The Big Annual Summer Recruitment Fair

I’m thinking of renaming all our events in this WYSIWYG style – because it will be BIG.

Our summer Graduate Recruitment Fair runs for two days, with different employers on each day:

• Wednesday 13th June – around 80 employer stands, plus 16 more in a special PhD Zone
• Thursday 14th June – over 90 stands

It’s in the Armitage Centre in Fallowfield, in the big sports hall, and if you thought 400+ PhDs milling around University Place for our Pathways event (on June 8th) was big, try getting 3,000 students and graduates through our fair – that’s each day.

Who can attend?
Anyone! It’s targeted at those graduating in the next few weeks or months, or who have recently graduated (postgraduates or undergraduates). Although it’s run by the University of Manchester Careers Service, it’s also open to graduates of any university. In particular, we have staff from most of our local universities on hand to give advice.

It’s free, and if you register beforehand online, you’ll save yourself some time when you get there (no filling in bits of paper to get entry).

What kind of jobs will be on offer?
This fair has a different flavour to the autumn fairs. In the autumn, it tends to be the very large employers who are recruiting on to special “graduate programmes”, a year in advance. In the summer, there’s more of a mixture.

Some of the biggest names are still there recruiting (eg. Deloitte, Google, Aldi, IBM, Schlumberger, Civil Service, Dyson, HSBC, Qinetiq) but they’re more likely to be looking for people to start in the next few months (ideal for Masters finishing in early autumn) – or immediately (for anyone already looking for jobs).

There are also lots of other large to medium sized organisations who need graduate level employees in the immediate to short term. You may not have heard of some of them. They’re more likely to be specialists, working with other businesses rather than selling to consumers, or be fast-growing industries (future Googles?) who need keen, smart graduates to help build their future.

Most importantly, do check who’s going to be there before you go. If you’re dead set on one type of employer who isn’t going to be there, don’t waste your time. For example, don’t expect to see any investment banks at this time of year. On the other hand, if you’re more open minded, especially in a tight employment market, go and see what some of the people you’ve never heard of have to offer – you may be pleasantly surprised (or even get a job).

Is there any point in postgraduates going to a graduate fair?
I’m asked this question repeatedly, so last autumn, I recorded my views in this short video. As usual, the answer is “it all depends” – but if you are going, do listen to how you can get the most out of meeting employers at the fair. Too many postgrads wander aimlessly around a fair and leave, having lost a great opportunity to get the information they need to make themselves stand out.

Right, I’ve got my fingers in my ears and closed my eyes so I don’t have to watch:

What’s this PhD Zone?
As part of our Pathways programme, on Wednesday only, we have a special room set aside just for doctoral researchers. It’s a bit different to the main fair, as the recruiters aren’t all actively recruiting at the moment. It’s meant for PhDs at any stage in their degree to be able to talk to real employers (and postgraduate careers and training staff) about:

• how their PhD might be seen by employers
• what employers value in PhDs
• what PhDs might do outside academia
• how best to promote their PhD to employers

You’re also welcome (or rather encouraged) to talk to the employers in the main fair – who knows, you might find the ideal job as well as getting PhD career advice?

Around 700 researchers came along last year, so you’ll be in good company (even if you just want to share experience with other PhDs). Have a look at our PhD Zone information on our Graduate Recruitment Fair website for our official info.

One important caveat though – most of the PhD Zone employers are targeting science and engineering PhDs. There are very few large employers who recruit multiple humanities PhDs each year and are prepared to staff a stand at a fair. Humanities PhDs are more likely to work for niche / specialist employers or a university. However, if you want some on the spot advice, come and talk to our careers advisers and exhibitors like jobs.ac.uk.

Who’s coming to the PhD Zone?
Currently signed up are – AMEC, Chemtura, GVI, IBM, Instrument Design Technology, Jaguar Landrover, Jobs.ac.uk, National Nuclear Laboratory, Paterson Institute Christie Hospital, Pentest, Rolls Royce, Romax Technology, Schlumberger, SRG and Tessella. We’ve also got some other big names hovering around, so if they firm up attendance, we’ll let you know.

