General personal review

The purpose of this review is to gain insight into some key dimensions of your work and life to give you more clarity in career development decision making. It is useful to start here if you are unsure about your future career direction.

Your career priorities change as your life and learning progress. Regular review is integral to continuing professional development.

Questions to ask yourself

Here are some initial suggestions. Some questions may be easier to answer when you have used other tools such as the career priorities tool,Prospects planner or skills audit. Try to get feedback from others in addition to your self-evaluations.

Your career motivators

Recognising the factors most important to you helps you make career choices founded on what motivates and satisfies you. You are then much more likely to achieve career fulfilment.

• What are your career priorities? 
• Does your current job match your career priorities?
• What if anything is lacking?

What could you do to address the missing dimension(s)?

For example, in research work you could:

• contribute to setting the research agenda or bidding for resources to increase your autonomy if this is a key priority
• ask for more supervisory responsibility if managing others is an unfulfilled priority
• look for a longer-term contract or ‘permanent' position if security is an issue for you.

Achievements

What do you consider are your most significant achievements so far?

What did you learn from them?

Disappointments

What have been your most significant disappointments so far?

What did you learn from them?

Your work tasks

The following questions help you identify your levels of accomplishment and work preferences. They could provide insight into how you might develop areas that are weak. They also help you make career choices that capitalise on your areas of strength and enjoyment, whilst reducing involvement in weaker or less enjoyable areas.

• What are the main tasks of your current work?
• Tasks you perform well are...
• Tasks you perform less well are...
• Tasks you enjoy are...
• Tasks you do not enjoy are...
• What are your key areas of expertise?

For example, considering your work as a researcher, relate the above questions to the elements of the research cycle (based on the Research career builder):

• Winning research income
• Using expert knowledge
• Data collection and analysis
• Generating research output (papers, reports, etc)
• Exploitation of the research
• Understanding the research environment
• External recognition
• Managing the project
• Managing people.

Which of these areas do you need to develop further to enhance your effectiveness and career prospects? How could you do this? (Look atcareer development methods for ideas)

Your skills

• Compile a list of skills that each of your work tasks requires.
• What are your strongest skills? (If it is difficult to identify these, try theskills audit and/or look at the Research career builder)
• What are your weakest skills?

What are the skills you need to work on to ensure you can do your current work effectively?

See career development planning for ideas on how to develop your identified skills needs.

Work/life balance

• Are you content with the balance between your work and life outside work?
• Are you content with the time you have for leisure, sport, relaxation?
• Do you have sufficient time for friends and family?
• What could you do to gain a better work/life balance? (For example, could you ask for flexible working arrangements?)

Your network

• Review your network. This is your key development resource, whether looking for a new job or looking for ways to develop within your current role. Advice, insight and information and support are all available from the people around you.
• What can you do to develop your network?

Personal constraints

Are there any internal constraints or demotivators, pressures, negative thinking, health and fitness, or time issues holding you back from reaching your full potential?

How could you overcome these?

Support

Who can you rely on to support your career development?

Career goals

• What are your short-term career aspirations?
• What are the skills you need to develop to ensure you reach your short-term goal?
• What are your longer-term career aspirations?
• What are the skills you need to develop to ensure you reach your ultimate career goal?

Where next?

• If you are currently unsure about your future career direction, you will not be able to answer these last questions specifically. For help, look at‘Where do you want to be?'
• If you are clear about your aims and ready to begin planning, go to how will you get there?
• For more information about career reviews, see help and support.

Sources from : http://www.vitae.ac.uk/researchers/1349/General-personal-review-.html

read more

What employers look for

In 2006 the Association of Graduate Recruiters surveyed 236 employers and found that the following skills and attributes were the most sought after, in order of importance to their business.

• Commitment and drive
• Motivation and enthusiasm
• Teamworking
• Oral communication
• Flexibility and adaptability
• Customer focus
• Problem solving *
• Managing learning and career *
• Commercial awareness *
• Planning and organisation
• Time management
• Leadership *
• Numeracy
• Cultural sensitivity
• Computer literacy
• Project management *
• Report writing
• Risk taking/enterprise. *

* Denotes skills that the recruiter has difficulty in finding.

Although research training allows you to develop most of the skills listed above to a high level, it is important not to assume that employers will appreciate this. In a job application, clearly translate your experience, for example:

• Thesis = reports
• Research group = teamwork, creativity
• Scholarship = planning, creativity, analysis
• Running experiments, implementing methodology = project management, problem solving

Research in 2002 'Set for Success', in fact, revealed that doctoral researchers are failing to reach their full potential partly because of their inability to recognise and articulate their transferable skills.

But researchers who do manage to convince employers they have what it takes are highly appreciated. In 2004, Vitae (formerly the UK GRAD programme) contacted employers that regularly hire researchers:

'We like PhDs in our business sector - they never take anything at face value. That is a real bonus in a business compliance function. Their philosophical training and critical judgement have direct application in business services, whatever the topic of their research.'  Head of Graduate Recruitment, 'Big4' accountancy firm.

