By Andrew Scott – Head Fashion Buyer

I had never given much thought to modern languages until high school, but then why would I when it was never something which had been included in my curriculum? That soon changed the moment I sat down in my first French lesson. The whole concept had me gripped from that moment, as I started to enjoy learning in a way which I never had before. Language combines the theory of traditional core subjects with a hint of personal expression which you only get through art based subjects providing the middle ground I unknowingly required.

Needless to say I excelled in language and it was a natural step for me to carry this on through to college and then university.

For me, the novelty of studying modern languages and the sense of accomplishment which came with it never wore off, so I guess I was one of the lucky ones who came out of university with a clear sense of direction.

Immediately out of university I explored the typical avenues of employment such as translating and interpreting, although I knew this wasn’t a long term career path and I soon moved on to a role within an international company. Whilst I enjoyed this fast paced environment, I couldn’t ignore the pull to get involved in the world of fashion, which was the industry my parents both operated in.

I was surprised how strongly the industry demanded my language skills in many different areas, which gave me a much wider choice of career than I had ever thought. I am now the head fashion buyer of Infinities Menswear, a role which constantly demands my language skills and takes me all over Europe. On a daily basis I speak on the phone with our global suppliers and regularly attend international fashion shows and buying meetings. The ability to communicate with people in their own dialect goes a long way in terms of building relationships and it is personally enjoyable to use my languages in practice.

Thinking back to my university days, I never would have predicted that I would have the career I have today and I feel very fortunate to think that I have been able to combine my two passions in life in such a way.

I fear that many people believe modern languages commands a very narrow career path, which is a misconception I am keen to correct for anyone considering or currently studying modern languages. In reality, a modern languages qualification provides you with an edge over the competition in a wide range of roles within a multitude of different industries.

The world is your oyster, learn how to communicate in it!

Haris Adu is the founder of a tech startup called PinU,  an app that helps you message your friends when they are nearby. They worked closely with UCL Careers to help recruit technical talent for PinU,  and also with UCL Advances as part of UCL Digital Labs to test the app with students, in addition to securing a summer intern.

 

How did you get into your role?

After I graduated from University I was still unsure what the most suitable role for me was. I knew that I wanted to work in a smaller organisation where my creativity would be valued thus I applied to a few startups for an internship role and managed to secure a marketing and user experience role at a statistical search engine startup. I enjoyed working there for the short time that I was there and learnt a lot about working in a startup. I then wanted to pursue my own startup by solving problems that were important to me, which led me to found my own startup PinU with my co founder Ricardo who had just finished his physics masters at UCL.

What are the best things about working in your role?

There are a lot of great things about my role, but what I love in particular are working in a talented team and really believing in what I get to work on everyday. It is really amazing that I have the ability to think of an idea, design it, have it coded and then release it to the public. To see people actually use it in public is a priceless feeling.

Biggest success in your role?

Launching was a great feeling but getting our first few users that were not in our immediate circle was a great sign of validation because it was at that point we knew that people wanted to use our product, not out of loyalty but rather because they could relate to the problem that we were solving.

This was a great personal milestone and we have since grown PinU in London.

What are the biggest challenges you face in your work?

There are a lot of challenges that we face as a startup, but by far our greatest challenge is deciding what features to leave out from our product development process. We are very fortunate to have the ability to add a number of features to PinU that would enhance the product in a meaningful way but before we are able to do this we have to ask ourselves two important questions. 1) Does this feature add significant value to the product? 2) Does this feature help us achieve our mission? The reason why we must ask ourselves these questions before proceeding to add potential features to the product is because, without this framework we would end up with a lot of features that did not do anything outstanding or useful.

What top tips would you pass on to a student interested in this type of work?

I would encourage any student that is interested in working in a startup to network both online and offline. London tech startups jobs Facebook group is a great place to start looking as startups are constantly looking for new employees and interns. Even if you do not see any jobs that directly correlate to your skills, you can explain who you are, and what you are looking for and then post your CV. London students who love startups is a meetup group and a great place to get inspired by successful startup founders and connect with startups that are hiring.

Another great method of finding a startup internship is the UCL Advances Summer Internship Programme, which any current UCL student is eligible for. There is a careers fair for startups and small businesses usually held in March/April with a range of different startups attending. This 8 week internship is paid by the university and is a great opportunity to gain some experience.

