Mentors in China

Amanda, our international careers guru, has just posted an outstanding opportunity for our Chinese students to be linked with a mentor back in China. The mentoring will be done on-line (no “all expenses paid” trips back home unfortunately) with mentors based in Beijing, Shanghai, other areas of China (eg. Shenzhen, Hangzhou etc) plus some of our other Chinese alumni now working in places like Germany and the USA.

Some of the areas which our mentors-in-waiting cover include research, IT, finance, law, HR and project management. There are only 25 places available, so read the rest of the information on Amanda’s International Careers blog and apply straight away – they’re starting to match mentors and mentees next week.

This is another one of Amanda’s initiatives to support our international students, many of whom are postgrads. For example, we’ve now installed video conferencing facilities in the Careers Service, and this week, successfully held another “over the web” event with a recruitment expert in China, following on from previous events such as the Citigroup video conference shown here.

The Difference Between Academia and Business

Thanks to xkcd for this:

Public Sector North West

Just to prove that I’m not fixated on chemistry (got that out of my system a looooong time ago), if working in government, the public sector or other regulatory bodies is more your thing, and you want to stay here in the North West, we’ve got a list for you too – all here in a pdf.

It includes links to regional and local government websites, and links to those parts of the Civil Service which have offices in the North West of England (though the links are generally to the main website – they won’t normally have a direct weblink about their NW offices). Some of the “other and regulatory bodies” with presence in the NW include the Equality and Human Rights Commission, Charity Commission, the Information Commissioner, English Heritage and the Audit Commission. Finally, there are links to Health related organisations. This obviously includes local NHS Trusts, but it also includes the General Medical Council, NICE, Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman and the Health Protection Agency.

The document also includes a link to the Civil Service recruitment portal, which allows you to filter jobs by region. However, for non-Civil Service jobs, another resource which might help is a website which gives direct links to the jobs pages of  government and “other publicly funded organisations” – Government Jobs Direct.

We’ve got loads of other resources on employers in the North West or in specific occupational sectors, but they’re all being reorganised at the moment, so I’ll do another post to highlight what’s there, once they’re ready to be relaunched.

North West Chemical Companies

Yes, I know the last post was also for chemists, but I was asked yesterday to update our list of chemical companies in the North West of England, so before it goes on our website as a pdf, I thought I’d let you see it as a Word document – TheChemicalindustryintheNorthWest.

It’s not meant to be an exhaustive list, but I do try to make sure that the companies mentioned are more than just a sales or distribution arm of a larger company, and that they employ more than 3 people in the North West. Some of the companies listed have full blown research labs  in the North West, though many more have manufacturing plants.

As manufacturing plants are potential sources of jobs for chemical, mechanical and electrical engineers, as well as chemists who are interested in process development or quality assurance, I make no apologies for including them on the list (plus I still have a soft spot for companies who make things, from my own time in manufacturing). I’ve tried to make it clear on the list which are research labs and which are manufacturing plants but if you spot any errors, please do drop me a comment here so I can change it.

I should point out (though it should be obvious!) that it’s not a list of who currently has vacancies. However, if you have a specialism which might be in line with a company’s work, you could keep an eye open for ads from the company, consider making a direct speculative application, or see if you know anyone in the company who you could talk to as a contact.

Is The Chemical Industry Dying?

This is a question which should be bothering you if you’re thinking about working in R&D, engineering, patents or other technical or business functions in fine or bulk chemicals, the pharmaceutical industry, the environmental sector, petrochemicals, food, brewing, polymers, nanotech …

In other words, it could affect a lot of postgrads – and of course, there’s no easy answer to the question.

The best way I’ve found to keep up to date with what’s happening in the chemical industry is to follow the “The Commercial Chemist” posts in the Chemical World blog from the RSC.

In the most recent post, I’ve learnt that:

• Merck are due to shed 15,000 jobs worldwide now that the Schering-Plough merger is complete
• Novartis is planning to build the largest R&D institute in China, increasing jobs from 160 to over 1000
• Ineos Bio is doing a feasibility study into a new bio-energy plant in the North East
• Shell is cutting 5,000 jobs (though they are still currently looking for new postgrads – see recent tweet for details)
• Cost savings at Rhodia have led to increased 3rd quarter profits (up year on year by 19.5%) on reduced sales (down 15% year on year)

There’s a new update every Friday, plus lots of other chemical content in between.

For instance, you can watch a student “singing” all the elements of the Periodic Table, in order to a Russian folk melody – though I admit I prefer the old standard :

Courtesy of Harvard academic, Tom Lehrer. It dates back to 1959 which is why there are some elements missing, including the latest new element on the block, Copernicium.

Consultancy at Deloitte

If you’re interested in becoming a consultant, Deloitte are running a case study event at the Careers Service to give you an insight into how they work with their clients. You’ll work alongside consultants from different areas of Deloitte’s work (eg. Technology Integration, Enterprise Applications, Strategy etc) on a realistic business scenario.

