This is your chance to give me feedback, ideas, areas we need to improve in our support of careers for postgraduates at the University of Manchester.
Either add a comment to a Post on the main page if it’s relevant to the topic, or if it’s a more general observation or comment, post it to this page.
IMPORTANT NOTES
Individual careers advice
- If you have an individual careers question or concern, you will need to make an appointment to discuss it with one of our careers consultants. I won’t be dealing with individual careers advice through these pages (don’t expect a reply if you post a query along these lines – sorry).
- Why? Most importantly, individual careers advice is generally personal and not for discussing in open forum. Further, it’s better done in a dialogue (and not spread out over days), and finally, I’ll have to limit the time I spend on this blog if I’m going to continue seeing students face-to-face, giving talks, running workshops, organising events – and having a life!
Displaying comments on this blog
- I’m getting more confident with this blogging lark so comment away. All comments are moderated but as long as it’s not abusive or spam, I’m more than happy to hear about things we could do better – it’s the best way to improve.
- If you’ve got any suggestions for topics you want covered, for example, a careers query which you don’t mind sharing and which would help you and others, I’d love to hear from you.
- In case you’re a bit cautious about revealing your identity on the web, you can just use your first name for any comments, or make one up! You do need to give an e-mail address, but that doesn’t get published - it’s only used for me to feel reassured that you’re not a spammer.
Feed for posts from this blog
Hi! I’ve recently set up an online magazine for researchers (postgrad and staff) in SOSS and SED at arthuronline.co.uk It might be an excellent opportunity for postgrads in those schools to get CV points by writing to a wider audience and proving to employers that researchers can communicate their ideas outside of academia, and I wanted to ask if you would mention it on the blog. We’re also looking for editors/publishers, so might be a great opportunity for anyone with an eye on media – especially new media (where many of the jobs are now).
At the moment it’s limited to postgrads in SOSS and SED – would that be a problem? Of course, I’ll add a link to this blog onto Arthur Online.
Thanks
Geoff
Hi Geoff
Excellent resource – I’ve had a look and will definitely promote this for you. I’ll e-mail you outside these comments to arrange how best to do this. Good luck with the new enterprise and hope it goes from strength to strength.
Elizabeth
Dear Sir/Madam,
I am a MBS PGT student.
Would you please tell me when Careers Liaison Seminars start?
Do Seminars start today?
And would you please tell me where they are held? I went to G6 at MBS West at 5pm but it was not a Careers Liaison Seminar.
Thank you very much.
Jeffrey
Hi Jeffrey
I’ve checked with your Careers Liaison team and the seminar did go ahead last night but the room had to be changed – apparently it was on your intranet (which I can’t see at the moment, so can’t tell you where it is) but they’re sorry you didn’t find out in time.
For info, the future sessions will be on Tuesdays at 5pm, in Lecture Theatre A in University Place, and repeated on Wednesdays at 1pm in Rutherford Lecture Theatre, in Schuster Building (Brunswick Street). Hope you can make the Wednesday session, so you don’t miss out on this week’s topic.
All the best
Elizabeth
Nothing desperately important here, but you might like to look at the link I have here under ‘website’.
Yes, we finally made it live. I only wrote the original welcome post 2 months before you started this blog!
Hi Elizabeth,
I’ve recently been to a careers fair at RAES (Royal Aeronautical Society), where I sat in on a presentation regarding professional development and engineering chartership. I was unaware that we as postgraduates can be working towards our chartership while we are studing for our postgrad qualifications. I have read up on what is needed, which basically involves registering on a professional development scheme with a registered society and going from there. Any chance you can post something on your blog to make the wider postgrad community that they could be making their (many hours of) spare time useful by keeping track of their skills. Any useful resources that you know of could also help to point people in the right direction.
Kind Regards,
Chris
Hi Elizabeth,
I have recently secured an offer for a graduate position with an defence engineering company, which is a sector I believe to be in a good position in the current economic downturn. However, on reviewing the contract and reading more into the graduate scheme I have been asking myself whether this position will be challenging enough. As grad schemes are generally aimed at recent graduates do you have any advice to us students who are thinking whether to apply for grad positions or jobs that would help us decide what to do. I’m not expecting you to make our decisions, but do you know what to look for in a grad scheme, and have any advice from your experience with others in the same situation that may help.