UCL Talent Bank also promotes a range of paid opportunities within SME’s.  PinU actually have a summer internship role on there at the moment- Take a look at http://bit.ly/1WO1U2Z

 

Looking for a career that benefits the planet? With sustainability top on the agenda right now for every kind of organisation – from national governments to global corporations – there are more and more opportunities to find a career that aligns with your values.

The Green Economy has hit £122bn, according to The Department for Business Innovation and Skills (BIS) and, in 2013 employed more than a million people. And that’s just for specialist companies that make up what the government has called the Low Carbon and Environmental Goods and Services industry, and so doesn’t appear to account for the many opportunities to work in sustainability roles in charities, NGOs or companies that are trying to reduce their carbon footprint.

So where can you find these ‘green jobs’? Well, as well as attending UCL’s Environment and Sustainability Week, which starts on the 8^th February and gives you the chance to meet professionals from a whole range of organisations, from Carbon Plan to the Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC), you might want to check out these job sites and recruitment agencies:

• Acre Recruitment: The most established sustainability recruitment agency covering corporate responsibility, environment, health & safety, sustainability and energy. Current opportunities include:
  • Environmental Consultant, Due Diligence
  • Sustainability Officer, UK Green Building Council (UK-GBC)
• Elevator Cafe: A “marketplace for good jobs”, this job site will only post “ethical jobs” with social enterprises, charities and purpose driven companies. Current opportunities include:
  • Real Choices, Real Lives Cohort Intern – London – £16,415
  • Environmental Sustainability Intern – London – £16,864 Circa
• co.uk: Specialist job site with a wide range of openings right across the sector, from conservation and ecology, to organic food and sustainable transport. Currently there are over 70 openings listed as ‘entry level and graduate’ including:
  • Hedgehog Officer, Warwickshire Wildlife Trust
  • Visitor Experience Officer, RSPB
• GreenJobs: Calling itself ‘The Job Board for Green Experts’, this specialist site has some interesting roles to suit graduates including:
  • Energy Analyst, The Carbon Trust
  • Trainee Sustainability Consultant
• Guardian Jobs: With a dedicated section for Environment jobs, this newspaper jobsite is one of the primary places to go for exciting green roles, such as:
  • Communications Manager, CDP Driving Sustainable Economies
  • Energy and Sustainability Intern, Unite Students

The University of London’s Jobonline also has lots of environmental type roles that are aimed at students and graduates, in it’s ‘Natural resources and Environment’ sector. To keep updated, sign up for UCLAlert!

Here are some of the current roles:

• Research fellow in Global Climate Interactions
• Food Team Intern, Forum for the Future
• Marketing and Communications Intern, The Carbon Trust
• Intern – Forests (legal and policy), Client Earth

UCL Careers’s Environment & Sustainability Themed Week takes place from February 8th – 11th.

Congratulations to the RUMS Boat Club for winning the London heat of the PwC Opportunity Challenge last year. Thanks to Luke McEvoy for this writeup of his team’s experience, and good luck at the final!

UCL Careers shares employability competitions on our website at http://www.ucl.ac.uk/careers/events/competitions.

“Arriving at their London headquarters, it’s hard not to feel impressed by the scale, not to mention location, of their building down amongst City Hall and Tower Bridge, though on this occasion the nerves of going up against some of London’s best and brightest in PwC’s Opportunity Challenge Quiz heat were at the front of our minds. We collected our team badges and shuffled into the room; lots of tables, lots of people, and I doubt that any were here just for the free refreshments. The £1000 prize money was only going to one team, and talking to some of the others we were competing with, they weren’t going to let it go easily.

Sizing up some of our opponents didn’t help our nerves. “A post-grad, you say? In commercial law?”… to say that we, three medical students, felt slightly like fish out of water would be an understatement. Luckily, as the quiz got under way, our “game-plan” or, to be frank, a few nights of curiously scrolling through the histories of auditing companies and reading up on recent financial news, started to look like it may have done us a few favours, if perhaps not putting us on quite the same level as the economics societies and budding accountants we were up against. I would say that our eventual success, however, was less attributable to that cramming, but to our diverse backgrounds and skill-sets, which gave us an aggregate knowledge on a range of topics which helped us muster enough points to stay in the game.