• Date : Thursday 19th November
• Time : 12.00-14.00
• Where : Careers Service, Crawford House (5th floor)

You’ll need to sign up in advance, and do some preparation by reading their website describing the range of consultancy work at Deloitte. I’d also get to the event in good time, as I suspect it will be very popular (and the first to get there get the seats).

Public Policy Competition

While you’re on the Deloitte website, you might also want to have a look at their Public Policy Competition. This is an essay competition, open to all UK students (it explicitly mentions Masters and PhDs) where you’re asked to tackle a great big complicated problem facing the Government (of whichever flavour) over the next 10 years:

“The current economic climate and an ageing population present significant challenges to Britain’s public services. If you were in charge of a government department dealing with these issues, what key changes would you implement over the next ten years?”

Come up with an answer in under 2000 words and you might be in with a chance (and no, I don’t think “I’d stop paying consultants” is going to get you very far…). You need to register by 15th January at the latest and the closing date for entries is 29th January. Prizes allow you to choose between work experience at Deloitte – or holiday vouchers.

UK and International Applications

Deloitte, like many other consultancies, are open to applications from UK and international students, subject to work permit restrictions. They are happy to consider those who can work in the UK through the Tier 1 (Post Study) scheme, so that could apply to most of our current postgrads. Their website clearly states their stance on work permits and it looks like the only area where they explicitly state you need a UK passport is for their “Enterprise Risk Services Technology (Security & Privacy)” roles.

UK and International Equivalent Qualifications

They also have clear requirements of the level of qualifications needed, including undergraduate degree level, and A levels or the equivalent qualifications which got you to university. Unusually, their website also clearly lays out the international equivalents – worth a look if you’re confused about how your non-UK school qualifications compare to UK equivalents, even if you’re not planning to apply to Deloitte. Just be aware that they do set the bar pretty high (especially for their consultancy roles) so other employers may not be quite so demanding.

Closing Dates for Graduate Schemes

At last, in one place – the closing dates for “graduate schemes” of over 130 recruiters.

Jenny, one of our information & IT specialists (and a postgrad herself) has selflessly trawled through the two major paper graduate employer directories (Prospects and GET) and summarised the results in this Word document:

Graduate Scheme Closing Dates 2009.

It includes a good number whose closing dates are in the New Year, who have no official closing date, or who do year round recruitment. However, as I’ve mentioned before on this blog, many of those employers may be filling up places as we speak. Worse, they may have already made offers on all their jobs, even as you’re slaving away into the small hours, trying to get your application in just before their stated deadline. Apply sooner rather than later to be sure of being considered.

If you’re interested in reading the ads or profiles of any of the employers mentioned, you’re welcome to pop in and pick up your own free copies of Prospects & GET from the Careers Resource Centre.

Race Ahead With Small Businesses

Quick Update: 5th November
Hear Chris Leigh of Real Time Race interviewed on the Chris Evans radio show tonight (BBC Radio 2, 5-7pm). Don’t know who’ll be more enthusiastic, Chris or Chris (they’re two of a kind!). If you miss it today, I’m sure it will be on iPlayer for the next week.

Want to see what can be achieved with a lot of entrepreneurial passion, some very smart technology, plus a few added PhDs working part-time for the sheer love of it (and the possibility of future stock options)?

Real Time Race was featured this week on “Click“, the BBC news technology programme. They’re demo-ing a platform which has the potential to let you race a virtual F1 car alongside real F1 racing drivers – as a real F1 race happens. Instead of using CGI to recreate the track, they use video footage, laser positioning, GPS and real-time telemetry from the other cars (I think – hey, it’s complicated!). The programme is available in the UK on the BBC iPlayer until Monday 9th November and features Real Time Race as the first item.

The company behind all this is based at Daresbury Science and Innovation Campus near Warrington, which I visited a few weeks ago. I got the chance to talk to the CEO of Real Time Race, Chris Leigh, and as well as enthusing us all with his company, I felt he epitomised the challenges and excitment of setting up your own small (but with potential to be huge) hi-tech venture.

The company finance was (at that stage) Chris’s mortgage, so recruiting expensive postgrads wasn’t an option. However, he had 3 PhDs working with him, including someone who was working as a full-time consultant, whilst working on Chris’s project part time, and another PhD working part-time from a distance – Adelaide in Australia. They weren’t getting a salary, but working for share options, partly because they could see where this company could go, but also, I’d guess, because they were excited about working on the application of cutting edge technology.

Want to have a play with their technology yourself? You can download a demo from their website.

We saw several other hi-tech small businesses and I was encouraged to hear most of them talking about needing postgraduates – one business had 17 employees, 14 of whom had PhDs (Perceptive Engineering, working on process control, energy efficiency and pharmaceutical manufacturing).

