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PhD Zone: Talk directly to employers

23/05/2013 By Leave a Comment

adelphiphdzoneAs part of our annual “Pathways: Careers Options for Researchers” programme, we bring a select group of employers together to answer your questions about what employers look for in applicants who have a PhD, in our PhD and Researchers Zone at the Graduate Recruitment Fair.

  • When?
    Wednesday 12th June 2013
  • Where?
    Armitage Centre, Fallowfield, alongside the first day of the Graduate Recruitment Fair
  • Who can attend?
    Any current or recent PhDs or doctoral research staff, from any university
  • How do I book a place?
    You don’t have to! However, if you register beforehand, it will make it much quicker to get into the event (otherwise, you’ll be made to register on the door)
  • More info here: PhD & Researcher Career Zone

Who will be there?
At the moment (be warned – we sometimes have drop-outs on the day!), the employers signed up to attend are:

There will also be a stand for careers and employability advice, staffed by me and other careers and researcher development colleagues, to answer any general careers queries – or give you an extra confidence boost before you go and tackle all those employers.

I think this is the strongest range of employers we’ve ever had at the PhD Zone. We normally have a good selection of employers looking for physical science, engineering and IT specialists, but this time, we’ve also got 3 employers targeting life and medical sciences researchers, and several consultancies and other employers who will consider any discipline (some – but not all – will expect you to be interested in applying technology, maths or statistics to business problems but that doesn’t mean you have to be a programmer).

Will they all have current vacancies for PhDs?
No. They are all interested in recruiting people with PhDs – at some point, but not necessarily right now. This means that even if you’re not actively looking for a job imminently, it’s worth coming along to talk to them, for future reference.

The aim of the PhD Zone is to allow you to quiz them on how they view PhDs, the value that PhDs can add to their organisations, and how they recruit PhDs, when they need them.

Why no public sector/arts/social sciences employers?
Unfortunately, those organisations either recruit PhDs in such small numbers or have such tight budgets that they can’t afford the resources to send someone to recruitment fairs. (Believe me, we try, including offering them the space for free!)

So not worth my while coming?
Hold on there! If you want to see if your skills could be put to good use in a business setting, come along with an open mind and see what the PhD Zone employers say – or see which other (non-business) employers are coming to the main fair. Talking of which …

Are there any other employers I can talk to?
Keep an open mind and come and talk to the 70+ employers in the main Graduate Recruitment Fair downstairs. They are looking for people who have degrees – and that includes you. A lot of the employers in the main fair look for graduates (including postgraduates) from a wide range of backgrounds, including humanities.

If you come to the first day of Pathways (Friday 7th June), you’ll probably hear from PhDs who started employment by using “graduate entry” points – and then hear about how they progressed much faster than other graduates, because of their maturity and advanced skills. Of course, the “graduate route” is not for everyone. This is our advice on deciding whether or not you should consider a “graduate job” after a PhD.

If you are open minded, on Wednesday 12th, other employers include Her Majesty’s Government Communication Centre, the Information Commissioner’s Office, News Associates (journalism courses), Teach First and the Teaching Agency, Creative Support (care provider) as well as lots of retail management, engineering, finance, IT and science employers and general recruitment agencies – the full list here.

And there’s more – on Thursday 13th June, we have a whole different set of employers (but no PhD Zone that day). Employers on Thursday include the UK Civil Service, Government Operational Research Service, the Co-operative Group, the Local Government Association, the National Health Service Leadership Academy, Language Empire (interpreters and translators), and loads more retailers, engineering, finance, IT and science employers and general recruitment agencies – full list here.

Want to know how the make the most of these recruitment events?
I know lots of you will have attended these fairs and come away saying they were pretty useless. If you’re not interested in jobs with any of the employers attending, or any similar employers, then there’s probably not a lot of point wasting your time.

However, I’m going to be controversial, and say that some of you were just asking the wrong questions – or expecting the wrong information.

Before you dismiss the idea of attending, try reading my advice on How to … make the most of careers events as a postgraduate. Then make up your mind!

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The secret of career success?

02/05/2013 By 2 Comments

Some big questions on a lot of people’s minds:

What do you need to do to stand out over all the other graduates and postgraduates looking for jobs?

How can you improve your chances of being the one to move into an interesting, challenging career, shortly after graduating?

