2012 Historical Perspectives Conference Employability Panel
Speaker Biographies:
Dr Campbell Wilson
After a career in financial services Campbell entered full-time higher education for the first
time in 2002. He gained a first class honours degree in Economic and Social History, a
Masters degree in Contemporary Economic History, and finally a PhD in the same subject.
Campbell was lucky enough to be awarded ESRC 3+1 funding for the Masters and PhD.
After completing his doctorate in 2010 – He was fortunate enough to find a job within the
University of Glasgow in the Recruitment and International Office as a UK Student
Recruitment Officer. He has also been an Associate Lecturer with the Open University since
2006. He loved his time as a student at Glasgow and he loves his current job even more.
Dr Archie Roy:
Archie attended Strathclyde University from 1978 to 1987 and did a first degree in
Psychology followed by a PhD in social-developmental psychology. He then did a one year
post-doc at Glasgow Uni in medical sociology.
However, he made a significant career move in 1989 and opted for the non-profit / charity
sector and until 2003 worked for the disability charity RNIB as a student adviser and then as
a Post-16 education officer. The first job was mainly supporting a caseload of blind and
partially sighted students across Scotland and N Ireland – supporting access and progression.
There was also a careers guidance remit and a research focus. The education officer role was
primarily a training and consultancy job, running disability training events in colleges and
universities and auditing them for inclusive practice.
More recently Archie did a careers guidance job at Strathclyde University and came to the
Careers Service at GU in 2004. He has a generic career guidance role here but has an interest
in supporting disabled students. He has also just completed a book chapter on the history of
disability for a Canadian book due out at the end of the year.
When Archie was an undergrad and postgrad student, he did a lot of part-time jobs – he was
a butcher, a psychiatric nursing assistant, a warehouse operative and a psychology tutor.
Dr. Angela Bartie:
Completed an Honours degree in History at University of Strathclyde, before moving with
supervisor to Dundee in 2004 and submitting PhD thesis on cultural conflict and moral
controversy at the Edinburgh Festivals between 1947 and 1967 in August 2006. Started job as
Project Officer with the University of Strathclyde Careers Service that same month, creating
a web resource for postgraduate researchers, then worked in a series of Research Assistant
posts at Strathclyde, Glasgow Caledonian, and Edinburgh Universities between November
2006 and January 2008. This was followed by a period of what is euphemistically termed
'portfolio working' - research, teaching, freelance writing and editing and other posts along
the way - while applying for postdoctoral research funding. I secured a major funding bid for
the Scottish Oral History Centre in 2009, and obtained a two year post as a Lecturer in
History at the University of Strathclyde, which started in September 2010. This became open
ended at the beginning of this year.
Dr Fiona Skillen:
Fiona is currently a Postdoctoral Research Assistant in the International Football Institute
within the School of Sport, Tourism and the Outdoors at the University of Central Lancashire
(Preston). Prior to this she held a one year research post at the Musuem of Leadmining
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(Wanlockhead), researching leisure activities amongst the local mining community between
1750-1930. She completed her PhD at in the Dept of Economic and Social History, at the
University of Glasgow in 2008 and her Masters in 2004 (she held a 1+3 ESRC Studentship).
Her research interests concern modern history, in particular aspects of gender, sport, politics,
social policy and changes in popular culture. Fiona is particularly interested in the influence
which dominant discourses concerning gender and modernity had on women’s popular
culture. Her PhD research focused specifically on the ways in which these discourses
impinged on and were negotiated by women who wished to participate in sport within the
interwar period. She is currently completing the final stages of a monograph based on this
research.
http://uclan.academia.edu/FionaSkillen/About
From the panel discussion
Key points to keep in mind:
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Networking and conference attendance is incredibly important so that your name
stands out within a pile of job applications. Get involved in learned societies and put
yourself forward for postgraduate representative roles on societies as appropriate: this
is a great way to get involved with the wider academic community and people outside
of your immediate subject area.
