Tapping into the Hidden Job Market

Many job opportunities are never widely posted. They are shared through professional networks, internal referrals, discipline-specific listservs, informal conversations, and events that students and postdocs may not know exist.

Our Emerging Leaders Institute team wanted to make those opportunities easier to find.

A project shaped by ELI

The Emerging Leaders Institute (ELI) is a Duke leadership development program that brings together graduate students and postdocs to build leadership skills while working on a team-based project that benefits the Duke community. Through ELI, our team was charged with identifying a campus need, learning from stakeholders, and developing a practical project in response. The experience helped our team reflect on how we work with others. Through leadership coaching, personality assessments, and team collaboration, we learned more about our own strengths, communication styles, and assumptions. Those lessons shaped how we approached the project and how we responded when our original idea needed to change.

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Our team developed a simple event-submission tool that helps Duke students, postdocs, faculty, and staff add networking opportunities to the Duke Career Center’s event database. The goal is straightforward: make it easier for trainees to discover career-building events that are often shared only through word of mouth.

The tool allows members of the Duke community to submit one-time or recurring networking opportunities through a short questionnaire. Career Center staff can then review those submissions and add approved events to the existing Career Center event database. To help people use the tool, our team also created flyers with QR codes that link directly to the event-submission form and the Career Center event database.

The project grew out of a broader question our team explored through ELI: how can Duke better support students and postdocs as they prepare for an uncertain job market?

Why networking access matters

Our team began by surveying graduate students, postdocs, faculty, and staff about career preparation and the current job market. Many respondents, especially those in STEM fields, described uncertainty about how to prepare for their next position. That uncertainty reflects real changes in the career landscape. Academic positions are limited, the hiring cycles shift quickly, and government research roles are now cyclically affected by political and budgetary decisions.

At the same time, the job search process can feel opaque. Many applicants submit dozens of applications with little feedback. For trainees who have spent years developing technical expertise, the transition from training to employment can feel less predictable than expected. Through our survey and informal stakeholder conversations, we heard a recurring concern: people were not only worried about finding a job, but also unsure how to navigate the networks, events, and informal pathways that often lead to job opportunities.

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Duke already has strong resources through the Career Center, the Office of Postdoctoral Services, departments, institutes, student groups, alumni networks, and professional organizations. The problem was that many opportunities were fragmented across programs, disciplines, newsletters, and personal networks. A student in one department might know about a niche industry mixer, while a postdoc in another school might know about a professional society event, an alumni panel, a faculty-hosted career conversation, or a recurring meetup with local employers. These events can be valuable, but they are often difficult to find unless someone already knows where to look.

What we found

Our team initially planned to create a new database of STEM-focused networking opportunities. As we began compiling events, we realized that Duke’s Career Center already had an event database that served a similar purpose. So, we pivoted. Rather than building a separate resource, we asked a more practical question: how could we help Duke’s existing resource become more complete and easier for the community to contribute to?

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At the time of our project, adding a networking opportunity to the Career Center’s website required emailing Career Center staff and asking them to manually enter the event into the database. While the process worked, it created extra steps for both event organizers and Career Center staff. It also made it less likely that smaller, discipline-specific, or recurring events would be submitted.

Our team’s solution was to create a questionnaire that collects the information needed to advertise a networking event. The form asks for basic event details, including the event title, date, time, audience, description, location, recurrence, and relevant contact information. Submissions can then be reviewed by Career Center staff before being added to the event database. 

The tool is not limited to STEM. Although our survey respondents skewed heavily toward STEM fields, the underlying problem applies across disciplines. Many students and postdocs benefit from networking opportunities that are specific to their field, career stage, identity, research area, or professional goals. Our hope is that trainees across Duke will use the form to share events that others might otherwise miss.