Well, we wondered that too. Everyone’s talking about “graduate employability”, but it’s a bit of a vague term, and frankly, most graduates are “employable” – but how long before you become employed, and employed as what?

What have we done about it?

We’ve worked with Robertson Cooper (a business psychology consultancy led by Profs Ivan Robertson and Cary Cooper) to find out what makes the difference between those graduates who make a swift and smooth move into a great job on graduation, and those who struggle or take longer to get there. (You can find out how we went about this further down.)

The work’s continuing but we’re excited about the results so far, and if you talk to one of the careers consultants, chances are it won’t be long before they whip out a picture, a bit like this:

RobertsonCoopermodel

So, what makes the difference?

The key differences were seen in 5 behaviours. Those who were successful in getting a good job quickly tended to:

  • Explore – keep their options and their eyes open; stretch themselves by trying things ‘outside their comfort zone’; take every opportunity to gain lots of varied experiences;
  • Connect – build their network and maintain contacts (peers and social contacts as well as experienced professionals); use information from their contacts to research jobs and career paths;
  • Communicate – adapt their communication to different audiences; learn from others how to engage audiences; introduce themselves effectively; practise;
  • Reflect – recognise their own skills and can illustrate with examples; differentiate themselves from the competition;
  • Persevere – learn from setbacks and constantly adapt; start their job search early, learn from any knock-backs and approach the next opportunity positively.

Obviously, for some jobs you also need advanced synthetic organic chemistry experience, or an in-depth knowledge of SPSS – but we’ve all met people who have great specialist knowledge but who struggle to get a decent job.

Reasons I like this approach:

It doesn’t try to cover the whole of your career or define “employability”.
It’s practical, about getting a job after graduating – but to be honest, if you can do this for one job, I reckon it’s worth a try for future jobs.

It’s about behaviours.
These are “things you do” – and can probably learn to do, or do better, rather than personality traits, which you’re probably not going to be able to change.

It seems to be generic to a wide range of jobs.
Specialist knowledge and skills needed will vary from job to job. However, you still need to be able to reflect – to spot what you’re good at and find evidence which will convince employers – and to communicate what you can do and why that’s useful to an employer. These are both areas where graduates, and particularly specialist postgraduates, commonly struggle.

It highlights the importance of connecting, reflecting and persevering.
When most people think of careers, they think of “what job would I like”, “where are the job ads”, “how do I write a CV” and “how do I get through interviews” – which tend to fall under explore and communicate. These obviously are important, but this is the first time we’ve had such stark evidence that these other three behaviours make such a difference.

Reasons to be a bit more cautious:

It’s only based on undergraduates (so far).
I’d be surprised if postgraduates were particularly different, but the evidence so far comes from interviewing undergraduates. When we take it to the next stage, we can try and see if there are any significant differences for postgraduates.

It’s only based on graduates who were aiming to get into work.
We didn’t interview those who were aiming at postgraduate study or self-employment as a next step. However, again, when we take it to the next stage, we can see if these behaviours also differentiate between those who were successful in getting on to a postgraduate programme and those who struggled. We can also look at self-employment but our populations are likely to be small there, so that will probably take longer.

What happens next?

Robertson Cooper are developing a questionnaire for us to help our students understand how strong they are in each of these behaviours. When enough students and graduates have completed the questionnaire, we will also be able to let you know how you compare to others – in particular, how you compare to others who have been successful in getting into a good graduate job quickly.

Of course, the tough bit is devising a questionnaire which differentiates between those who do get into graduate jobs quickly and those who struggle, even if we do think we’ve got the right behaviours. (Really hope it doesn’t all unravel at that stage!)

“OK, once I’ve got the results of a questionnaire – then what?”

This is new, so new that we’re just starting to think of the implications of providing support to help you learn how to explore-connect-communicate-reflect-persevere, and what services and resources we should provide to help you put it all into practice. To be honest, a lot of what we offer fits neatly into supporting those behaviours, but we’ll work on how we can make it even easier for you.

If you’re a postgraduate, you’ve got a head start. If you’ve had a look at the new online postgrad resources I’ve written (“How to … careers guides” and “Careers for doctoral researchers“), you’ll spot that I’ve already written them based around explore-connect-communicate-reflect-persevere. (I was writing the resources just after we got the first look at the framework, so it seemed like a good idea to test it out – hope you don’t mind being guinea pigs/pioneers!)

