Sorting out your career is nobody else's job

People have started asking my opinion on job searching recently: Here's what I had to say to King's Graduate School on their blog...

I’m sorry to break it to you, guys, (and this is something I only really realised recently) but there is no-one out there that will be able to tell you exactly what job you should be doing and how to get it: that includes careers consultants. (Clearly they can help with your thinking and the processes of applying and so on but read on….)

About a year ago I started to realise that maybe the career in industrial research that I’d planned for the last 10 years wasn’t what I wanted. I confess it was partly initiated by the difficulty in getting a job but the more and more I thought about it, the more I realised I probably didn’t want the jobs I’d been applying for anyway.


Phew. Bullet dodged. Now what?

Well, first I started to complain. "My supervisors have never talked to me about what other careers are available", "No-one wants to talk about jobs outside of research", "I haven’t been given the opportunity to do anything else", I whined to the very nice careers consultant at KCL. I was quite whiny at this point, looking back on all the missed opportunities during my PhD and PostDoc and basically blaming other people.

Then I went to the Nature Careers Expo last September and realised things had to change. Every presentation I went to seemed to start with, "So I created this forum..,", or "I started this blog" and I sat there thinking "I can barely use my phone for email, how the hell am I going to blog?". It was at this point that the penny dropped: if I wasn’t going to take responsibility for getting myself a new career path, why should anyone else?

So I started a blog on my career search. I write down what I found out and shared it with other people. Almost every link and image I uploaded for the first month was broken and I’m still convinced that only my mother reads this but it gave me a start that lead to a free place at a SciComm conference, new contacts (yes, networking), a new understanding of the field around research and the jobs therein, a chance to blog on Speakers of Science, involvement in ScienceGrrl, the opportunity to do some public engagement with schools, joining twitter…but not necessarily in that order. Fundamentally, if you don’t know what you want to do, that’s fine: but you’re the only one who can find out.

During your PhD you can easily feel like you don’t have time for extra things but you will never get less busy, I promise you. The wonderful thing about your PhD studies is that there are lots of things you can try for free and if you don’t like doing them, you can stop. Here are some examples of things you can try…

1. Offer to write your PI’s research paper or review, even if it’s not on your specific area of work. This will help you decide if you want to do medical writing, where you have to summarise other people’s work, clinical trials and even the inserts that go in medication. I’ve written (and published) two papers this year and have two more underway. This is helping me get the most out of my PostDoc and making me practise my scientific writing.

2. Enter writing competitions to see if you like writing about science for a mainstream audience. I entered Access to Understanding with an article on arthritis (not my area) and got lots of feedback from friends and family.

3. Write news articles about cutting-edge science and submit them to the university paper/a blog/your boyfriend to see if they’re any good, to see if you like doing this and to see how long it takes you. I wrote something on antibody-drug-conjugates (sort of my area) in application for an internship at The Economist.

4. GO ON COURSES They’re free for many students, you probably have to go on some and you’ll definitely never have access to so many experts. I did a public speaking masterclass, public engagement course with King’s, science journalism at The Guardian and science writing at OBR. I paid £50 for the Guardian course, but the rest were free and it was a great way to meet like minded people for advice and support.

5. Talk to new people at every conference, meeting and seminar. If you’re absolutely awful at this then a job that requires networking is probably not for you. If you’re good at this then you will have made new contacts that could be invaluable. I ended up at a ScienceGrrl brainstorm, teaching kids about oxidation and sitting in on meetings about Science Museum lates all because of ‘someone’ I met ‘somewhere’ – not through my supervisor.

6. Read some patents. Properly. Is this something you find interesting? Patent law is a popular and competitive choice for graduates. It’s not easy so you should know what you’re getting yourself into. (I worked for a patent company as a chemistry consultant for a bit as part of my PhD – I’m pretty certain I find this dull)

7. Seriously think about how much money you’d like to earn and how little you will settle for: this will have a massive impact on what jobs you will apply for. My current job (which I love) is less than half my PostDoc wage and less than my PhD stipend.

8. Start a Twitter account or blog for yourself or your research group This is a great way to see what’s going on outside your research institution. If you do this for your research group you MUST ask permission from your superiors/head of department.

9. Plan something complicated from start to finish. A work party, a conference, a hen-do, a football tournament. The organisation this requires will tell you if you’re cut out for planning or project management and if you like doing it. I got married during my work search. I’m pretty sure I can now organise the hell out of most things. (Disclaimer: I’m not suggesting you get married purely for the project management experience, maybe just an engagement party…)

10. Apply for some jobs.  Even if you don’t know what you want to do. At least browse the job boards to see what’s out there. Some applications that I made steered me towards positions that I was better suited to. If you want a wake-up call, check out the picture below. It’s a screen shot of my ‘Applications’ folder. It doesn’t include those applications that were speculative or required only an online form…there are over 60 individual applications in less than a year. Don’t moan, just do something.

