Career Options for PhD Students January 26, 2012
Posted by qmresearchers in Career Ideas, Labour Market Information, Uncategorized.add a comment
The Postgraduate Research Experience Survey 2011 (PRES) asked 18,644 postgraduate students (mostly PhD students) from 83 institutions, about their experience of doing a postgraduate degree.
Individuals are asked a number of questions about issues related to supervisory support, whether they have had opportunities to develop research and transferable skills etc. Most of the feedback about their experience is very positive.
One negative area, which stands out, relates to encouragement to think about career options after the PhD. The table below shows a table from PRES and illustrates that only 43.9% of PhD students felt encouraged to think about different career options.
This data is not surprising as many supervisors will not be aware of the range of careers open to PhD students. Many supervisors are experts in academic careers, as they have experience of this, but they are unlikely to know about the range of careers into which 50% of PhD students move. For more information about this see a publication by Vitae called ‘What do Researchers do?’
So, how do PhD stuents at Queen Mary access this type of support? Well, next Wednesday 2nd February at lunchtime (13.00 – 14.00) there will be the first in a range of introductory seminars. The first is called ‘Career Options for PhD Students’. It is being held in G.O.Jones LG1, Mile End Campus and you don’t need to book. Just come along!
Other events and courses will follow so keep your eye firmly on the events calendar above.
New Addition to the Vitae Website January 23, 2012
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Vitae now have a section about labour market information for PhD students and postdoctoral students. It contains information about employment sectors, beyond academia, in which PhDs work. It also lists job titles and profiles from people in a range of disciplines such as Social Sciences, Arts and Humanities, Law and Economics.
It is well worth a look!
In the recruiter’s shoes! January 17, 2012
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Queen Mary Careers is currently advertising (internally) for an Employer Services Assistant. This is a role that would suit some PhD students at Queen Mary. It is a part-time role which will give PhD students the opportunity to engage with employers that recruit graduates and PhDs. For a more detailed breakdown of what the job entails, the job description is available here.
If you are thinking about applying for this role, or for other roles beyond academic research, here are a couple of useful tips.
- It is vital to think from the perspective of the recruiter. It sounds obvious but many employers will not have done a PhD or know what the experience entails. It is up to you to outline the transferable skills that you may have gained from your PhD. Remember that not all employers will be interested in the specifics of your subject area. So, in the case of the Queen Mary Employer Services Assistant role, the details of your publication record are not important but your experience of developing collaborations with other research groups and being a PhD representative will illustrate your ability to build relationships, which is one of the skills mentioned in the job description.
- Look at the job description and use this as your starting point. List the skills within the job description/specification and think about using these as headings in your CV, either within a ‘skills section’ or as subheadings under the various roles that you have had. This will ensure that you provide evidence of what the employer is looking for rather than trying to tweak your academic CV to make it fit for purpose. So in the case of the Queen Mary Employer Services Assistant role, think about where you have needed to pay attention to detail as this is also one of the skills mentioned in the job description. A PhD will always involve carrying out a literature review or collecting data, both of which may provide evidence of attention to detail.
Doing a PhD and wanting to work in the creative Industries? January 13, 2012
Posted by qmresearchers in Career Ideas, creative industries, Humanities.Tags: creative industries, doing a phd, film industry
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I recently received a request from a PhD student who is doing a PhD in English and wants to to work in the film industry. During my hunt for information about this area I came across SkillSet. This is the industry body that supports skills and training for people and businesses in the UK creative industries.
The website contains a wealth of information about careers and training in many areas and may be of use to PhD students at Queen Mary working in the humanities. It contains information about working in a variety of sectors including advertising, interactive media and film.
May be worth a look.
Careers Tagged: Careers Information for Early Career Researchers January 11, 2012
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The Careers Group is the organisation that provides Career Services for the University of London. At Queen Mary, the Careers Service is part of The Careers Group.
Within this organisation there are a number of Careers Specialists that work with and support Early Career Researchers (i.e. PhD students/postdoctoral staff/junior academics) throughout their careers. There expertise includes Science, Engineering, Technology, Maths, Social Science and Humanities.
These specialists have started to pool all the websites that they have gathered over the years and are putting them into a website called Careers Tagged. This work is ongoing.
