Dr Sylvia Knight, head of education and continuous learning, Royal Meteorological Society
Sylvia said:
Big weather and climate employers train degree-educated recruits themselves: The biggest employers (outside of academia) in weather and climate are the Met Office, the Royal Navy and various private weather forecast providers. None of those necessarily expect employees to have come through an academic route. The Met Office and Navy tend to look for a good first degree in a physical science or maths and train recruits themselves. The private weather forecasters, on the other hand, do look for weather forecasting knowledge and experience. This might come through a geography or science degree followed by an MSc in meteorology. We would recommend meteorologists employed in the field to progress by taking NVQs (if appropriate) and ultimately becoming Chartered meteorologists.
Bruce Lascelles, technical director, Cresswell-Associates and member of Institute of Professional Soil Scientists
Bruce said:
Skills gained during a PhD can help lead to consultancy work: Most environmental consultancies ask for qualification to at least MSc, but a PhD can also be beneficial, and many of the key skills learned through doing research are directly transferable to a consultancy job. Scientific knowledge, report writing, IT skills, problem solving, budget management and time management for example, and in this way not having direct consultancy experience may be seen as less of an issue. My advice, if you are looking at consultancies, would be to try to find out as much as possible about the company, what they do, who they work for, before approaching them to show you are serious about working for them. And there is absolutely no substitute for getting your hands dirty and practising what you have learned in theory and such experience will be invaluable in your career.
Glynn Skerrett, Chartered Institution of Water and Environmental Management
Glynn said:
Lab skills are a precious commodity in chemical engineering: If you're after a chemistry-related job, you need to consider whether you want to pursue a career in industry or academia. If the latter then check out those universities that run chemistry or chemical engineering under or post-graduate programmes or those with a strong research focus in the area of your masters. Google around to find companies and consultancies needing people with laboratory skills — a precious commodity, trust me — and/or chemical engineering expertise and maybe find a contact who you can write to directly asking about possible openings.
Build your career in science through professional development: Unless you particularly want an academic career or have a passion to carry out PhD-level research in a particular topic, I'd go for a targeted masters and then build your career around professional development and corporate membership of a professional institute or institution. This carries more clout with most organisations, unless it is a very specialised role.
Alternatively look out for distance and e-learning postgraduate programmes that don't require full time on-campus attendance, as you can work and complete a masters at the same time. All experiences go into you, the trick is being able to organise and present these in a way that enables you to achieve whatever it may be that you are working towards. And that includes transferable, soft and life skills.
Kate Amis, manager of Action Plan for Geography, Royal Geographical Society
Kate said:
Find someone doing your dream job and shadow them: Good career planning is about looking to the future and planning backwards. Provided your dream job is a real job, then can you get experience alongside someone who is already doing it? Can you find adverts for the dream job and analyse exactly what are the key skills, experience and qualifications required to get you there? Careers research is the key.
Research roles thoroughly and make a career action plan: HR departments spend many hours constructing job specifications only to find that the vast majority of candidates ignore them and send a CV which doesn't address the spec at all. Yes, you are marketing yourself but more importantly you are wanting to show that you could fit the role that the company or organisation has in mind. That is their call, not yours so my recommendation is less on the marketing and more on the research. Look for the jobs, make an action plan to get them. Constantly reflect and adjust your action plan to take account of new opportunities if needs be. Plan backwards. I promise, it works.
Sue Fitzpatrick, education manager, Institute of Clinical Research
Sue said:
Gain transferable experience to enter clinical research: The entry position in the pharmaceutical industry is that of a clinical research associate (CRA). To be a CRA requires a life science degree but, due to competition to get into the role, many now have PhDs. As with many sectors it is very difficult to gain a position without experience. Many agencies will help new graduates to get into the industry but sometimes it means taking on positions in data management or clinical trial administration in order to gain the required transferable skills.
ICR has always been heavily involved in giving inexperienced personnel the tools to enable them to enter the industry, providing courses, publications and e-learning modules that are aimed to help inexperienced candidates secure their desired roles.
Martin Barstow, head of College of Science and Engineering, University of Leicester and member of Royal Astronomical Society
Martin said:
Science employers are looking for numerical skills, critical thinking and evaluation of evidence: Universities should make it clear there are not enough jobs for every PhD student to become a post-doc and eventually get an academic position. PhD training in my subject is, and should be, a preparation for a much wider variety of jobs. It is worth sitting down an looking at your CV and thinking about what transferable skills you do have. They may not have been explicitly pointed out to you in your career to date but you probably have them. A wide variety of companies will be on the look out for technical skills, numerical skills, critical thinking and evaluation of evidence, IT skills and communication skills.
Be proactive in your early career by writing papers and applying for grants: I would never pretend that I am more gifted or able than my contemporaries who were also trying (and many failing) to get permanent university positions, but perhaps I did make more of the right moves. I made sure I wrote a lot of scientific papers early on and I applied for small grants to get experience that was useful when it became time to go for that critical career-defining proposal.
It's not who you know, but who knows you: It has been said it's not what you know but who you know. I would turn that around, it's not who you know, but who knows you. It is important to get out into your community. Attend meetings of your professional body, so that potential employers begin to learn who you are. Go to networking events and make sure you talk to people. Volunteer when the opportunities arise to be on committees, particularly those outside your own institution or company.