What Volunteering Can Do For Your Career

If you’re struggling to get the right experience to help your career, have you thought of volunteering? As a student at the University of Manchester, you have access to our Volunteer Jobs database, through CareersLink – there are over 150 volunteering opportunities currently being advertised, searchable by location, type of organisation, and type of work.

If you’re wondering what volunteering can do for your career, here’s a volunteer organiser’s perspective in this new article from our Volunteering Blog.

David Reeves, The Children’s Air Ambulance

“I’m not a volunteer – I’m securing my future and contributing to society”

“So here I am, delighted at being asked to write a post for the MLP blog and, for once, stuck for words.

Having looked through some of the past blog posts (try saying that after a few pints!), there’s no posts that focus on how volunteering adds value to your careers in any detail, so that’s what I hope to touch on in this post.

I’ve been where you are. At University and living the “student lifestyle” of work hard, play harder. With the employment climate as bad as it is, there was always that cloud hanging over my head – will I get a job when I finish my degree?!

I’ll be blatant here. I have friends who graduated before me, over 3 years ago, who are still stacking shelves and pulling pints. And it’s not for the want of trying. A number of them applied for literally hundreds of graduate level and middle management jobs and got absolutely nowhere.

On the flip side, I have graduate friends that are earning a lot of money in companies like BT, Lloyds TSB, Balfour Beatty and Zara.

So what’s the difference between the two? Volunteering. For the sake of this post – skill exploration and development.

All of the successful people above engaged in a lot of volunteering, which gave them the opportunity to do three key things:

1. Explore new skills
2. Develop and fine tune existing skills
3. Demonstrate their capabilities to employers”

Read the rest here.

The Big Annual PhD Careers Event

Maybe that’s what we should have called it? However, we went with “Pathways” instead.

If you’re doing a PhD at the University of Manchester, or have recently completed one, or are a member of our research or teaching staff, do set aside Friday 8th June 2012 for our biggest PhD careers event of the year.

What is it?
It’s your chance to find out what PhD careers are really like.

When you’re booking a hotel, do you read all the glossy websites and believe what they say – or do you go to TripAdvisor and read reviews from people who’ve been there before ?

That’s the principle behind Pathways – you get behind the glossy employer websites and earnest careers information, and get to hear from others who have a PhD about the reality of careers for researchers.

You get the chance to hear from up to 4 panels of PhDs (from 3-6 people per panel) who talk about their careers so far and answer questions from delegates. You should come armed with:

• lots of questions about careers
• an open mind – sometimes, you get the most helpful careers advice from someone in a job you would never consider doing yourself.

When and where is it?

• Date: Friday 8th June 2012
• Timings:
  • Registration from 9.15
  • Welcome address from 9.45
  • Choose your panel sessions 10.30-11.00
  • Panels start at 11.00, 12 noon, 1.45 and 2.45
  • All done and dusted by 3.30pm
• Lunch: Provided!
• Venue: University Place

Who is eligible to attend?
Any current doctoral researcher (PhD or other doctoral degree) at the University of Manchester, and any current member of research or teaching staff at the University of Manchester can get a free place by registering in advance. If you graduated from the University of Manchester with a doctoral degree in the last three years, you are also welcome to register in the same way.

If you are a doctoral researcher from another university, please either contact your own university training team to see if they will fund a place (modest cost), or contact anna.lomas@manchester.ac.uk directly to arrange a place.

“But I’m more interested in postdoctoral research or teaching”
Come along – last year over half of our panellists had been post-docs. Some of them went on to become academics, some moved out of academia altogether. Find out how they did it!

What did previous delegates think of Pathways ?

“Such a wide range of friendly experts to talk to”
“I have a clearer picture of things ahead”
“I have new focus and inspiration!”

What’s great is that people who previously attended Pathways as doctoral researchers are now coming back to talk about how their careers have worked out – could that be you?

 

Winning Funding For Research

If you aspire to becoming an academic, this is a topic you’ll really need to get to grips with in detail. I won’t pretend I’m any sort of expert in winning research funding – but I do know people who are.

Dr. Paul Spencer, former post-doc researcher, now researcher developer at UWE, has just written a blog post about “How to win funds and influence people“. Recommended for good advice and a very snazzy embedded Prezi from his recent workshop.

Landing a Job Requires Good Luck or Hard Work?