I am gradually putting many of the useful links that I have in the Queen Mary Diigo Group website onto Careers Tagged as pooled resources from many experts will be a useful resource for researchers.
So if you want to search this website for career information that is useful for Early Career Reserachers just use the tags Early Career Researcher and Career Development when you are searching. You can then refine your search using other relevant tags e.g. museums.
For a more extensive account of the background behind the project read Terry Jones’ blog here.
The National Museum of Science and Industry (NMSI) recruitment site January 11, 2012
Posted by qmresearchers in Career Ideas, Interesting Job Adverts, Science Communication.add a comment
If you are keen to work in the museum sector then this website might be useful for you. The National Museum of Science and Industry (NMSI) is a group of museums that includes the Science Museum, the National Media Museum and the National Railway Museum. It has a recruitment site which is currently listing a variety of vacancies ranging from ‘New Media Engineer’ to ‘Assistant Content Developer.’ These are the types of roles that might suit researchers from a variety of backgrounds. Worth a look!
Biochemical Society Internship January 5, 2012
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The Biochemical Society has recently advertised an 5 month paid (£70 per day) internship at their London Offices. Would suit someone that is interested in working in science education, careers, events, grant management, and science communication.
They are looking for someone that is willing to commit to working up to five months beginning in Febraury/March.
See here for more details.
Science Information Officer December 19, 2011
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Science Information Officer
Salary: £25,000 – £28,000 depending on experience
Would you like to play an important role in improving the way science is covered in the news?
An exciting opportunity has arisen to work at the Science Media Centre (SMC). We are looking for a Science Information Officer to help us make, break and react to some of the biggest science stories in the national news.
The Science Information Officer is a role that gives much needed support to a team of busy press officers dealing with breaking news stories on anything and everything from swine flu to climate change. You will take responsibility for researching and writing fact sheets for breaking stories, horizon scanning issues that might hit the news, managing the SMC’s expert database and website, and providing some support to the Chief Executive. You will have a broad interest in science and the media, be able to multitask and work under pressure, have the ability to summarise large amounts of complex scientific information to tight deadlines and have great IT skills.
This is not a role for the faint-hearted, so if you can work with a calm head when things are busy and demanding then this is the job for you!
For a copy of the job description, go to www.sciencemediacentre.org. For an informal discussion about the role please contact Will Greenacre on 0207 611 8345 or will@sciencemediacentre.org
To apply, please send a covering letter and CV to jobs@sciencemediacentre.org no later than 5 pm on Wednesday 4January 2012. Interviews will be held during the week starting 9 January 2012.
Drop Tower Opportunity! December 8, 2011
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Are you a researcher at Queen Mary in need of 9.3 s of microgravity? Well the The European Space Agency is providing it!
They are releasing anew edition of the ‘Drop Your Thesis!’ programme. Through this programme, a team of Master/PhD students will be given the opportunity to carry out a microgravity experiment, as part of their syllabus, in the ZARM Drop Tower Facility, in Bremen, Germany.
This facility is one of the most sophisticated and high-quality research centres of its kind in Europe and boasts a 146 m high tower that provides experiments with up to 9.3 s of microgravity.
The deadline to submit the experiment proposals is 13 February 2012.
The selected team will perform its experiment during ESA’s fourth Drop your Thesis! campaign, to be held during the autumn of 2012.
All the information for this programme can be found on www.esa.int/education.
For any further information contact by e-mail dropyourthesis@esa.int.
Engineering YES scheme November 24, 2011
Posted by qmresearchers in Employer Events.2 comments
Are you a researcher that wants to?
a) Become more commercially aware
b) Think about how your research could be used/applied in a broader context?
c) Win some cash for your research/commercial ideas?
If you answered yes to all or any of the above then it might be worth looking at the Engineering YES scheme.
Engineering Young Entrepreneurs Scheme is a competition for UK-based post-graduates students and post-doctoral researchers to present a business plan for an imaginary start-up company to a group of shrewd investors and industry experts.
Participants learn the techniques of how to go about planning a new business venture, meet local entrepreneurs and business leaders who have done it for real and have a lot of fun at the same time!
Click here for more information.