Your views – very welcome

Expect to see a lot more on this in future, but I thought you’d like a preview of what’s to come. We’d love your comments on this – we’re “stress testing” this framework at every opportunity, talking to students and academics, finding where the holes might be, or how it might be used.

(For more on how the work has been developed, see below ↓ )

[Read more...]

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Pathways: Career Options for Doctoral Researchers

24/04/2013 By Leave a Comment

pathwaysrenoldflowersYou’re always being told that networking is the key to exploring career options and strategies for getting into work, but where are you supposed to find the time and the contacts when you’re concentrating on your research?

Well, each year, we try to make it easier for you.

Instead of you having to find a load of contacts, set up meetings, and take multiple days out of your diary to talk to them, we find over 60 PhD qualified professionals and bring them to you – to Manchester, on campus, all on the same day.

Our Pathways event has been running successfully for 5 years, attended by hundreds of researchers each year.

When: Friday 7th June, 2013
Registration from 8.30am, 9.15 start, (free) lunch 1-2, 4pm finish (though you can come for part of the day if you have other commitments).

Where: Renold Building, North Campus
We’re back at Renold, now it’s been refurbished. It’s a nice venue for this event, with plenty of space for lunches and informal networking, and a wide range of flat rooms and lecture theatres (so less chance of running out of seats, as we did in some of our most popular sessions in University Place last year). If you don’t normally go to North Campus, think of it as an away day!

Want to attend? Online registration is now open
Important: If you want to be sure this event goes ahead, and that we book enough lunches to go round and venues large enough to seat participants, please register! We’ve just had to cancel a whole week of postgrad careers events for Arts, Languages and Cultures because registrations were so low, and I’d hate to have to do that again.

Who can attend? Doctoral researchers (current or past)
Any University of Manchester doctoral researcher, in any year, including those who graduated up to 2 years ago from this university, are eligible for a free place. If you attend another institution, there is a charge to attend (as the event includes catering), though your own university training department may be prepared to fund or subsidise you – ask them.

It is also open to any current University of Manchester member of research or teaching staff. Over half of the panellists normally started as post-docs, so this is as much a post-doc career event as a PhD career event. Having said that, the focus is on careers for those with a PhD, so if you’re a current member of research staff from an undergraduate or masters background, it won’t cover careers without a PhD.

This event isn’t open to either undergraduates or Masters – but if you decide to do a PhD at the University of Manchester, you’ll be welcome to attend from your first year onwards.

Wpathways2012ho’s going to be there? We can’t tell you yet (‘cos we’re still contacting panellists)
But come with an open mind and you’ll find really valuable advice and tips from some unexpected places. There are always panellists working both inside academia and outside academia – and those who started in academia but then moved on. We’ll upload a list of the profiles of most of the panellists the week before the event, but for information, here are some of last year’s panellists (pdf).

Some panellists come back each year, others just come for one year – there are always panellists who are attending for the first time, so you definitely won’t have seen them all before.

Will I find a job there? Frankly, no.
This isn’t a jobs fair (that’s the following week – more later). It’s the chance to find out how other PhDs found jobs, decided on careers and what they wished someone had told them when they were in your position. As most of them aren’t representing employers, you’ll get a frank (sometimes brutally frank!) response from them about what they thought of jobs they’ve done and how to avoid some of the mistakes they’ve made – something you really can’t get at a recruitment event.

So no employers then? Well … maybe (we hope so)
For the first time, following a suggestion from researchers, we’re hoping to add an employer panel in the afternoon, to give you direct feedback from people who recruit PhDs (and others), about what they look for and how PhDs can market themselves to employers. I’ll update you on this blog if we manage to set this up – fingers crossed.

Where can I get more information?

If you want any more info on the event, want to put in a plea for us to try and find someone for a panel (always a challenge but we try), or if you know anyone who’s now in work after having completed a PhD who would be prepared to attend (we do pay reasonable travel expenses and feed you) – just drop a comment here or email anna.lomas@manchester.ac.uk

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Careers support for doctoral researchers

18/04/2013 By 2 Comments

pyramidAny researcher knows that research success involves more than just knocking out a thesis overnight and dazzling your examiners with your off-the-cuff insights at your viva. The groundwork starts on day 1 of your research degree.

You know what I’m going to say about career success now, don’t you…?

