What are you getting from your PhD?

A new publication from Vitae, aimed at employers, lists the skills and competencies that PhD graduates bring to an organisation. It details skills that researchers typically develop, against the competencies that employers often look for, and also contains examples from researchers of when and how they demonstrated the various skills.

This document is not only a tool for employers trying to decide whether to hire PhD graduates, but it is also a useful resource for PhD students, whether or not you are thinking of applying for jobs in the near future. Hopefully the list of skills and real life examples will get you thinking about the skills that you are developing through your PhD, what skills you might want to develop, and how you can sell these skills to employers on application forms and at interviews when the time comes.

And that reminds me, there are a few places still available on the ESD workshop "Making Successful Job Applications"on Thursday 5th November, 10am-1pm. If you're interested see the calendar in the side bar for more information.

Welcome to Queen Mary!

If you've just started your PhD at Queen Mary, then welcome to the University, and welcome to this blog! I hope you have a great few years here. If you're not a new student, then welcome to the new academic year - I hope you managed to get a bit of a break over the summer and are looking forward to getting back to your research!

For those of you who don't know me, I'm Jo, the Development Adviser for Research Students at QM. There's a bit more info. about me and my background in the side panel. I'll be using this blog to keep QM research students informed of events going on inside and outside the college that might be of interest to you, so please check in regularly or set up an RSS feed. You might also want to look at the QM Researchers' Careers blog (see the feed on the side panel).

Also on this blog is a calendar of workshops and courses run for PhD students by the Educational & Staff Development department. You can find more information about each event by clicking on it in the calendar. If you wish to book on any courses you can do so here.

So, that's probably enough for now. Please get in touch if you have any thoughts, comments, concerns or suggestions about anything to do with your experience at QM.

Opportunities for Science & Engineering PhD students

Two exciting new opportunities for PhD students have recently been posted on the EPSRC website.

Firstly, a 3 month secondment opportunity to the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology, to work on a policy topic grounded in science and technology. This position is only open to EPSRC-funded students. More details can be found here, and the closing date for applications is 16th October.

The other opportunity is a chance to work in a Toshiba R&D lab in Japan for 2 years. This is open to PhD level researchers of EU nationality currently working in a UK academic institution. More details can be found on the Toshiba website, and the closing date for this one is 11th December.

Get ready for Impact!

Queen Mary are launching an exciting new project - ImpactQM - that is designed to create a new generation of scientists and engineers who are equally at home in both academia and in industry.

This scheme will link PhD students and postdoctoral researchers with selected partners in industry, allowing them to work within that industry for a period of time. The idea is that this will benefit the individual researcher, the university and the industry/company.

So, what exactly do you get out of it? Well - links to and contacts within an industry relevant to your research; the chance to work for a while within a different environment and to learn the skills necessary for success in that sector; mentoring and support within and outside the university; access to relevant training and development activities to further enhance your career development.....the list goes on!

For further details, eligibility criteria and application forms, visit the website.

But be quick! The closing date for applications for this year is 30th September.

Job hunting in a recession

I posted a little while ago about a Vitae resource on research careers during a recession. I have just found another very useful article on the same subject, on the Manchester Postgraduate Careers Blog (see link on the right) that you might want to take a look at.

Training days at the British Library

The British Library is putting on some subject-specific training days for postgraduate researchers. These are days of talks, workshops and networking opportunities as well as a chance to find out what the library has to offer and how you can access it.

The programme looks like this:

13 October English (Medieval—18th Century)
3 November Social Sciences
1 December Art and Design
8 December History (19th-21st Century)
1 February 2010 History (Medieval—18th Century)
29 March 2010 Modern foreign languages

All days are free of charge, and more information can be found here.

Summer GRADBritain magazine available

The latest issue of GRADBritain is now available to download. It contains articles on turning your PhD into a publishable book, how to get through the last few months of your PhD, the benefits of attending a writers' retreat and many other topics that may be of use and/or interest to you.

The deadline for submissions for the next issue is 1st October, so if there's an issue you'd like to write an article on why not have a go? Guidelines for authors are here, and each article published earns £50.