Guess what? We’d love the answer to that one as well.

That’s one reason we’ve just launched a short survey to find out what our students have done before and during their current degree to improve their chances of moving into a great career.

There’s the usual prize draw for current University of Manchester students (undergraduates or postgraduates) to win one of four £50 Amazon vouchers if you respond by 18th May.

To complete the survey, click here.

We’ve also asked whether you’ve already been offered a job or a place on a further postgrad study course. This means that for those of you in your final year, we can see if there’s any correlation between doing stuff in the early years of a degree and later career success, or whether you can leave it all until the year before you graduate **.

I’d love to get a good response from postgraduates as well as undergraduates, to give me some real data to work with (ooh, lovely data – om nom nom) rather than relying on anecdote and instinct.

Expect the results to feature on this blog and in my postgrad careers talks in the future.

(** Yes I know it’s often more complicated than that. For example, many of our international PhDs have a job to go back to before they even join us in the first year. However, we can factor that in, and figure out if we need to do further surveys to tease out some of the nuances for particular groups.)

Want To Be A Business School Academic?

If you’re a management or business PhD, looking for an academic job in a Business School, you might be interested in Akadeus, an agency which focuses on advertising jobs in Business Schools across the world.

There are only a limited number of jobs on there, but they do include jobs in Europe, North and South America, the Middle and Far East. You can sign up for regular e-mail alerts, as well as registering online so you’re searchable by potential recruiters. Don’t know how successful people have been with this approach (see the recent post on uploading your CV online) but given the international nature of academic recruitment, at least it’s somewhere which focuses on one discipline, but not one location.

There are more general academic recruitment websites on “An Academic Career“, under “How to find job ads“, but I haven’t included discipline specific sources there. If you know of other sources of academic jobs which are specific to your discipline, let me know and I’ll start to build up a list to include in future.

Many thanks to Prof Julie Froud for sharing the Akadeus resource with me, when I talked to her PhDs yesterday in Manchester Business School.

Queen In Three …

Here’s a Jubilee networking challenge for you, inspired by my other half announcing this weekend that he was three connections away from all the world’s leaders.

I was sceptical until he pointed out that through his voluntary work, he knew the Lord-Lieutenants for two counties. They represent the Queen in their county … and she’s got everyone on speed-dial.

It brought it home to me that it’s really not that hard to find some sort of connection with whoever you want, and that links with the high and mighty may come through social contacts as much as through senior work contacts. Of course, whether those long-range connections could actually put you in contact with the people you’d like to meet is another matter. (I suspect HRM may not be passing on Mandela’s mobile number to me any time soon.)

Even so, it suddenly felt quite impressive to realise that the Queen was one of my third level contacts

• Me → 1st level: other half → 2nd: Lord-Lieutenant → 3rd: Queen

This also means that if you know me, you’re at least within four contacts, maybe fewer if you have any closer connections.

So, to make this international, how many contacts would it take to get to your chosen Head of State?

Rules are that your contact has to know you by name and would be able to pick you out of a police line-up! Can anyone else beat “Queen in three”?

Graduate (& Postgraduate) Entry To Medicine

If you’re considering going on to study medicine as a next step, whether you’re an undergraduate, graduate or postgraduate, we’ve just released a new online Slidecast (that’s slides with audio podcast) to help you:

• think through the options
• understand the funding required and available
• understand how to apply

Some of the commentary refers to undergraduates and doing medicine as 2nd degree, but the information is also aimed just as much at Masters and PhDs (and even post-docs). There isn’t any difference in terms of your options, funding or application process, other than there is one other possible source of funding for PhDs and post-docs – the Foulkes Foundation. It may seem like a long shot, but I do know of one University of Manchester post-doc who really wanted to progress into clinical research, who gained funding from this source to add a medical degree to her tally of qualifications.

So, over to our medical careers expert, Alex Langhorn, the latest recruit to our growing band of slidecasting careers consultants:

Small Business Skills – Critical For Pharma Sector

Last week I was at a pharmaceutical sector conference (the Academy of Pharmaceutical Sciences “Industrial Insights”) and one thing which came out loud and clear is that to make yourself employable within the life sciences, biotechnology or pharmaceutical sector, you’ll need to understand small businesses. Although large pharma companies still exist, much of the growth is in smaller start-ups, spin-outs and SMEs (up to 250 employees).