I am hoping that this is a general concern/thought for many postgrads who feel they may be ’shooting’ too low if the step into a grad scheme.
Kind Regards,
Chris
Hi Elizabeth,
I have found an advert for an intership on the Careers Service website.
Please could you tell me if the Careers service vets companies before agreeing to place their adverts?
It’s just that the advert provides an email address to forward your CV and CL to but there seems to be no website or no info on the company from search engine results.
After the recent debacle at Monster.co.uk, I’m apprehensive about sending my details to a company I can find nothing about.
Hi Caroline
Thanks so much for pointing this out (no really, no sarcasm intended!).
I’ve checked this out and we’ve removed the ad, just in case. I’ve also blogged about potential phishing exploits using vacancy ads (http://manchesterpgcareers.wordpress.com/2009/05/13/phishing-disguised-as-vacancies/), alerted my colleagues and we’ll look at putting further checks in place when we list vacancy ads. It had been through 3 checks and did pass our basic criteria for inclusion, but just a bit more digging would have found that the “website” was really only a holding page.
It might still be genuine, but it’s not worth taking a chance on it, unless they supply us more details to confirm their legitimacy.
If you (or anyone else accessing the ads on the Careers Service website) spots anything which looks dodgy, please, please, please let us know as soon as possible, and we can investigate and remove immediately, if necessary.
Dear Elizabeth!
Thank you very much for all the effort that you are putting into this blog – I think it is a great platform for postgrads to find out about career options. There is one aspect though, which I would like to read more about.
To me it seems research students spent most of their time working on the “technical” aspects of their projects. I am aware that the graduate development team is putting a lot of effort into courses helping with transferable skills, but I think there is still a lack of information about all the non-university opportunities. In particular, I am thinking about valuable training/projects/experience that non-business postgrads can do to prepare themselves for more commercial positions after graduation. Some consultancy companies are offering work experience to PhD students and there is a number of certificates/course (e.g. from the association of project management)… From a student point of view it is, however, quite hard to evaluate all the options and decide on the next steps. I think this would make an interesting topic for your blog!
David
Hi David
Many thanks for your comments – great to know the blog’s useful. I look out for any opportunities for developing commercial or business skills, but I’ll put more effort into actively seeking them out, as I know they’re particularly important for our non-business postgrads.
As a start, hope you’ve noticed that I contacted McKinsey (after spotting a comment on a UCL blog) and though their PhD workshops are aimed primarily at London, Oxford and Cambridge PhDs, there’s no reason why Manchester PhDs shouldn’t put their best foot forward and get considered.
Will let you know of any more I can feret out!
Cheers
Elizabeth
Hi Elizabeth,
I’m working on a campaign with Escape Studios and The Mill and thought it might be of interest to you and readers.
Throughout October we’ve been running a fantastic competition for aspiring CG artists to win a place on a 3D training course run by Escape Studios as well as a work placement with Oscar-winning visual effects company The Mill. There’s also a bunch of other prizes up for grabs.
We’ve had some fantastic entries so far, but with the deadline for entries this Friday 30th October we’re urging anyone who hasn’t submitted their portfolio to do so before it’s too late.
Full details of the competition, including how to enter and other information are available at http://www.escapestudios.com/cgwhiz/index.html. It would be great to see some more entries before the competition closes on Friday. It’s a fantastic opportunity for to get started in the world of visual effects.
All the best,
Claire
Hi Claire
I picked up this message originally from the one you left yesterday on our undergrad blog – and immediately tweeted it! It’s a bit late in the day for a blog post as the deadline’s Friday, but my Twitter account feeds on to the front page of the blog anyway, so job done, I reckon.
Hope you get some good applications – sounds like a great opportunity.
Cheers
Elizabeth
(Manchester PG Careers Blog)