However, what they really needed, in addition to smart brains, were people who were entrepreneurial, dynamic, could think for themselves and move at the lightning speed at which small companies operate, and ideally who were confident enough to be able to interact professionally with the senior managers who were the customers or backers of the business.

It was this last skill which they struggled to find, so if you can spend some of your time as a postgrad improving your commercial “nous” (more about understanding how businesses tick than management theory) and improving your confidence and business etiquette, you’ll be particularly sought after.

For more ideas of up and coming employers, have a look at some of the other Daresbury Campus tenants including Link Information Technology, Probio Healthcare, Web Comms, Applied Computing and Engineering, Calon Associates and Slainte Technologies, all of whom spent time talking to us about the jobs they have to offer and the skills they need. There’s more info about the event we attended and the skills these companies need in a recent Daresbury blog post (yes, they blog, and tweet too).

Small businesses are definitely a great source of new jobs and those based on Science or Innovation Parks are likely to need the higher order skills which postgrads can bring. They’re normally cash strapped in the early days, so with most, you won’t get rich quick – but you might get very rich long term.

Life Sciences – Careers Panel

In a slightly different sort of Question Time to the one in the news at the moment, there will be a Careers Question Time for life scientists next week. This is the chance to talk to life science graduates and postgraduates who have gone into careers in :

• Patents
• Pharmaceuticals
• Clinical science
• Science communication
• Clinical trials
• Medicine (as a graduate entrant)
• Business development
• Environmental strategy (come and meet Erica, former zoologist, who I met at Yorkshire Water)

It’s taking place on Wednesday 28th October, from 2-4pm, in Stopford Lecture Theatre 1. Come armed with all your career questions.

Massive Recruitment Fairs This Week

Our two big Autumn recruitment fairs are taking place on Wednesday 21st October (Engineering, Science and Technology) and Thursday 22nd October (Finance, Business and Management) at Manchester Central (G-Mex as it used to be called). Time is tight … but it’s a difficult job market, s0 should you go? Well, it all depends :

• Yes – if employers you’d like to work for are attending, and you haven’t already met them at a recent recruitment event. You can find a list of who’s attending on our website (Finance etc Fair attendees and Science etc Fair attendees).
  In particular, in a recession where it’s a very competitive job market, any extra information you can glean to add to your application is worth the effort.
• No – if you’re looking for a niche job with a small employer or a job in the non-commercial sector (though we do have some Government departments attending). It tends to be large recruiters who want several graduates/postgraduates who go to the expense of sending someone, so check first so you’re not disappointed.
• Yes – if you want to talk about jobs suitable for postgraduates
• No – if you are expecting lots of jobs and promotional material aimed at postgraduates.

Confused? You’ll probably be disappointed to find out that few exhibitors specifically mention postgraduates in the Fair Guide – but that doesn’t mean to say they don’t want to recruit you. Some of the biggest employers of postgraduates in the country promote their jobs at this time of year simply as “graduate jobs”, even though we know they’re very keen to speak to postgrads.  This re-inforces some research we did a few years ago at the fairs, when

• only 2 organisations out of 80 we talked to didn’t want postgrads
• but only 5 specifically targeted postgrads
• all the rest were perfectly happy to talk to you - but called all their jobs “graduate jobs”

They may have separate career tracks for postgrads, but many will bring you in on the same level as the undergrads. However,  time after time, we hear of postgrads whose careers rapidly outstrip their fellow undergrad new starters, as they prove what they can do with that extra maturity and experience.

If you are going to attend one of the fairs, you’ll get a lot more out of it if you recognise that you may not be able to talk to someone who can give you detailed info on the specific job you’re interested in. You’re much more likely to get to talk to a recent graduate who will tell you to “look on the website” for the specific vacancies. So what can you get out of them? Easy! You get to figure out whether you would want to work for an organisation by the way it treats its recent recruits (and with a bit of luck, the new grads will be unguarded enough to tell you the truth about what it’s really like at work).

I’d suggest asking about:

• What training did they get/do they offer?
• How do they get measured? (If you find out what the organisation values in its employees, could you realistically expect to deliver the results which will result in fast promotion or increased pay?)
• Do they know any postgraduates working for the organisation, & what jobs are they doing?
• What’s their boss like? (probably just for the new grads, that one!)
• What do they think is different about their organisation compared to their competitors

It’s all good material for that bit in the covering letter or during interview on “Why do you want to work for us?”. It’s so much more impressive to say “when I was talking to your R&D Manager …”, rather than “well, it says on your website …”, which every other candidate will have read.

And a final tip – if you get there earlier, you’re more likely to get a reasonable amount of time with exhibitors, you will get to talk to them before they get into their “fixed patter” mode (where they’re so tired, they just reel off the same thing to everyone they see) , and, of course, you should get the pick of the freebies.