OK, cut to the chase – I’ve written a major new section on the Careers Service postgraduate website to support doctoral researchers, wherever you are in your research degree, to improve your chances of career success.

At the start of your doctoral research degree
Includes finding support to help you through your PhD, exploring your strengths, applying for teaching or part-time roles, starting to establish your academic reputation (including winning academic funding and prizes), learning to get your message across to academic and non-academic audiences, as well as starting to explore the wide range of careers open to you.

Those tough “intermediate” years
Some topics are similar to first year, but now there’s more emphasis on starting to build your contacts, actively researching different careers or building your academic reputation, building up your CV and reflecting on what you’ve done, so you can tell your story to people you meet (who may help your career later) – and a whole page on keeping going, including the challenges of “Imposter Syndrome” (seems it’s quite common in academia).

That hectic final year (and beyond)
You probably won’t have much time for adding extra skills unless they’re directly related to your PhD, but there’s lots of info on deciding which career to go into, finding and applying for jobs, getting through interviews, making contacts and using careers events, plus finding support to get you through the final hurdle.

There’s a lot more in each section, including links to further resources where you need them – those are just some of the highlights.

How should I use this?
You can use this resource whenever you’ve got a moment to think about your career, but it’s also intended to support your annual career development discussion with your supervisor.

What do you mean, “What’s one of those?”

To be fair, they’ve only been introduced this year, but they’re now part of your officially monitored progression (through eProg). If your supervisor isn’t familiar with them and isn’t sure what to talk to you about, send them to our Careers for Doctoral Researchers resource.

Feedback
As ever, I’d love to get your feedback on the resource, including suggestions for development or things I’ve forgotten to include. Either leave a comment here or send me your suggestions at careers@manchester.ac.uk with the subject line “Careers for doctoral researchers”.

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Arts, Languages & Cultures – PG Careers Week

15/04/2013 By Leave a Comment

STOP PRESS (22/4/13)

Sorry to announce that we’ve had to cancel/postpone (most of) these events – the number of people who signed up didn’t make them viable.

However, as far as I know, the Placements session will still go ahead, as it’s part of a longer programme that day, specifically for the museums and arts admin MAs – check with your lecturers to confirm.

We’ll offer individual bespoke help to those who did sign up, and I’ll turn up at what would have been the start of most of the careers service sessions, to explain and offer quick “drop-in” advice if anyone doesn’t get the message about the cancellation and just turns up anyway.

We’ll work with the School who will survey their postgrads to see why there hasn’t been the interest they hoped for, and with a bit of luck, this will be a postponement, not a full cancellation. [Read more...]

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“How to …” careers guides for postgraduates

12/04/2013 By Leave a Comment

guideAs postgrads, I know that you’re a pretty self-sufficient bunch. Point you in the right direction and you’re more than capable of getting to where you want to go.

That’s why I’ve created eighteen new

              “How to …” self-help careers guides

specifically targeted at postgraduates, now available on the Careers Service website*.

  • They can be used throughout your postgraduate degree – from day 1 to graduation (and after).
  • There are postgraduate-focused hints and tips on each page, with links to further resources if you want them.
  • They also help you find the other sections of the Careers Service website which might be particularly useful for postgrads.

I’ve grouped them under five headings (more on why I’ve chosen these five in a future blog post):

Explore – expand your options and stretch yourself

Connect – build and get the best from your network

Reflect – recognise your skills

Yeah I know, you’re just going to skip to the CV guide, aren’t you? But if you haven’t reflected, it’s odds on that all your hard work on making your CV look good will be wasted.

You get a real advantage in the job market if you can reflect effectively and tease out what’s important for an employer.

It’s about understanding the story you’ve got to tell, making sense of it to an employer, and pointing out why they should bother to listen to you. It’s the bit that’s missing when you send an untargeted application – and that’s the most common reason why people get rejected from jobs.

Communicate – get your message across to different audiences

Persevere – learn from setbacks and keep going

  • persevere3Recover from setbacks – postgrad study is never easy, so here are some tips on reflecting on your triumphs – and disasters, getting support from others, asking for feedback and persevering with networking

Let me know what you think of them, if there are any other topics you think would be generally useful for postgrads, and suggestions for improvements.

(*OK, these guides are new to our Careers Service postgraduate website, but if you’re a regular here, you may recognise chunks of some of them, craftily previewed on this blog!)