Any of the extra things on your CV will make you seem more well-rounded and not just another fed-up researcher. I was told on a forum that I was just another ‘desperate PostDoc that couldn’t make it in academia’ – you need to make sure your CV shows that that’s not the case and that you have other skills! And remember, if you try something new and you don’t like it or you’re rubbish at it, that’s fine, just stop and try something else. Then you can also add ‘perseverance’ to your CV.

I was ridiculously busy during all of this but I’m now at a job I love. I work for Sense About Science, a charity supporting projects that equip the public to make sense (get it?) of science. We create guides for the public, run events for researchers to train them in the best way to talk about their work, address bad journalism and put writers in touch with scientific experts whenever we can to make sure that science is clear, well-represented and useful for the public and policy-makers alike. It’s fast-paced, responsive, dead-line driven and no-one has cried for the whole eight weeks I’ve been here. So far, it’s wildly different to academia.

A version of this post was first hosted on the King's College London Graduate School blog. If you're affiliated with King's I strongly urge you to check them out as they are really helpful.

Dealing with rejection

We've all been there. You're sure it can work but you are getting mixed signals from them. You wait for them to get in touch and then, it happens. 

        

"We regret to inform you that we will not be progressing your application further. We have received applications from other candidates who more closely match the requirements of the position"

Balls.

It’s genuinely a coincidence that I’ve gotten around to writing a post on rejection on Valentine’s day but it seems fitting and I hope that this will be more useful than the shit you’ll find today in Grazia, Closer and <insert-name-of-magazine-that-promotes-self-loathing-here>.

I’ve been pretty open about the number of jobs I’ve applied for (nearing 50 now, if you’re wondering) and my success rates (two interviews, one spectacular job offer that I turned down). A few people have told me that I should keep it to myself, but I feel compelled to tell people the reality of my situation. It’s a bit like when someone compliments me on a particular piece of clothing and I am compelled to tell them how old, cheap or ‘from TK Maxx it is’.*

Anyway, this is not going to be a tale of woe and gnashing of teeth. Yes, it’s crappy when companies don’t reply. Yes, it’s a bit worse when you actually get a rejection. Job applications are not easy. Two or three in a week is exhausting and I have no ‘positive-control’ so I’m working in the dark most of the time.

What I wanted to write about this week was an answer to a question I get asked a lot: How do you deal with all the rejection? I’ll be honest, there are days when I’m really tired of it all. When I feel that if I had more time to write the bloody applications then maybe I’d get one of the jobs, but I’m so busy doing extra things to bolster my CV, maybe I’m spread too thin. Then, sometimes, I have a little cry. I’m quite fond of a good cry so this is not necessarily a bad thing. Anyway, we’re heading down the ‘tale of woe’ route but I just wanted to say that I’m not impervious to feeling crappy about it all. However, what I’ve done recently has really helped.

I have simply decided to do ‘new stuff’.

I guess it started by writing this blog, something I never thought I’d be able to do. It turns out, it wasn’t that hard and I’ve found out that I like doing it. You might think blogging is a complete exercise in narcissism and it is a bit, but it’s been a tremendous boost to my confidence to actually DO something. Something I thought I couldn’t do before.

Then, just before Christmas, bolstered by a bit of jealousy of my sister-in-law’s skills, I learnt to knit. I’m not great (the curled edges below probably show my tension is too tight) but it’s been really rewarding to learn the lingo, the patterns and to create something. I used to paint, draw and sketch a lot but, as messy hobbies, my one bedroom flat sort of vetoed them in fairness to my long suffering husband. It’s been very therapeutic to do but it also really made me proud. I could do something by the end of a week that I couldn’t do before. It didn’t cost much and I’ve found it really helpful to remind myself that I can do things.

Can you guess what I'm making? 

I also made a truly inedible pizza. Honestly, I’ve NEVER thrown something that I’ve cooked in the bin. I even froze an under-whipped tiramisu rather than chuck it out, once. This time, I thought to myself, I’d like to try and make a pizza. Yes, it was bloody awful. It was good to try though.

You can see where I tried to cut the dough in half
with a scissors to see if it was cooked. It wasn't

On the plus-side, the scraped off topping made
quite a nice pasta dish 

Last week, I got on a pair of skis for the first time in nearly 20 years. I’m not one of those Northern European ex-skiers who learnt in the womb either. I was hardly drawing on years of latent experience! In the end, I wasn’t half bad!  I was convinced I’d be appalling but, after just a couple of days, I was fine.

Look at me! Doing sport!

I decided the best way to combat the cold was to ensure
NONE of my skin was exposed.

This might seem like a completely pointless list of achievements but it’s important to remember that when you’re getting lots of rejections, you also did lots of other things too. 

Try a new hobby, start that book you’ve been meaning to read, dig out your old running shoes/bike/chess-set. I’ve found that by filling my meagre spare time with a couple of new things, the forefront of my mind isn’t dominated with ‘I got a rejection again this week’ but ‘how do I do a kfb purl stitch again?’** Remember that applying for jobs is just one of the things that your doing. Fill the rest of you time with things that will keep you positive and try and keep those in mind, too.

