Hello World!

We know you’re busy, and all that “networking” takes lots of time and effort, so we’re here to help by bringing the contacts to you – all in one place, on one day.

Learning from other people’s careers is not always straightforward – it can be tempting to get caught up in what people have done rather than why people made the choices they did and how they managed their career. Why does this matter? Even if you aren’t interested in what people are doing for work, you may be able to learn a lot from how and why they did things. The recent ‘Researching our Futures Conference’ was hopefully testimony to that.

Networking gives you access to the career stories of many individuals doing different and varied types of work. Some may not been doing exactly the sort of job you imagine yourself but their stories are still valuable to you. During your academic research, you don’t just talk to and learn from people doing exactly what you are doing – the conversations would have limited potential for you to develop (and depending on your project, might entail you talking to yourself in front of a mirror). A researcher gleans advice, ideas and techniques from people with all sorts of skills and experience.

Let me demonstrate with Anna Bee’s story. Moving from academic to social researcher, is a rich source of career information, advice and inspiration. Anna’s story has been downloaded from the Vitae website and annotated with comments and questions of the sorts you could use to make sure you learn the most from listening to people’s career stories. Rather than lessons about a particular career, this is an opportunity to learn how to manage and develop a career, acquire new perspectives on thinking about careers, new strategies for decision-making and job-hunting. Here’s Anna’s career story with questions and comments .

Even if, as with Anna, we can’t actually ask the questions of our story teller, this should prompt us to ask some of these questions of ourselves, as well as using them with other people we meet in the process of developing our career pathways. So look out for opportunities to network and meet with other. Here are some up and coming events to get you started;

Careers Opportunities in Higher Education – Alternatives to Research & Teaching

Postgraduate research student or PhD researcher? Do you enjoy working in HE? Are you uncertain if research & teaching are for you? For more information go http://www.ncl.ac.uk/careers/events/calendar/

Date / Time: 22^nd June, 16:00 – 18:00        Venue: Level 1 Kings Gate