Many of my contacts in “big pharma” are now working for smaller organisations, consultancies or even “virtual pharma” companies where they pull together the funding and project manage/outsource all the discovery/trials/manufacturing etc.

That’s why enterprise competitions like BiotechYES and training events like the upcoming Business Training for Life Scientists workshop are really useful, even if you have no plans to set up your own company.

You can learn more about BiotechYES (and EnvironmentYES), both sponsored by the UK research councils, at the workshop on Wednesday 2nd May in the Core Technology Facility. You’ll also hear from entrepreneurs inside and outside the university and get the chance to take part in a business game.

Further information on the event is here (click on image for larger view)

The timetable for the day is here (again, click on image for larger view)

And you can book on the event here: http://businesstrainingworkshop.eventbrite.co.uk/

Uploading Your CV Online – Is It Worth It?

I’ve normally been a bit dubious about the merits of uploading your CV to general jobs sites and expecting employers to do all the hard work of looking for you, particularly in a tough job market. I still think it’s a real long shot if you don’t already have experience or specialist skills which might be in demand. However, it may not be employers who are rummaging through those CVs – it’s probably more likely to be a recruitment agency, looking for the right candidates for jobs they’ve been asked to fill.

I recently met two consultants, Phillipa Kenyon (who covers Cambridge) and Sadia Razzaq (for the West Midlands) from specialist science recruitment agency, SRG, who gave me some interesting insights into how they sourced candidates.

Getting their attention
When they have a job to fill, obviously they trawl their own databases and contacts, but I was interested to learn that they did also use online databases, the ones where you can upload your CV. It does make sense when an agency is trying to source candidates with “hard to find” skills and experience – some good starting points are all those candidates who have at least gone to the trouble of writing a CV and putting it out there.

Where did they look?
Surprisingly (to me), they raved about CV Library, a site which, I’ll admit, I’d previously dismissed (I do like it when my preconceptions are challenged – that’s when you start to learn). They liked the range of candidates with specialist scientific skills on the site, but they also got crucial information, such as expected salary, how far candidates would travel and whether they were willing to relocate. None of these would normally appear on a CV, so the site collects this information when you register – now you can see why it’s so important to get this right when you’re looking for work.

The SRG consultants also looked on LinkedIn and at the Totaljobs database, but were less enthusiastic about other sites such as Monster and Jobsite. Obviously this is only one agency and other organisations will have different preferred sources. Talking to Matthew Rollinson from Search (scientific), he would use both Monster and Jobsite as well as Totaljobs – but his first call would be the candidates he already knows and works with. It just shows that it can pay to cover several bases.

Keep it current
Their strong advice was also to review your CV regularly and keep it updated with any changes. It’s particularly annoying for agencies (and potentially employers) if they contact you with a job in your salary range, only to find out that you’ve now got more experience and are only prepared to move for a much higher salary (plus you’ve also missed out on jobs outside your original preferred range).

What format should you use?
Again I was surprised when the SRG consultants said they preferred plain old Word format, rather than .pdf (which is what I would have suggested). However, they were happy to receive either, but the biggest no-no was telling them to pick up your CV from your Skydrive or other cloud storage account.

Security online
Make sure that any site where you upload potentially valuable personal information is going to take good care of it. If you have any doubts about the security or legitimacy of an online CV database, I’d just try some other sources.

Sometimes websites are just technologically naive. Some years ago, I came across a fairly amateurish environmental jobs site which would let me register as an employer, for no fee and with no checks, and search the CVs which had been uploaded – it’s a good check to do yourself if you have any doubts.

In other cases, professional looking sites may be created purely for the aim of harvesting personal information for identity fraud. These sites may look legitimate, but probably don’t have many web pages or much detail behind the “send us your CV/personal information”

Genuine professional office or someone’s back bedroom?
Dodgy sites may also be cagey about their physical location. At the Careers Service, we do some standard checks on vacancies we’ve been sent before advertising them, and we have been known to use Google Street View where addresses look rather dubious! However, we can’t guarantee that dodgy sites won’t slip through, so if you feel uncomfortable filling in your details online, trust your instincts and keep safe.