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?