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How do you find career contacts?

25/03/2013 By Leave a Comment

Whenever I talk about contacts, I see people rolling their eyes and saying they’re not the sort of people who “have contacts”. I want to convince you that you can find those contacts if you look.

(And yes, this is yet another post “inspired” by the PG web resource I’ve been writing – though probably the last, as hopefully it’ll go live any day now.)

You probably have more contacts than you think

When people say they have “no contacts” for their career, they normally mean either:

  1. They don’t know someone in a position to give them their ideal job.
    If you have the sort of contacts who can give you a job, that’s very useful. However, this isn’t realistic for most people. It’s better to aim for finding contacts who can give you information and advice about a career area.
  2. They haven’t told anyone what sort of contacts they’re looking for.
    Your flatmate might have a cousin working in your ideal job – you will never know that if you don’t tell them what you are looking for.

Not convinced?

lionI often use an exercise with groups of postgrads, where I ask someone to give an example of a job, any job, and see if we can find

  • a contact within the room who can tell them something about the job, or
  • a contact of a contact (or even a contact of a contact of a contact) who should be able to tell them more about the job.

So far, I’ve been able to generate potential contacts for “lion tamer” (we came up with a graphic designer who worked for a zoo, and a vet who worked with big cats) and “crisp taster for Walkers crisps” (someone’s friend worked in R&D for a rival crisp manufacturer).

Oddly, the only ones where it doesn’t really work is if someone asks for an academic contact in a very specific field – in which case, they normally have the means to generate the contacts themselves.

Use the right approach

People are more likely to share their contacts if they are confident you won’t hassle friends or put them under pressure to give you a job. Make it clear you are looking for information only.

Tell everyone you know what you are looking for – information about an employer, a type of work, a job sector, working in a particular country …

Who should you tell?

  • Other postgraduates – people on your course or in your research group; make friends with postgrads in other Schools if you are aiming for a career related to their discipline
  • Friends – sports team colleagues, any social contacts, school friends from “back home”
  • Lecturers, supervisors and advisors – at this university or previous universities, particularly important if you are aiming at an academic career
  • Family – weddings and other family get togethers are great for catching up with what your cousins are doing now, or who they’re married to
  • Previous work colleagues – particularly important if you have significant work experience; don’t lose touch with previous professional contacts, even if you are planning a change of field

Manchester Gold – our informal and formal mentoring programmes

Our Manchester Gold scheme has two programmes for University of Manchester students:

  • Manchester Gold mentoring – a competitive programme where you get the chance to be matched, one-to-one, with a career mentor over a six month period. These programmes run in the Autumn and Spring with deadlines for applications.
  • Online Q & A – ideal for informal, one-off individual questions. Over 800 alumni and careers contacts have registered to answer your careers questions. Search the CareersLink database to find a potential match and contact up to two mentors a month by email.

Using social media to find contacts

Your current social media contacts may be able to help you. Make sure you post updates to Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or whichever channels you use, making it clear what you are looking for. Just keep it professional.

Facebook

In addition to your own contacts, you may be able to find support and information from joining groups or liking pages

  • The Careers Service has Facebook groups for most disciplines. These are closed groups only for University of Manchester students but you may find other members who can help with advice or contacts.
  • “Liking” employer pages allows you to keep up with news from your preferred employers, and increasingly, interact directly with them.

LinkedIn

It is worth seriously considering joining this social network, particularly for non-academic careers.

  • It can act as your online professional CV – if a “contact of a contact” agrees to meet you, there’s every chance they’ll put your name into a search engine first.
  • You can join groups relevant to your chosen career area. This will allow you to take part in online discussions with career professionals. It is also common for agencies and recruiters to target professional groups on LinkedIn when looking for scarce skills.
  • Other good groups to join include the “University of Manchester Alumni Association” (over 14,500 members) or “Manchester Business School Alumni (Official)” (over 9,500 members) if you are in MBS. This doesn’t mean you automatically have access to contact details of other group members, but it increases the chances of finding someone in the group who has a mututal contact (which is how you generally approach people through LinkedIn).

Top tip: Invest in your network by connecting to your friends, and those on your course or in your research group. In five or ten years time, you will have an impressive network as you all progress in your careers.

Looking for contacts outside the UK?

