For researchers thinking of changing career direction, don’t obsess about your qualifications and specific subject knowledge. You have developed a whole wealth of skills from your research which you can translate into the language of new career areas. Employers want to know you have the right attitude, committment and potential to succeed in their organisation. The kinds of skills they […]
Hard skills, soft skills, transferable skills, technical skills, interpersonal skills. Skills are what employers want from their prospective PhD employees. They’re not so interested in the details of your particular disciplinary research area, they want to know how you will apply your knowledge and skills to help them to innovate, create and develop new products, […]
Last week, I ran a career workshop at a research institute in the lovely city of Vienna. The participants were doctoral students keen to find out about the kinds of careers they could consider after their PhD. I asked them to come up with a list of careers where a PhD is (1) essential; (2) […]
If you hadn’t noticed, it was National Postdoc Appreciation Week (#NPAW) last week. Held each year during the third week in September, all kinds of initiatives and activities are organised to highlight and celebrate the invaluable contributions made by postdoctoral researchers and to support them in their careers. You only need to do a Google […]
You’ve heard of Research & Development (R&D), but what about Researcher Development? It’s all too easy to think that once you’ve qualified to postgraduate level, gained experience or have reached a certain age, further professional development isn’t really necessary. And while that’s true up to a point – you don’t necessarily need to undertake formal […]
Have you ever lived in another country? It’s common practice for researchers to move around either on a short-term or long-term basis. It’s almost embedded into the research culture. However, until you’ve done it yourself, you don’t ever really appreciate the challenges associated with transferring and translating everything from your own country, culture and language […]
Researchers are great at analysis – you scrutinise research papers, you analyse methodologies, you deep-dive into complex data sets, you evaluate conclusions and you use a wide and sophisticated set of tools to achieve all of these analytical activities. But what about you, the researcher? How about your self-analysis? Are you investigating yourself and wondering […]
Guest Blog alert! We don’t hear much from professors when advising on careers, so it’s with great excitement that I introduce my guest writer for this month’s blog – Professor Dale Sanders (former director of a major UK research institute). Much has been written about securing a permanent academic position, not to mention surveys, statistics, podcasts and […]
Originally posted on the University of Glasgow’s ‘Expert Voices‘ as part of their Pathfinder initiative, my June blog is about how you can intentionally direct your career, rather than leaving it to chance. I hope it’s useful for you to find your own career path. Intentional or Incidental ? “I just happened to be in […]
To do a postdoc or not to do a postdoc …. …. That is a question I am asked by many PhD students, whilst postdocs ask me whether they should do another postdoc or leave academia altogether. The answer, as with many career questions, is not straightforward. The facts show that only a very small […]