Maybe you got your son to finally eat with a spoon or trained the dog to sit. Maybe you worked out just how to make the perfect lasagne but, most of the time, if you have a little think, there’s usually something that worked. And, if not, try making a pizza. Apparently, it’s really easy. ***

*FYI: All my clothes are from TK Maxx or made by my Nan and most of them are over 5 years old. Some, over 15. I never grew.

** That’s for the knitters. God, I’m so cool.

***During the proof-reading of this blogpost, I got another rejection. I wonder if I could learn bridge?

In the next few weeks I'll be summarising seminars that I've been to on consultancy, patent law, science writing and think-tank research. I told you I've been busy, didn't I?

Robots made me do it...

I turned down a job last month. 

Those of you who've followed this blog or (God forbid) know me personally, will know that I've been actively looking for a new job for well over a year, with absolutely no luck, so this was a big deal for me and may come as a bit of a surprise for you.

It was great job that would pay well, working for someone I really respect, so I think I should probably explain myself. I'll get to the robots in a bit...

The job was a research post with great opportunities to develop my career in a dynamic group keen to make big steps quickly - potentially with the resources and enthusiasm to actually meet these goals. In academia, things can move very slowly, one reason why I've always wanted to work in 'industry' - a catch all term that researchers use to describe jobs that makes a commercial product, rather than academia, where the research is usually more driven by the desire to learn (this is changing, but that's for another time...). This post would put me in a great position to go into industry in 2 years, maybe a little longer.

The cherry on the employment-cake was that I'd also get to work for an ex-boss that I liked, knew our work styles were compatible and I was confident we could do good research together. All of these positives were why I applied, why I was pleased when I went for my interview and why I left the enjoyable interview with a spring in my step.

I was told that it might be a while before I heard back about the job and that they'd let me know when they'd be able to 'let me know'. However, in the end, they got back to me quickly with an offer of a role. Looking back,  I think I probably knew straight away that something wasn't right. I felt really weird about the offer. Sad that I'd 'have' to take this job, that it was too good an opportunity to turn down, that all my investigations and inroads, however meagre, into life away from research was for nothing and that the decision had more or less been made for me by the offer of this great job.

Then, I realised something. If I was sad about taking the job, if I was sad to stay in research, I probably shouldn't do it! This sounds really daft, I'm sure. Of course this sounds like an obvious conclusion but it wasn't an easy decision to come to and I thought it might be helpful to others to explain how I got there...

I asked for a week to think about the offer. I don't think they were thrilled to wait but they'd been happy to tell me that I should expect a long wait and I think, as an interviewee, you should never forget that you are also interviewing them!

Over that week, I spoke to friends, family, current and past colleagues about my dilemma. If reading this, you are one of those people, then 'Cheers' - by getting things off my chest I started to come to some sort of decision about what I wanted to do, but I was still of the splintery-bum-brigade, not quite getting off the fence. For a number of complex reasons that I can't Athena Swan my way out of, the role would also involve a change of my personal plans for the next few years and I wasn't willing to commit to the job, or to turn it down, unless I was sure the role was worth making certain sacrifices for.

That week, I also went to a Science Museum Lates event. The theme was Robots. Pretty jazzy, I'm sure you can imagine. There were tiny cheetah robots, creepy salamander robots, robot hands and robot fish that could be controlled via a video game. In a word, it was excellent.

I sat on the floor and made a robot wasp. The wasp, on the other hand, was pretty poor (and I ruined a mascara trying to put stripes on it, oh the sacrifice!). Anyway, my point was, as I trundled around the museum, agog at the technology that others had designed, truly fascinated by the work and throughly engrossed in the best way to get my robot to beat my husband's in a race, I didn't feel inspired to run back to the lab to produce my own imagination-capturing-inspiring research. What I thought was, 'Wouldn't it be great to work here' (and the occasional 'I could've explained that better'). To talk about science to people who just want to learn about it, or who didn't realise they liked it and only came for the speed-dating, but stayed for the circuitry. The idea of that really grabbed me. I know one night on a special event, at one of the most well-known museums in a city known for it's museums, is hardly representative of the normal life of your public engagement/scientific communication/museum curating employee, but I was far, far more excited by the idea, the challenge and the opportunity to at least try to do something like this than I was of a certain job, well-paid, with the aforementioned great boss.

Fundamentally, I don't deserve the job. Somebody else will do that job well, somebody who will throw themselves into a research career, somebody who is hungry for this position - and that 'someone' is not me.

So, I guess, what I'm trying to say is I've come to a realisation:

When you're 19 and you're sure you want to do a job, when you spend years studying, learning and occasionally crying en route to that job, sometimes, ten years later, it might be OK to change your mind.

When I finish my twice-extended contract in less than three months, with no job prospects, I may live to regret this possible act of folly. Until then, anyone want to buy my robot wasp (the wings fell off in the race that I didn't win. I hope it's not a sign)?