Dr Jo Moyle

Careers Coach

www.brookes.ac.uk/careers

RESEARCHER CAREER PATHWAYS EVENT 14th JANUARY 2014

What do Brookes PhD graduates do?

Lecturer – OBU and beyond

Staff Officer, Health Intelligence, MOD

Postdoctoral researcher

Secondary school teacher

Project Engineer, Aerospace Systems

Technical Director, IT company

Research Administrator

Senior Paediatric Officer, NHS Digital Forensics

Specialist, Defence Industry

Associate Lecturer

Research Assistant

Library Branch Manager

Research Scientist, Pharmaceutical industry

Freelance Landscape Historian

Training and development coach

Actor

Research Physiotherapist,

NHS

Directorate of Academic and Student Affairs

Support for researchers through the Careers Centre

• Full training and events programme to support ongoing professional development and practical career management skills

• Daily one-to-one advice and guidance service

• CV and application checks

• Mock interviews

• E-guidance service

• See handouts in delegate packs

• Details of all services including Same Day Appointments www.brookes.ac.uk/careers

• Located in HKSC, soon moving to NLTB – come and see us!

My Top 3 Tips for Successful Career Transitions for Researchers

Whether you are…Moving on in academic research

Moving into research outside HE

Moving into a new sector

Moving back into a sector

TIP 1: LOOK AHEAD

Academic research roles

“Getting an academic job is a competitive business, so

you should treat it as a campaign. Once you have got a job, the campaign is unlikely to stop, but will continue with more or less intensity for much of your academic career”

The Academic Career Handbook, Blaxter, Hughes & Tight (1998)

What is currently exercising the sector? Look at job vacancies – record of research funding?

What level of publications record? Ongoing research plan? Specific teaching requirements?

How likely are you to have to re-locate?

I probably would have done career research a lot earlier, all the way through. With the general switch into IT, it would have made sense to think more. It didn’t occur to me that there was anything more than a set of skills involved and it would have made sense many, many years ago to find out more generally how that worked. And you know there was plenty of information out there that I just didn’t bother to hunt down. I think I would have paid more attention to the career aspect of connections I already had. All of that information was just waiting for me and people were good willed towards me and I think I ignored that a great deal at early stages

Wider options within and beyond HE

www.beyondthephd.co.uk

Using your research skills to colonise the territory you want to move into…

LinkedIn

Information interviewing

Making and talking to contacts

Work

shadowing

Work experience and volunteering

Job vacancies

The internet

Talk to a careers adviser

Sector press

Tip 2: Cultivate the right attitude to spot and seize opportunity

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ahg6qcgoay4

The Psychology of Luck – Richard Wiseman

Studied psychological differences of hundreds of exceptionally lucky and unlucky individuals

Discovered ‘lucky’ people generated their own luck through distinctive set of attitudes and behaviours

Second phase – can you teach people to be lucky?

‘Unlucky’ individuals taught basic principles and simple techniques – after 1 month, 80% more satisfied with their lives and experiencing more ‘good luck’

Techniques for becoming ‘luckier’

Tension and anxiety disrupts people’s ability to notice the unexpected - adopt an approach of openness and curiosity whenever possible

Introduce variety and change into your life – even small changes in routine can increase the number of chance opportunities that come your way

Notice how you react to bad luck – ‘it could have been much better’ ‘it could have been much worse’

This keeps your expectations about the future high and increases the likelihood of self-fulfilling prophecies… and greater ‘good luck’

Other findings about attitude…

Career learning theory of ‘Planned Happenstance’ (Krumboltz and Mitchell)

Approach / avoidance motivation research (Friedman and Forster)

Resilience research (Frederickson)

Mindset research (Dweck)

Plan for the unexpected Cultivate curiosity, open-mindedness, experimentationincreases chances of serendipitous eventsPositive emotions and expectations tend to increase creativity and bigger picture thinkingBeliefs about effort and responses to feedback alter outcomes

Tip 3: Understand the recruitment game

Getting shortlisted

• Employer is looking for suitability and motivation for a specific role that matters in their organisation – advert, job description, person specification

• Essentially a matching exercise – selection criteria define the ideal candidate, you supply the evidence it’s you!

• Do you meet their requirements? • Are you speaking their language?• Does the information you give reflect its

importance to the employer?

Activity

Look at the CV ‘Louisa Martin’

Imagine you are shortlisting for the role of ‘Lecturer in Architecture’

How would you rate the evidence for the given criteria:

Met

? Partially met

X Not met

If you were Louisa Martin, what areas of experience might you expand on in an application form?

University Teacher in Architecture,

University of Liverpool – Sample Selection Criteria

Essential criteria Met Partially met

Not met

Experience of student dissertation supervision at Masters level

Ability to contribute significantly to teams developing contemporary teaching in architecture

An enthusiasm for contributing to an internationalised and diverse student experience

Contribution in practice to the design of excellent buildings

Good knowledge of current design software

4 different ways of asking for research skills

• “Analyse, distil and solve practical problems, generate new ideas and make sound judgements in complex situations” (Deloitte, Graduate Audit Training Scheme)

• “A resourceful attitude to dealing with problems and queries and be capable of planning and carrying out research for new products” (Palgrave Macmillan)

• “Give as much focus to the smaller details as you do to the big-picture, take the lead on decision-making based on evidence, think innovatively when investigating how things can be improved” (Civil Service Faststream)

• “Creative problem solving supported by logical methods and appropriate analysis” (IBM)

Today

Opportunity for a one-to-one CV or application check with a Careers Coach – there are 16 x 15 minute slots

Sign up at lunch

Meet with your Careers Coach in Willow 08

Directorate of Academic and Student Affairs

Support for researchers through the Careers Centre

• Full training and events programme to support ongoing professional development and practical career management skills

• Daily one-to-one advice and guidance service

• CV and application checks

• Mock interviews

• E-guidance service

• See handouts in delegate packs

• Details of all services including Same Day Appointments www.brookes.ac.uk/careers

• Located in HKSC, soon moving to NLTB – come and see us!