I recently ran a workshop at the annual Horizons conference in Göttingen and it got me thinking about the concept of career horizons and its influence on our ability to make informed decisions about our own careers.
Many PhD and postdoctoral researchers wonder how they will know if they like a particular job if they’ve never experienced it. Our experience is necessarily limited, so how can we be sure that our next move will be the right one? Unfortunately, this is sometimes the reason that people can stay too long in one place – fear of the unknown, afraid to take the risk, comfortable in the place that they are.
But how will you know, if you’ve never tried?
My husband and I travel to France quite a lot and we always stay at the same hotel and even in the same room. We always thought this room was the best – we’d always found it comfortable and adequate for our needs. Recently, we were horrified to arrive to find that our usual room wasn’t available and we would have to use another room down the corridor. After trying to negotiate unsuccessfully, reluctantly we searched out the alternative room only to find …. Guess what? It was actually better than our usual room – larger bathroom, better view and altogether more pleasing. What had we been missing out on all this time?
I thought this was a great analogy for the careers that we choose to remain in, because they are comfortable and adequate and serve our needs. We refrain from moving elsewhere in case it’s worse than what we already have. But, what if it were better?
There’s an interesting career concept that maps onto this dilemma of career choice called ‘Horizons for action’, which is part of the overarching careership theory of Hodkinson. It’s one of my favourite career theories (perhaps you didn’t realise that there are dozens of career theories out there!) because it takes account of the fact that we can only see what is on our own horizon, not beyond it. So, with this limited information we make our decisions without really knowing what we’re missing out on – what else could we consider?
There are ways around this and I want to give you some suggestions to help you to look beyond your limited horizons so that you expand your view of what is possible:
- Read lots of job vacancies. I got into careers work because one day I spotted a job advertisement for a University careers adviser with a scientific background. I read with interest the job description and realised that, instead of what I’d thought a careers adviser does – as experienced from my school days – it ticked all the boxes for me: creative, people-centred, events organisation, research, lots of variety! It was a revelation that changed my whole career path.
- Attend career fairs both online and in person if you can. To make the most of these events, prepare by investigating the programme and exhibitors attending, as well as looking at their websites, LinkedIn information and so on. You can even link with and contact professionals in the organisation doing the kind of work you think you might enjoy.
- Use AI (with caution). Once you have a better grasp of your own self-awareness, you can plug some of this information into AI and ask what kinds of roles might suit you. You can use your interests, skills, values, personal characteristics, etc to see what it comes up with. It might surprise you, after which you can investigate some of the suggestions further.
- Contact alumni from your university or PhD programme, especially those who have left academia, to find out what they’re doing and why they enjoy it. You’ll get personal as well as professional insights that you can perhaps relate to even more because they were at the same institution or on the same programme as you.
- Look at resources – there are lots of books, websites and podcasts out there with plenty of case studies and examples of non-academic careers. These include, PhD Career Stories, Matteo, and even I have 20 examples in my own book, Career planning for research bioscientists.
- It’s not so easy to do, but if you’re able to get a placement or internship or even
- Volunteer to do things that you enjoy, especially during the course of your PhD. If not, reflect on what you naturally enjoy doing. This provides a really valuable insight into what interests and motivates you when there is no money involved! Apply these insights to your career research activity , as they can provide clues to what you like doing (and even what you don’t like too).
- Finally, if you’re still not really sure of your strengths and interests beyond your disciplinary field, I would recommend attending a workshop or receiving coaching/career guidance to help you with this. There are also resources to help you, such as those featured on my website (with many more blogs associated with self) and Science’s MyIDP.
Well, I hope that has given you some food for thought and some useful ideas about how you can expand your career horizons. Never forget that, as professional researchers, you have highly developed research skills that can be applied to all aspects of life, not just your research project.
Research yourself. Research the job market. Research other people’s careers.
The more you investigate, the further your career horizon extends – and the more possibilities you give yourself to make an informed choice.
And occasionally, the room down the corridor turns out to have the better view.