Why we changed direction

Before learning more about Duke’s Career Center resources, our team also considered a “teach the teacher” model that would train faculty advisors to connect trainees with career and networking opportunities. However, we learned that mentorship trainings were already being developed and implemented at the faculty level. We also recognized that faculty already face many competing demands. Adding another training requirement could create burden without solving the immediate access problem.

The event-submission tool gave us a more targeted solution. It reduces friction for people who know about useful events and gives Career Center staff a more structured way to receive event information. It also helps students and postdocs benefit from opportunities beyond their immediate departments and personal networks.

How to use the tool

We invite Duke students, postdocs, faculty, staff, departments, programs, and student groups to submit networking opportunities through the questionnaire. Events can be one-time or recurring. They can be broad or discipline-specific. They can be designed for students, postdocs, alumni, faculty, staff, or mixed audiences.

We also encourage departments and programs to share the project flyers in newsletters, on information screens, in common areas, or anywhere trainees look for career information. The flyers include QR codes that allow users to submit an event or browse the Career Center event database.

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the leaders of the Emerging Leaders Institute, the Office of Postdoctoral Services, Duke’s Career Center, and the 2026 ELI cohort for their guidance, feedback, and support throughout this project. We are grateful for the opportunity to contribute to a resource that can help Duke students and postdocs better navigate the hidden job market.

AUTHORS

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Elizabeth Boxer, M.P.H.

Ph.D. candidate, Integrated Toxicology & Environmental Health 

Elizabeth Boxer, M.P.H. is a fifth-year Ph.D. candidate in the Integrated Toxicology & Environmental Health Program (ITEHP) housed in the Nicholas School of the Environment. Her research focuses on how exposures to semi-volatile organic compounds (SVOCs) impact the immune system during pregnancy. She is also interested in how environmental exposures during key periods of development, such as in utero, shape disease trajectories later in life. Elizabeth holds a bachelor’s degree from Northeastern University and an M.P.H. in environmental health sciences from UC Berkeley. Outside of the lab, she can often be found rotating between knitting, crochet, and cross-stitch.

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Cierra Buckman, M.H.S.

Ph.D. candidate, Population Health Sciences

Cierra Buckman, M.H.S. is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Population Health Sciences. Her research focuses on implementation science and pragmatic clinical trials, with an emphasis on food-as-medicine interventions, health system innovation, and improving care delivery for underserved populations. Prior to her doctoral training, Cierra spent nearly a decade in clinical research administration. At Johns Hopkins University, she led national and international research initiatives in child sexual abuse prevention. She later advanced from pediatric research to system-wide research leadership at ECU’s Brody School of Medicine and ECU Health, where she served as executive director of clinical research. Outside of her academic work, she enjoys running, reading, and climbing.

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Cheyenne Lee, Ph.D.

Recent Postdoctoral Associate, Molecular Genetics and Microbiology

Cheyenne Lee, Ph.D. recently completed her term as a postdoctoral associate in Dr. Asiya Gusa’s lab studying the human fungal pathogen Cryptococcus neoformans. Specifically, she studied how C. neoformans adapts to different stressors found within the human body to cause infection. She earned her Ph.D. from Emory University in 2024 where she studied sporulation and metabolism of the anaerobic bacterial pathogen Clostridioides difficile, and her B.S. in biotechnology from the University of North Carolina at Pembroke in 2019. Outside of lab, Cheyenne enjoys reading, practicing taekwondo, and volunteering in her local community. She is particularly passionate about mentorship and helping others navigate workplace challenges.

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Colleen Mader

M.S. student, Global Health

Colleen Mader is a second-year M.S. candidate at the Duke Global Health Institute. Her goal is to become an effective leader in global health by reducing health disparities and developing equitable health policies and interventions grounded in the lived experiences of the communities most affected. She graduated from New York University Abu Dhabi in 2024 with a B.A. in social research and public policy, with concentrations in public health and peace studies. Outside of her academic work, she enjoys studying foreign languages, binge-reading library books, and long runs on weekend mornings.