No More Blue Mondays Workshop

Preparing for the academic job market

Sarah Allbeson

Careers Consultant

Careers Service, 3rd floor, Main Library

Aims today

Opportunity to reflect on your career development and consider your plans for after your studies

Identify your strengths and areas of your academic life you want to develop further before the end of a PhD

Discussion with peers for new ideas, reassurance, inspiration!

Today’s speaker

Alasdair Raffe Chancellor’s Fellow, University of Edinburgh School of History, Classics & Archaeology

The job market and you!

Opportunity to reflect on your strengths and areas for development

Pick one of the job descriptions, read it through and then consider how you compare to the key criteria

In what areas would you have strong evidence and examples of your suitability?

In what areas would you need to develop further in order to meet the person specification?

Filling the gaps!

Identify 3 actions you can take in the next 6 months to strengthen your profile

Working towards the first lecturing job…

Postdoctoral fellowships Research Assistant or Research Associate posts Teaching opportunities Short-term contracts Portfolio career opportunities

Think about the time you will have to WRITE AND PUBLISH!!!

Networking and making contacts

Perhaps…the most crucial factor that will determine your success

The chances of getting short-listed for interview are much, much stronger if your application lands on the desk of someone who already knows you

Not what you know, who you know!?!

How can you develop your network?

Presenting papers and attending conferences

Research seminars and workshops

LinkedIn and www.academia.edu and blogs, Twitter

Collaborative projects

Looking for academic jobs

Where are you looking for roles?

What kind of roles are you looking at?

What websites or other sources are you using?

Job search strategy

Find out where jobs are advertised Identify institutions that offer your subject – approach

speculatively? Find out who funds your research area – create your own job?

AHRC Research Grants – early careers British Academy Post-doctoral Fellowships Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellowships (or study abroad

studentships?) And for more…

Research Professional - www.researchprofessional.com www.eri.ed.ac.uk http://www.rsd-blog.eri.ed.ac.uk/

Useful websites

www.timeshighereducation.co.uk New jobs are posted on this site every Tuesday and listed in The THES newspaper the following Friday.

www.jobs.ac.uk Search for academic and research jobs at universities, colleges and research institutions in the UK (and some abroad)

www.acu.ac.uk (Worldwide Vacancies) Recruitment for Commonwealth universities around the world.

www.academicjobseu.com Site for academic jobs in Europe. http://chronicle.com/section/Jobs/61 Chronicle of Higher

Education, academic jobs in North America http://www.higheredjobs.com Job listings for higher education in the

USA www.phdjobs.com A dedicated website for PhD holding job

searchers.

Use the Careers Service

Main Library, 3rd floor: 9.15am – 4.45pm (Tuesdays 11am - 7pm)

Talk to a Careers Consultant Careers advice – appointments available daily

Careers Fairs, talks and workshops Book places on MyCareerHub and see events for whole

semester CareerEd - online resource available through Learn which

helps you generate career ideas www.ed.ac.uk/careers - explore your options, find out

occupations, destinations and lots, lots more! Postgraduate section of the website too…

Main Library, 3rd floor

Thank you – we look forward to working with you

Any questions?