‘We don't set out to employ PhD graduates specifically - we take the best candidates available. However, we've found that PhD graduates have a combination of maturity and autonomy that is more useful for our work than engineering graduates with a similar length of experience in industry.'  Alan Prior, ABAQUS UK 

Sources : http://www.vitae.ac.uk/researchers/2376/What-employers-look-for-.html

read more

Managing your career

The term ‘career management' suggests taking control. In practice, careers are interactive processes between individuals and their employers and it can be difficult to feel in control of your destiny. The better your career knowledge and understanding, the more able you are to take the lead.

Career management is based on:

• understanding yourself and what you want from your life
• understanding careers e.g. types of work, recruitment methods, career structures and what support, training and development is available
• understanding the wider economic, political, social, and technological climate

Career management is a continuous process over your lifetime - and its focus will change:

• sometimes geared to developing in your current role
• sometimes aimed at preparing you for promotion
• sometimes directed at finding you a new job.

The career management cycle has several stages:

• Where are you now? A self-awareness review. Think about your career priorities and values. Evaluate your current skills and abilities, experience, work-life balance, family commitments and constraints.
• Where do you want to be? Explore your options - anything from improving as a researcher to a complete change of career and life pattern.
• How will you get there? Make plans. Decide how to achieve the desired career outcome. Set manageable objectives and be prepared to revise these plans if things change.
• Getting there Take actions to fulfil your plans.
• What have you learned? Achieve your goal - celebrate! Begin the new cycle with a review and record of your completed activity: evidence of what you did and what you learned to use in the future.

Sources :http://www.vitae.ac.uk/researchers/1335/Career-opportunities-outside-higher-education.html

read more

Working in higher education - Admin and other support

As large organisations (often the largest employer in a locality), higher education institutions require knowledgeable, talented individuals to work in roles that support front-line staff and students. There is a wide range of academic-related support roles in administration and student and staff services that often are overlooked by doctoral graduates and research staff. ‘What Do PhDs Do?-Trends', which analysed 2003-2005 doctoral graduate career destinations found that around one in twenty moved into professional support roles in higher education and opportunities are increasing. As a researcher, you have many skills that support staff in higher education need as well as knowledge of how higher education organisations function. In return you will be employed in a familiar environment which is usually flexible and supportive.

Administration

‘The expansion in the numbers of students in higher education during the last two decades has led to a corresponding increase in the number of personnel needed to support the 'business' that is now higher education...

Increasingly 'administration' has become a more dynamic management activity in which staff collaborate closely with academic managers to make decisions which influence the university's direction.'

Association of University Administrators ‘Careers in HE administration' factsheet

Administrators play an important role in the smooth running of a higher education organisation. Administrative careers can be broadly split into specialist (requiring e.g. legal, financial, personnel or management qualifications) and generalist, which we briefly consider here. Generalists are most likely to be recruited into a registry, or faculty or departmental office. Examples of activities in 'academic administration' are:

• administrating the rules and regulations and handling student- related issues
• serving on and servicing committees and academic boards
• providing administrative support for large research projects
• managing information and providing advice related to internal or external policies and procedures
• preparing reports and statistics for internal and external use
• contributing to policy and planning
• managing budgets and funding schemes
• liaising with other administrative staff, academic colleagues and students
• collaborating with external organisations
• facilitating knowledge transfer activities.

Here is an example from a recruitment advertisement describing a typical generalist opportunity in higher education.

Academic support and planning officer

We are looking to recruit to our team an Academic Support and Planning Officer who will play an important role in helping to develop our approach to university governance, and support the work of key policy-making committees. This is a wide-ranging and challenging role, which calls for a good understanding of the higher education research scene, a keen strategic sense and excellent report-writing skills.

This example outlines a role requiring more specialised experience.

            Project manager

You will provide high quality project management, including monitoring and reporting of activities and outcomes, for a multi-million pound biomedical research and knowledge transfer collaborative project between two universities. You must have proven project management experience, with substantial experience of large multi-partner research projects, ideally in the biomedical field, together with professional negotiation and communication skills.

Student and staff services

If you would prefer a more people focused rather than administrative role, you might consider the growing number of opportunities to support staff and students in:

• staff development and training
• graduate schools or similar bodies
• careers services
• student and staff counselling.

Here is an example of a recruitment advertisement in this area.

Careers adviser for research staff

To support our university's research staff with their career management, development and training. You will have experience of career work or an appropriate professional qualification. Postgraduate experience and qualifications to doctoral level would be useful. Essential personal qualities include enthusiasm, curiosity, objectivity, stamina and the ability to switch tasks frequently. Above all, the postholder will need to be outgoing, to like people, and to be able to work under pressure, both independently and in a group. Professional training courses are available.

Sources from: http://www.vitae.ac.uk/researchers/1355/Admin-and-other-support.html

read more