Careers Advice – What is it?

A PhD student of 10 years ago might have been bemused at the thought of consulting a careers adviser.

He or she would consider that they were on a career track: what would there be to talk about?

That was then and this is now.

The production of PhD’s has long outstripped the number of openings for academic research roles. Opportunities in industrial research have grown rapidly in some areas but not others; and in any case they have frequently become ‘clustered’ in large research centres not easily accessible.

 

So there are many questions for the contemporary PhD student to answer.

 

How can I maximise my chances in the competition for post-docs, fellowships or teaching posts? Is there anything over and above the sine qua non of excellent, innovative work, dissemination and publication? Oh and luck.

 

What else can I do?

 

What else am I fit for?

 

Is doing something else a sort of step down or a step over to the ‘dark side’? Ask this question in a room full of PhD’s and you get a lot of nervous laughter. It always touches some deep chord.

 

If I can do it and am fit for it – do I have a chance of getting it?

 

Questions. Questions. Questions.

 

A PI said this to me this year, “In science we ask a series of very simple questions.”

 

It’s the same in careers: a series of simple questions with not very obvious answers.

 

Careers Advice is a piece of action research. It’s a learning conversation. It’s a look before you leap.