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.

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.

Renewable Energy & “Ethical” Companies

Another post-fair post – I was asked several times at the recruitment fair, both in the PhD Zone and in general queries, about organisations who dealt with renewable energy or energy conservation, and promised to mention it on my blog (as I have trouble keeping 3,500+ bookmarks in my head).

These are a few of the resources which I find useful for these areas:

• Ethical Junction Directory – lists all sorts of “ethical” organisations (ie those who buy into their Ethical Policy), including a range of organisations working in the fields of renewable energy, conservation, recycling, transport and lots more. Doesn’t advertise jobs, but direct approaches to organisations where you can make a good case for buying into their values (and being able to do the job, of course) can be an effective way of accessing the job market in a recession – often better than waiting for the job ads to appear.
• The Energy Institute – their company members’ directory has over 300 company links, subdivided into many niche areas including solar energy, wind energy consultants, biomass waste energy and more.
• yourenergyjobs – this is the jobs site from The Energy Institute, again split into all sorts of specialisms. Currently advertising over 160 jobs.

In addition, it makes sense to investigate those companies in this field who came to the fair, such as Vestas and ENER-G – if they were keen enough to come to the fair, that’s a reasonable indication that they want graduates and postgraduates to apply. See the whole list of fair exhibitors here (but remember to also click on the list of Thursday attendees, linked from this page).

New Medical Communications Careers Guide

A new guide to getting into medical communications has recently been published and is now available for free download -

• “From academic to medical writer”, subtitled “A guide to getting started in medical communications”

It’s been written by Dr Annick Moon, who came to talk at Manchester about 18 months ago, as part of the Medical Communications day organised by Peter Llewellyn from NetworkPharma.

The guide clearly sets out where medical communications and medical writing sit within the pharmaceutical industry, and Annick provides a succinct description of the role:

“Medical communications provides consultancy services to the pharmaceutical industry to help raise awareness of medicines via education and promotion”

She also includes information on the skills you’ll need to be successful, how to get in, including the writing test (plus a short example editing test – with the answers), eight profiles of medical writers and lots of useful links and company ads.

It’s a really good introduction to an area which is often considered by our postgrads and post-docs in life sciences, medical and human sciences and chemistry and provides a good chance to check out if it’s really the role for you.

Many thanks to Annick and Peter for making this available to us.

Who Has Cut Jobs?

As a quick update to my last post, I’ve spotted a link to an article from Personnel Today which is keeping a tally of the organisations which have been making employees redundant since September 2008. (I think this link will update when you click on it to the latest news on redundancies – just check the date when you try it.)

There are cases where employers will make certain people redundant whilst still recruiting elsewhere (particularly in large organisations) so you can’t take this as a list of those companies with no jobs – but I’d do my research properly before banging off a speculative application to any of those on the list.

Careers Q&A for Life Scientists

We’re running an event next week for anyone interested in careers for life scientists (which includes all those postgrad scientists in MHS, not just our FLS Masters and PhDs). We’ve got a panel of graduates and postgraduates now working in areas relevant to life sciences who will be answering questions about their careers and the type of work they do :

• When : Wednesday 29th October, 2008, 2.00-3.00pm
• Where : Stopford Building, Lecture Theatre 1

It will be pretty much like a mini, “one-panel”, version of the Pathways event (the one we ran in June for researchers). However this one is open to undergrads and Masters as well, although PhDs are also welcome to attend (in fact, there will be a couple of current PhDs on the panel, so you could also chip in from the audience with your own comments on doing postgraduate research).

Currently lined up are representatives from

• patents
• pharmaceutical development
• science communication
• medical sales
• NHS clinical science
• technology transfer
• business development in life sciences
• European project management in a clinical research organisation

There’s a good range of people with first degrees, Masters and PhDs amongst the panel, so if you’re a life or medical scientist wondering which career path to follow (or despondent at the lack of life science companies at the recent recruitment fairs*) this one is just for you.

* How To Find Life Science Employers

I know it’s a bit disappointing that we don’t get many life science companies at our autumn fairs. I guess the big pharma’s know that you know who they are, and so they don’t need to attend a generalist fair, and the smaller companies often don’t recruit a year in advance (or can’t afford a stand). We often get more life science companies and agencies attending our summer fairs, which tend to be for jobs to start immediately/soon, so we do know that there are organisations out there who want to recruit life scientists.

If you’re looking for life science recruiters, two good resources to help you target your speculative applications or web searches are :

• Pharmaceutical recruiters in the UK from the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry careers website (the whole website is a great resource for anyone interestes in pharma-related careers).
   
• Links to biotechnology and life science companies in the North West of England on the Careers Service regional web pages – and believe me, there are far more than just AZ out there if you’re keen to stay local.

Want To Find Out Who Employs Patent Agents?

I recently found a useful page on the Chartered Institute of Patent Agents’ website, especially if you’re looking for which firms employ patent attorneys in which part of the country.

They publish a register of UK patent attorneys (don’t think it includes all patent attorneys but it’s a good sample), which you can filter by region. I’m not sure you’d get very far just writing to one of them for advice (probably get a standard “sorry, can’t help” response) but it does give you an idea of who’s employing them, including those research organisations who have their own in-house patent group.

For example, searching on Greater Manchester, you find that in addition to Mewburn Ellis, Marks and Clerk etc, Fujifilm Imaging Colorants (based out at Blackley) also employ their own patent agents. Looking beyond Manchester, in Cheshire, Astra Zeneca and Thermo Fisher Scientific also employ their own patent agents. Lancashire yields Pilkington, and Merseyside has Unilever R&D. It may not be comprehensive, but might give you a few more options to chase up.

Update! List of Employers in Engineering Consultancy

Typical ! The engineering consultancy website I blogged about only 3 weeks ago, CET500, has now gone AWOL, with no sign of returning. However, all is not lost - I’ve found a good alternative.

Just typing [ engineering consultancy ] into Google and doing a UK search comes up with a professional/trade association for engineering consultancies – ACE, the Association for Consultancy and Engineering. Their website has a link to “Find A Consultant” (top of the home page, right hand side), which gets you to a directory of consultancies which can be filtered by type and sub-type, and location.

 

 

For example, if you’re interested in finding a consultancy working in “Energy & Power”, based in the North West, there are 44 offices listed.

Looks like the filters might be a bit “broad brush” (not sure if all the offices of a large consultancy will cover all the areas that the parent company works in), and no indication on this website of whether they have graduate/postgraduate vacancies (come on, you can do that bit yourself by visiting the consultancy’s website!) - but it’s a good starting point.

A List of Employers in the Film Industry – in the North West?

Thanks to my colleague, Louise, for alerting me to this one. For all you creative types who want to get started in the movies, but prefer Castlefield to Beverly Hills, North West Vision and Media has some great resources.

If you want to start knocking on the doors of NW based Production Companies, just have a look at their list.