GoingGlobalweblogoThe suggestions above are generally just as applicable outside the UK as inside. In addition, here are further resources for those looking for contacts outside the UK, whether you’re an international postgraduate planning on going home, or any postgraduate looking for work outside the UK.

  • Going Global – An international job and career resource, licensed for use by current University of Manchester students and recent graduates (login required). This gives you access to country profiles for 40 countries across the world, including details of professional and social networks for each country.
  • Work and study overseas – Information on regions and countries across the world on the Careers Service website. Includes our China Portal, with advice on the role of networking in securing a job in China.
  • International networks – Links to our University of Manchester and Careers Service online networks, including our India Manchester Graduate Network and our China Manchester Graduate Network
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UMIP Fellows – paid p-t roles for PhDs

13/03/2013 By 2 Comments

Wouldn’t normally cut’n'paste an ad for an event  – but this is too good an opportunity for our STEM (science, technology, engineering, maths) PhDs to miss:

UMIPUMIP Fellows Programme Launch – Information Day
Wednesday March 20th 2:45pm – 4:30pm
Core Technology Facility, Grafton St, Manchester

Are you an early stage researcher or full time postgraduate student registered at The University of Manchester?

Do you have:

  • An interest in technology transfer and intellectual property commercialisation, and/or prior experience in business or commercial environments?
  • A commitment and availability for up to 8 hours per week to undertake paid project work?
  • Demonstrated professionalism and ability to adhere to deadlines?
  • Enthusiasm to gain valuable business-related experience to enhance your CV?

We are looking to recruit a number of high calibre early stage researchers and postgraduates to become UMIP Fellows to work in their spare time alongside UMIP’s Commercialisation Executives to undertake a range of time critical short project assignments. Our new UMIP Fellows Programme is modelled on the similar, highly successful Columbia Fellows Programme run at Columbia University in New York.

Typical project assignments will include:

  • Conducting scientific, market or prior art and patent research and analysis in order to inform decisions relating to patenting of inventions
  • Assessing new inventions for commercial viability
  • Writing technology summaries for marketing
  • Identifying potential licensees or investors for new technologies

Successful Fellows will receive structured training from UMIP staff and from a Columbia Fellow in order to complete assignments, and the opportunity to participate in enterprise training from the Manchester Enterprise Centre. We expect that Fellows will be at least 2nd year PhD level in a STEM related discipline, and will be able to commit to the Programme for at least one year.

To find out more about the UMIP Fellows Programme, our aims and expectations, the entry criteria and the assessment process, and what you could gain from it, register here to attend the Information Day.

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Environment, freelancing, writing & HR – events on Wednesday!

12/03/2013 By Leave a Comment

Thought sml 600px wideHope you’ve been keeping up with all the careers information events that have been running this semester – and Wednesday 13th (tomorrow, as I write this) is another big day.

As usual, the second semester focuses more on non-corporate careers or those “careers with a difference” as we’ve termed them – either a different way of working, such as self-employment, or those sectors where “graduate recruitment schemes” are rare. In other words, careers where you normally have to find your own way – which suits a lot of postgraduates.

We’ve got a glut of events tomorrow, appealing to different types of people. We’d love you to register in advance, but if you haven’t – just come along (you’re unlikely to get turned away).

  • Careers in the Environmental Sector – our big annual information event, where environmental professionals “tell it like it is” and give you the chance to network with them. Likely to include public sector, private sector, consultancy, legal/regulatory, science, conservation professionals (in other words, they’ve said they’re coming but you never know who’s going to show up on the day!)
    1.00pm – 5.00pm
    Lecture Theatre A (3rd floor), University Place
  • Freelancing – stay in control of your career by working for yourself – informal presentation and round table discussion with experienced freelance professional, Martin Ross
    2.00-3.00pm
    Room 5.004, Fifth Floor, Crawford House (the Careers Service building, opposite the Aquatics Centre entrance)
  • Getting started in HR – one of those ever-popular but hard to get into careers, this will get you started
    1.00-2.00pm
    Crawford House (the Careers Service building, opposite the Aquatics Centre entrance)

More details in the links – don’t miss out if you’ve got any ambitions in these fields. Your next chance to attend these will probably this time next year.

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Time to reflect – make sense of what you’ve done

11/03/2013 By 1 Comment

learningcommonsreflectionReflection isn’t always easy to do, but you have a real advantage in the job market if you are able to take a dispassionate look at yourself and understand how you appear to potential employers – it will help you “tell your story” more effectively.