Being involved in postgraduate societies can be a great benefit if you want to pursue
an academic career as you will have to find external or internal funding to keep your
society afloat and you will thus gain valuable experience of filling out funding
applications.
If you really want to have an academic career keep this goal in mind and pick up
opportunities everywhere you can, e.g. lecturing with the Open university, tutoring
where you can, and involving yourself in your department by organising seminar
series or conferences. Build up your academic CV at every opportunity (but keep the
main goal of getting your PhD in mind and do not let these other activities detract
from that).
Also, do make use of the career service and meet with a career advisor so that you are
aware of the options which are there for you. The analytical and organisational skills
you acquire throughout your PhD can be put to use in a wide variety of employment
environments so look into as many options as you can, keep your options open.
Be prepared to change your research interests quite widely and be prepared to work
on a variety of projects. It’s important to remember that you won’t necessarily be
working on your ‘subject area’ for the majority of your academic career. Be prepared
to push yourself into new areas and remember that your analytical skills can be
applied in a wide variety of subject areas. If you have contacts who could act as
referees for jobs which might be slightly detached from your usual subject area then
use these referees rather than simply going straight for your PhD supervisors. Think
carefully about the best way to put forward your skill-set to this potential employer,
you’ll be surprised at how transferrable your skills are.
Building up your extra-curricular activities in a specific way might open up future
career prospects, for example Archie Roy was involved in non-profit organisations
and volunteering with disabled students when he himself was a student, and these
helped him to develop skills outside of his academic life and carry down a quite
different career path (running disability training events).
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Remember that if you don’t get an academic job you won’t be ‘wasting’ your PhD,
there are plenty of other employment opportunities where you can apply your
analytical and project management skills to good effect.
Helena Crowe
Here are some steps I think a PG student could take to enter the social research field:
 The Scottish Government is not recruiting social researchers at the moment but there's
still no harm in emailing Gill Clark with your CV (gill.clark@scotland.gsi.gov.uk)
and a covering letter asking her to keep you in mind for any short term projects or
maternity leave.
 Another route could be to apply for government statistician vacancies (of which there
are likely to be some shortly) - you don't need to have a statistics degree, you just
need to be reasonably numerate, good at using Excel, and good at communicating
research to a policy-minded audience. Keep an eye on http://www.work-forscotland.org/ or email your CV to lisa.farhane@scotland.gsi.gov.uk (the PA for the
Scottish Government's Chief Statistician) asking her to keep you in mind.
 The UK Government has it's own distinct social research and statistician bodies so it
might be worth getting in touch with them too, although I don't have any contact
details.
 It took me a long time to realise that sometimes there isn't actually such a distinction
between research and policy positions in the Government, it depends on the policy
role but many are looking for staff with good analytical skills and knowledge of how
to interrogate and use evidence. The same applies for arms length government bodies
(e.g.: the Food Standards Agency, Zero Waste Scotland) and even some policy
officer roles in the third sector. Once you are in Government or an arms length body
it is generally easy to move around and find a job more to your liking - you just need
a way in.
 The Association of Qualitative Research has a Directory that I found really useful for
cold-calling companies asking for work: http://www.aqr.org.uk/dir/directory.shtml
- The Social Research Association also advertises vacancies: http://www.thesra.org.uk/
 A lot of companies / consultancies aren't recruiting at the moment but might be
prepared to take someone on short-term for particular projects, especially (though by
no means exclusively) if you have knowledge and experience of their field. I know
some researchers who have started out this way and become full time employees.
- Market research may be a better route to go down at the minute (with potentially
more money available to employ people) http://www.marketingresearch.org/. Check
the website for job vacancies and networking events.
 In more general terms it's good to keep your subject remit at broad as possible and
apply for jobs even if they're not in your immediate area of subject
knowledge/expertise. My first job was in transport research and I didn't study that at
all, but I just talked to a few friends who'd studied transport planning to get the key
issues and seemed to do ok in the interview. It's usually your specific research skills
they're more interested in anyway. And once you've got your first job it's much easier
to get another.
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