Careers and recession from the perspective of a head of postgraduate career development

16 July 2009

By Web Admin

By Elizabeth Wilkinson, Head of Postgraduate Career Development, University of Manchester.

Every day we’re bombarded with tales of despair from the labour market but whilst graduates are regularly name checked, there is little focus on researchers and their prospects. The reality is likely to be much more complex than “there aren’t any jobs – we’re all doomed”, and even in a tight job market, there are things you can do which can radically enhance your chances of keeping your career moving.

The Job Market

Not all job sectors have been affected evenly. Common sense suggests that “value” products will be safer bets than luxury goods and investment banking doesn’t have quite the allure it had last year. However, going along with received wisdom such as “public sector safe – private sector dire” may prove short-sighted, not least because of the hundreds of local government jobs which have disappeared over recent months.

Researchers are well placed to engage their critical analytical faculties and dig below the surface of the news headlines. Read a broad range of media before deciding which sectors to dismiss. Spot “the angle” of whoever is touting the latest report, and pull apart any statistics to get to the underlying story. I try to get to the bottom of scare stories in the media on my Manchester Postgraduate Careers blog , but the real labour market expert is Dr Charlie Ball from HECSU, the statistical whizz-kid behind “What Do Researchers Do?” . He does a great line in slicing and dicing any sloppy use of stats by the media, in the HECSU blog.

Employers’ responses to the recession not only vary by sector, but can change rapidly. Pronouncements will have a short shelf life but here are some sector observations from the last few weeks.

Academia

The funding implications of the RAE and future positioning for REF may have been critical thus far in determining the job hot-spots. Now though, it’s the future and the fear of what’s to come which seems to be driving academic behaviour, as endowments and investments plummet, hitting institutions and charitable investors alike, and little prospect of alumni generosity or government funding making up the shortfall. Institutions aren’t rushing to fill full-time permanent posts which become vacant, “just in case”. On the other hand, I’ve recently heard of increased use of part-time teaching posts, a convenient, if not ideal, opportunity for more researchers to stay in touch with academia while writing up, applying for funding in their own right and being well placed and well-known within a department when lectureships and full-time research opportunities do arise.

Jobs for researchers outside academia

Think British industry’s dead in the water, killed by lack of investment in R&D? Think again. Some of the lessons of previous recessions have been learnt and some employers are still actively recruiting researchers to give them a head start whenever the economy starts to pick up. Eleven employers, including Areva, Astra Zeneca, the Civil Service, Detica and Doosan Babcock, joined us in the first “PhD and Researcher Career Zone” at the recent Graduate Recruitment Fair in Manchester. Through support from the Vitae North West Hub, hundreds of researchers got the chance to talk to a selection of employers with immediate or future vacancies, all actively targeting those with a research background. In addition to those employers focusing on researchers, another 150 recruiters attended the Fair, giving the lie to the view that there are no graduate (and postgraduate) jobs out there.

Cynics sometimes suggest that employers are just window dressing by attending these events, and don’t really want to recruit, so it’s worth hearing from one of the employers who did attend. Working in the nuclear industry, AMEC provide a well recognised graduate training scheme and recruit post-graduates across a wide range of science and engineering disciplines. Dr Brian Handy, Head of Profession for Chemistry & Materials Science at AMEC, reinforced their continuing interest in employing researchers: "We recognise the importance of a research background in the work that we undertake and encourage the influx of enthusiastic new talent into the business to maintain and develop our expertise." This commitment is backed up with real live job ads .

What Can You Do To Break Into The Job Market?

No-one’s trying to kid you that it’s easy out there, particularly if you want to break into a new career or are struggling alongside hundreds of other researchers chasing the dwindling number of academic opportunities which are advertised. You already know you should be keeping an eye on job adverts, so here are some other ways to improve your chances.

Who knows you’re out there?

If you want someone to offer you a job, you have to actively engage with other people. You can dramatically increase your chances of getting that lucky break if you develop a wide network of contacts who know what you’re looking for.

You also need to make it easy for people to find you. In the past, some people have successfully used the strategy of putting their CV on-line with websites which allow employers to search for who they want. This really only works if your skills are scarce and recruiters are desperate enough to pay the recruitment site to search their candidates. A new approach is now emerging which is sending a shiver down the spine of the recruitment industry but makes life easier for you. Employers like Microsoft are cutting out the middle men and searching professional networking sites like LinkedIn directly, looking for people with the right skills. Even if you’re not lucky enough to be tapped on the virtual shoulder for a job, an up-to-date public profile on LinkedIn could be a great way for prospective employers to check you out (and while you’re thinking about social networking, it’s probably time to review which incriminating photos are visible to all on your Facebook page).

Offer solutions to employers’ short-term problems

Many researchers are desperate to get out of the short term contract culture of academia and find it a bitter pill to swallow that temporary contracts may also be the best way to break into non-academic jobs. However, in a recession, “try before you buy” becomes more commonplace, even in the private sector. If they like you though, you’re then perfectly positioned to slide straight into a job without any advert appearing – contrary to belief amongst some researchers, there is no legal requirement to advertise jobs.

Speculate

Employers are keen to save whatever money they can at the moment. For jobs outside academia, find the name (or job title) of the head of the department in which you want to work. A good application landing directly on their desk is worth a try, as it could solve a problem for them and save the advertising, agency or administrative costs of recruiting.

It makes sense to target organisations which are doing well. Yet, even in sectors where job cuts are taking place, you may find that jobs are still quietly being filled by researchers and other skilled staff, sometimes in the same organisations which have announced redundancies. From my time as an HR manager in industry, I know it can be an employee (and public) relations disaster if you’re openly recruiting while handing out the P45s. However, large organisations also know that unless they keep investing in R&D and other strategically critical functions, they risk a slow death after the recession as they are outpaced by their competitors.

Another phenomenon associated with redundancies is that employers sometimes lose too many of their skilled staff, or find they want to go too quickly. This puts employers in the uncomfortable position of needing more staff to meet strategic or customer commitments while other employees are shown the door – not a good time to put adverts in the press. It may feel like ambulance chasing, but keep your ear to the ground and a well timed speculative application offering a short term solution to a critical skill shortage might yield results.

Target your applications

I’ve lost count of the number of employers, academic and non-academic, who have all said the same thing recently – the standard of applications and lack of targeting is shocking. It seems to have got much worse as panic or fatigue set in and job seekers bang in as many general applications as possible with little thought about why they’re applying or why the employer should bother to listen. Don’t get overwhelmed by tales of hundreds of applicants for each job. 90% of them won’t get to the first hurdle – make sure you’re not one of these.

Get Lucky

Looking for a job in a tough market is part luck and part skilled job hunting. Fortunately, you can do something about both. Use your research skills to look for likely target employers, make sure the right employers know there’s a skilled researcher out there ready for work, and be prepared to use stepping stone jobs to get your foot in the door. Time after time, luck comes to those who actively go out and find it.

Elizabeth Wilkinson is Head of Postgraduate Career Development at the University of Manchester. She can be contacted via

http://manchesterpgcareers.wordpress.com/

Vitae would like to thank the author for contributing this article. Vitae would like to remind readers that the information and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Vitae or CRAC: The career development organisation.

This article has been published as part of Vitae's Researcher careers and recession online activity in July 2009.  To view other articles on this theme please visit www.vitae.ac.uk/careersandrecession