University of Manchester Careers Blog

I managed to say hello to around 2,500 of you in person last week (even if it was ~200 at a time…) but for anyone whose welcome talk I didn’t attend, here’s a virtual “Hello” and wave from postgrad careers land.

What’s this blog all about?
It’s a way of talking to you informally about anything which I think affects postgrads and their future careers. That might be news of events or vacancies, but also

• information – a lot of the “How to …” careers guides for postgraduates on our main website started as blog posts
• comment – I like demystifying common perceptions of careers and the job market (and I can be more frank here than on our official website)
• conversation – like most bloggers, I love comments (unless they’re trying to sell designer shoes), so if you want to ask anything, add your own views, or disagree with what’s been said, just add a comment to any blog post, or tweet me @ManPGCareers

Is this all the careers support there is for postgraduates?
Nope – there’s loads more!

The main postgraduate pages of the Careers Service website are where you’ll find our Careers for Doctoral Researchers specialist mini-site, our online talks (watch out for updated talks this semester), as well as the “How to …” guides.

Our CareersLink database holds all our vacancies (>580 full-time vacancies open right now), our events listings, our organisation directory (details of over 6,000 organisations) and Going Global (information on applying for jobs in 40 countries). You don’t need to register to access all this – just use your university login details.

Our award-winning website for aspiring academics, An Academic Career, with views and video clips from a wide range of Manchester academics is so extensive, it has its own site.

And I’ve already mentioned @ManPGCareers …

So it’s all online then?
Well, you’re smart people, so I know a lot of you just need a few online pointers and you’ll manage all this careers stuff yourself. However, we do love talking to you and sometimes only a friendly face and a sympathetic ear will do, so we’ve also got plenty of real people to talk to at the Careers Service. The only caveat I would give is that this month, we’ll have almost 14,000 final year students (undergrads and postgrads) starting to look for a job or postgrad degree, so if you all want an appointment, there might be a bit of a wait…

You can make an appointment to talk to a careers consultant or get feedback on your applications with our applications advice service (you’ll need to be a University of Manchester student or recent graduate to access this).

If you call into our new home in the Atrium (1st floor, University Place), and talk to our frontline careers staff,  or phone for an appointment, they’ll probably ask you lots of questions. Don’t panic – they’re trying to figure out what help you need, and may be able to sort your problems there and then. That’s because you’re probably talking to a postgraduate – most of our frontline careers staff have already got their Masters degrees, so they can really empathise with what you’re going through as a postgrad (and they know lots about careers).