In today’s labor market, insight is everything. This applies equally to an inventory of one’s personal strengths and to the evolving state of one’s target fields. It also drives a philosophy of professional development at the Graduate School that centers both success in one’s doctoral research and grounded preparation for the future(s) beyond.

Recognizing the centrality of data transparency and insight to impact-oriented professional development, GradFUTURES partnered in 2020 with Lightcast, the global leader in labor market analytics, to identify the skills in demand for each of the Graduate School’s programs. That partnership has since evolved to include custom dashboards that track labor market demand and offer access to expanded economic and workforce data by field.

With this information in hand, graduate students are empowered with connections, competencies, clarity, and confidence as they develop skills that become career differentiators both within and beyond the academy.

In 2023, Lightcast developed a case study that explores this innovative use of data, which in turn informed both the GradFUTURES core competencies and data specific to the Graduate School’s 43 fields. Far from narrowing the view, this insight serves to widen the aperture of opportunity within the academy and beyond.