WISAY) WISAY is open to everyone interested in promoting gender equality in science.
Internships
Internships are an invaluable way to learn about a future career path without formally committing to it.
Also visit the Office of Career Strategy's internship site for more information about conducting an internship as a graduate student.
Career Outcomes
The BBS Program and Yale Graduate School strongly encourage students to investigate careers both within and beyond academia. As shown in the graphs below, BBS students have been extraordinarily successful in their career pursuits and do enter very diverse career paths. Of the 1,600 students who have graduated since 2001, career data are available for 98% of these graduates.
The graphs included divide graduates into two pools:
- recent graduates, many of whom pursue postdoctoral training upon graduation
- older graduates, most of whom are now in established careers.
BBS Graduate Placements 2020-2024
Current Positions of Students who graduated in 2020-2024
- Further Training 40%
- Pharma, Biotech, Tech 31%
- Consulting, Finance, & Law 10%
- Academia 7%
- Unknown 7%
- Government 1%
- Medicine and Healthcare 1%
- Nonprofit Organizations 1%
- Not In Workforce 1%
- K-12 Education <1%
- Publishing & Communications <1%
- Other <1%
For a more granular view of career outcomes for students who graduated within the past 5 years, please visit our Graduate School program statistics page. Use the pull-down menu on the top left of the page to view data on each of the 11 PhD programs under the BBS umbrella. A 12th PhD program in Translational Biomedicine is too new to have any graduates yet, and career outcomes data for this program are not available.
BBS Graduate Outcomes 2001-2019
Current Positions of Students who Graduated 2001-2019
- Pharma, Biotech, Tech 38%
- Academia 29%
- Consulting, Finance, & Law 8%
- Further Training 6%
- Medicine and Healthcare 6%
- Government 3%
- Publishing & Communications 2%
- Unknown 2%
- K-12 Education 2%
- Other 2%
- Nonprofit Organizations 2%
- Not In Workforce 1%