Academic Career Coaching for PhDs

With Structure, Confidence and Perspective Through Your PhD

One focused session. No fluff, no templates. Just an experienced professor and certified coach who helps you find your way forward — on your own terms.

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“I just can’t see the path anymore.”

That sentence is the one I hear most. If you’re a PhD candidate or early-career researcher, chances are you’ve said something like it too.

Maybe it sounds like:

“Should I even stay in academia?”
“I have no idea how to approach my supervisor about this.”
“I’m doing everything right, but I still feel completely stuck.”
“I keep putting off the decision because none of the options feel right.”
“I’m exhausted and I don’t know if it’s burnout or if the PhD just isn’t for me.”
“Everyone around me seems to have a plan. I don’t.”

You’re not failing. You’re navigating one of the most opaque career environments in existence. Without a map, without a clear mentor, and often without anyone who truly understands what it’s like from the inside.

This is a typical situation in academia. And you can change it.

CLARITY, FOCUS AND SUPPORT

One Session. Real Movement.

I don’t show up with a generic framework or a standard checklist. I show up with 15+ years of experience as an active researcher and professor. And the tools of a certified professional coach.

You bring your situation. We work on it together.

That might mean getting clear on a decision you’ve been circling for months. It might mean naming what’s actually going wrong with your supervisor dynamic+. It might mean mapping out what a realistic next year in your career could look like.

By the end of the session, you’ll have moved. Not just talked; moved. You’ll see where you have agency. You’ll have something concrete to take forward, whether that’s a new perspective, a clear next step, or a set of homework to work through before our next conversation.

Everything stays between us. I hold professional confidentiality as a certified coach. What you share with me goes no further.

Instead of uncertainty and pressure, you develop:

Clarity about your path
Focus on the right next steps
An academic career that fits you in the long run

I Know This World From the Inside.

Most career coaches can help you write a better CV or rehearse interview answers. That’s not what I do and it’s not what most PhD candidates need.

What you need is someone who understands what it actually means to navigate an academic career: the politics, the funding pressures, the publish-or-perish logic, the impossible supervisor dynamics, the identity questions that come with a PhD that goes nowhere, and the quiet anxiety of realising the professorship you trained for may not be what you want anymore.

I’m a full professor. I’ve led international research projects across seven countries. I’ve been on hiring committees. I know what a strong research profile looks like. And what one that needs repositioning looks like too.

And I’m also a certified coach. Which means I don’t just tell you what to do. I help you figure out what you want to do and how to get there.

That combination is rare. Most people who understand academia aren’t trained coaches. Most coaches don’t understand academia. I’m both.

What PhD candidates say about working with me

Best decision I ever made. In my first two hours of thesis coaching with Dominik, I learned more about academic work than in my entire degree.
Highly recommended.

David

Johannes Kepler Universität Linz

After my PhD I still didn’t know what really counts for an academic career. Or that there isn’t “one right path.” Thank you for the empathetic conversations.
I’m now on the right track.

Jen

Technische Universität München