All PhD-ed and nowhere to go

So, I’ve just got back from the Nature Careers Expo 2013. For those of you that don’t know, ‘Nature’ is one of THE journals that we scientists would all like to get in to - It's like our ‘Vogue’. For several years now they've run a day where different companies pitch themselves to PhD students and PostDocs, and vice versa. Where it differs from your standard university careers fayre is that the exhibitors almost all have vacancies and are genuinely on the look out for ‘talent’, whilst the attendees are, like me, genuinely looking for jobs and not just interested in a novelty gonk and some pens – although there is a lot of that and I left my fair share of free tat, plus a nice T-shirt from Digital Science. I’m not going to describe the entire expo- that’s too time-consuming, not helpful for me and quite boring for you! What I’ll do in this post is describe some good strategies for getting the most out of such an event. This has all been gathered from advice from the careers service and my own experience on the day, see if it helps...

       1. Try to go to see a careers adviser BEFORE the event

 

The excellent careers service at King’s gave me some great tips on the best way to find out what you want without sounding like a self-serving tool. E.g. Don’t ask ‘What can I do because I don’t have THAT skill’, ask ‘What kind of training do you offer to new starters’

They will be able to give you some pointers so that you can narrow down the number of inhibitors you actually want/need to speak to. It's a long day so you need some sort of strategy and a careers advisor can help you to crystallise (no pun intended, chemists) what you want to get out of the day.

  

        2. Prepare

This sound obvious but take the time to at least google all the relevant employers and have an idea what they do. The exhibitors are busy and you can see them start to glaze over as they start to tell you things about the company you can find on Wikipedia.

  
3.  Discount the exhibitors you really don’t need to see

Yes, I know they’re giving away chocolate at the Science in Switzerland stand, but if you’re going to have to fake 20 minutes of interest umming-and-ahhing just buy yourself a Mars bar and move on – there’s not a lot of time at these things and the exhibitors get a bit ‘peopled-out’ by the end of the day. Catch them early! 

4. Once you’ve got your list of 5-10 stands, DON’T start with your favourite!

Whether you clam up, mumble, or, like me, you’re a waffler, we all tend to show a bit of start-of-the-day nerves. You want to make your best impression, so give yourself chance to settle in.

        5. Pick your moment

I did most of my ‘networking’ (Urgh, I know) and quizzing of staff early and not at lunch. The few people I did chat to during lunch were a bit distracted and, frankly, hungry.

        6. Take notes

It's easy to think ‘I’ll remember that, I don’t want to look too keen by whipping out my notebook’ but you won’t. There are a couple of things I wish I’d written down – names, buzzwords, it’s just too easy to forget them within seconds in such a noisy, busy atmosphere. Take down exhibitor names for job application cover letters.

       

     7. Go back for more

I got the best feedback and the most positive reaction from people at stands where, after speaking to them and having a think, I approached them for a second or third time. You want them to remember you, you want a job and it’s a really good chance to speak to someone in the company, so, why not? They’re bombarded with random faces asking the same questions all day, so make yourself stand out with a re-visit.

       

        8. Take their advice

A big part of today was about employers telling us what they want, or employees at the companies telling us what they have that made them desirable. There’s no point in focusing on ‘Oh, but I haven’t done a policy internship’ or ‘I didn't get any opportunity to present as part of my degree’. They don’t care, if you want a job, go the extra mile because plenty of other people are willing to do so to get that job!

  

        9. Follow up

So I haven’t done this yet as it’s 2 hours since the conference ended and I don’t want to be THAT person, but, once I have something I want to say/ask, I fully intend on dropping all the people I spoke to anything from a polite ‘touch-base’ to a full blown job application. Even the jobs you’re not so sure about, there’s no harm in keeping in touch.

    

     10.  Talk to strangers and get their details (see how I avoided the word ‘Network’)

Everyone hates this word- it makes us feel all scummy inside, I know, but, the thing is, we do it all the time. When you start a new job, chat someone up at the bar or even bump in to Steve from Accounting at a Metallica/Rhianna/Justin Beiber gig, it’s all networking really – chatting to someone you didn't know before and finding out if you’ve got any common ground. Usually at conferences, there are the big names at one end, guffawing over some in-joke, the cool-PhD student group at the bar getting hammered, and, if you’re foolish enough to go alone, as I often do, then you can find yourself feeling like the last kid into the lunch-room with no-one to talk to. Today was different, meeting new people wasn’t the subliminal event, as it is at a conference, it was the whole point of the day, so you can genuinely walk up to someone, chat about their work and exchange a business card or e-mail address without feeling weird about it. Honest. 

Other pointers from talks/presentations throughout the day

• You don’t necessarily need a business card as a lot of the stands have iPads and e-registration for you to leave your details – I got the impression the last thing they want is 412 tiny pieces of paper that they can’t link to a face.

• Take a CV – I wouldn’t hand them out as they're difficult to tailor to so many exhibitors but, like today, there might be a CV clinic. There will definitely be a number of HR professionals. Who knows you might network yourself into one of them glancing over it with regard to their company? 

•    The exhibitors are busy – they aren’t there to tell you what job you should do. Try asking them different questions to everyone else to get the most out of them!

•  If you check out the Nature Careers Expo 2013 site, there are all the slides on cover letter and CV preparation that we covered in some of the workshops, plus a list of exhitors. I spoke to Johnson and Johnson, Teach First, Medimmune, Macmillan Science Communication, Nature Publishing Group, Vitae, Bioscience Careers Group,  Digital Science and Envision Pharma Group

In my next blog, I’m going to investigate one of the careers that I looked into today – teaching. More specifically, I’m going to try and fathom the difference between the normal PGCE and the TeachFirst programme, endorsed by the government and who ‘inspire change in education in and outside the classroom. Apparently.