By really thinking about what you want, and critically assessing information you pick up along the way about careers, it can also help you avoid falling into a career which doesn’t satisfy you.

So how can you do this? I suggest you cover four areas:

  • What have you done this year?
  • What have you learnt about yourself?
  • “So what?” ie. What would all this stuff you know about yourself mean to an employer?
  • What have you learnt about careers?

Why? Because writing CVs and explaining yourself at interviews will be so much easier if you’ve done this groundwork first. Here’s some tips for how to do it.

What have you done this year?

It’s often easiest to start from something concrete.

  • What have been your achievements, your successes?
  • What have been your disappointments?
  • What feedback have you been given (good and bad)?
  • Who has asked for your help? If someone has asked for your help, it’s likely that they think you’re good at something!

Try and record some of your successes.

  • You’ll need to remember them when it comes to job applications and interviews – having a few notes to jog your memory will really help.
  • When things get tough, it can help to flick through your file of “things I’ve done” to remind yourself just how much progress you’ve made.

How? Any way you want!

  • On paper – try a box file, a diary, a shoe-box stuffed with scraps of paper – whatever works for you.
  • Digitally – you can simply use a text file or you can experiment with more versatile formats, such as Evernote, and capture text notes, web pages or even audio or video notes from your phone.

What have you learnt about yourself?

Are you clear about your strengths and weaknesses?

You may underestimate your strengths. After all, if something comes easily to you, you probably think “what’s the big deal?” However, other people may look at you in awe as you:

  • effortlessly get difficult people to do what you want
  • talk to 10 year olds about your subject and keep them enthralled
  • turn an unwieldy mass of data into an elegant graph

If you’re not sure what your natural talents are, try describing your recent successes to someone else and get them to pick out the strengths you must have been using.

If you want a list of strengths and skills often required by employers, try our “Masters/PhD skills evidence form“. NB. Not all skills on this list are needed for all jobs!

Want more?

University of Manchester students and recent graduates also have access to an online personality questionnaire, the Type Dynamics Indicator. By answering a number of online questions, you will receive a computer generated report by email, interpreting your preferences, including the impact on your relationships with others, your performance in groups, and some suggestions for possible career areas (this doesn’t take any account of your postgraduate degree though).

“So what?” – What would this mean to an employer?

cumulativeadsdec09.xlsThink of your achievements as raw data. You now need to interpret them, turn them into useful information and present your argument.

From your own point of view

  • What does your reaction to each of your successes and disappointments tell you about what you want out of life?
    Try simply noting down any observations in two columns – Want / Don’t Want. They’ll probably change over time, but you can add to and change your list as you extend your skills or try new experiences which you’d rather not repeat.
  • Want a ready-made career checklist and self assessment process?
    Download our document “What do you want out of a career?” (pdf) from our website, An Academic Career.

From an employer’s point of view

  • You need concrete examples of what you’ve done in order to populate your CV, but you also need to help employers understand why these examples might be relevant.
    • Rather than simply list scientific techniques you have used, you could point out that you have “used technique X in context Y to achieve outcome Z“.
    • If you’re a researcher going for non-academic jobs, don’t just list titles of conference presentations. Make sense of it to a non-academic eg. “invited to present latest research findings to 250 leading international academics, resulting in a new collaboration with a research group in Germany“.

What have you learnt about careers?

Information about jobs

  • What new jobs have you heard of in the last year?
  • Who have you talked to about their work?
  • What insights have you gained into their work and whether that would appeal to you?
  • If you’ve found a type of work in which you are interested, what do they look for in applicants?
  • How well does that match what you currently have to offer?

Information about job hunting

  • If you are a researcher who attended Pathways, what insights did you glean about how PhDs find work which satisfies them?
  • What have you learnt about the job market in your preferred field?
  • How is it changing, what are future trends?

Finding the right job for you

  • How well do the jobs you’ve heard of match your Want / Don’t Want lists?
  • Could you start (or add to) a “Yes / No / Maybe” list of jobs you have considered?
  • Do you need to revise your view of some jobs, given new information or the way you have changed in the last year? For example, it’s not unusual for researchers to fall in and out of love with becoming an academic – where are you in this cycle?

(And yes, this is another preview of what’s going on to be appearing on our postgrad website – this could keep me going for months!)

 

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