And stay in the game we did, despite a round which tested our powers of estimation to the very core (guessing the number of words in Harry Potter etc.) and an (almost) embarrassing lack of rugby knowledge further back than 2013. It must be said, however, that even had we not achieved victory overall, the “eureka!” moments that are so crucial to success in the “Dingbats” round (cryptic clues based on wordplay) would have given us enough minor victories to write home about. In the end though, it was all about that prize money, and there were no prizes for 2nd place.

Hearing our team name, RUMS Boat Club, called out as winners brought a wave of joy crashing over us (something I suppose a boat club should be used to, though I have never heard the Thames described as “joy”). We won a grand! Even the boat club treasurer couldn’t stress himself out over this one!
Rowing in London is an expensive venture, but as a university club we strive to keep it as open as possible and winning this means that we can make the club affordable to freshers and others within the medical school who always wanted to row but never had the opportunity. It also means we can set about making repairs to boats that have been damaged for as long as we’ve been in the club, or maybe even someday get a banner for the club that isn’t a rain-damaged bedsheet! Now, with the club behind us, and coming into racing season, it’s time to focus our attentions on the most important competition of 2016… the PwC Opportunity Challenge final.”

By Luke McEvoy

From PwC’s website:  “Our Opportunity Challenge gives student clubs and societies the chance to compete against each other with financial funding up for grabs to help support your club or society. We’ll run separate university heats with the winners of each receiving a prize of £1,000. These teams will then enter the national final which will be held at an exclusive event in PwC’s More London office to battle it out for an additional prize of £10,000.”

One of our Careers Consultants recently interviewed two candidates currently on the NHS Scientist Training Programme. We’re sharing these interviews to help inform you about the value and opportunities available in the programme, and give you real-world insight into the experiences of current candidates. Last week we posted our interview with Aled Jones,  a finalist in the Bioinformatics stream. Read on for our interview with Heidi Kuoppama, during her first year on the Genetics Stream.

Applications for the NHS Scientist Training Programme have just opened. Find more information and apply here.

What made you apply to the STP?

I have an undergraduate degree and two masters degrees in science and I wanted to work in a lab, so in 2009 I started on the PTP, which is a two-year practitioner programme for technicians within the NHS, at the Cytogenetics lab at Guy’s hospital. I then spent another two years working as a technician within the same lab, and at that point I felt I wanted to do more; as a technician I was largely involved with lab and administrative work, with only a bit of analysis and interpretation. I applied to the STP because I wanted to gain a more in-depth understanding of genetics, and the science behind it, and I wanted to be able to interpret and report patient results.

What does your job involve?

As a qualified healthcare scientist, the bulk of my job will be interpreting and reporting patients’ results. The amount of labwork I’ll do will depend on how each particular lab is organised, but generally it will only be a small part of my job – maybe 10 or 20%. I’ll need to understand and be aware of what’s going on in the lab to be on hand for troubleshooting if something goes wrong. But most of the lab-based work might be when clinical scientists get involved in introducing a new test to the lab, or trying to improve existing techniques, R&D work.

As a trainee, I’m currently in the process of writing up my evidence for each of the competencies I have to fulfil as part of the training program, which involves a lot of sitting in front of a computer. But this will vary throughout the course of being a trainee – at other times I’ll be in the lab more. During the first year we do four rotations of three months each, across different labs; one in our own specialism, then three others. The three I chose were cellular specialisms; Cytology at St Thomas’, Reproductive Science at Guy’s, and ?!

As part of the STP you also study for an MSc in Healthcare Science. At the start of the first year we had an induction day where I got to meet lots of different STP trainees across all of the different disciplines, and we also had a week’s contact learning in Nottingham, where I was with all of the other Genetics trainees in my year. Later in the training I’ll also work on a research project relevant to my specialism, one that will hopefully benefit my lab.

What was the application process like?

Very competitive – it was a lot of work! I had NHS and PTP experience, as well as two Masters degrees, which was a good start, but I still applied twice! The first time I got to interview but wasn’t quite good enough, then I was successful second time around. The first step of the process is answering short essay-style questions. Answering those fully to make sure you stand out can take days. Then there are online reasoning tests, and if you don’t pass them you don’t get any further. I looked at a few example questions beforehand and thought it seemed quite easy, but some of the questions were very tough in the real test, mostly because you’re so pressured for time.

The next stage is the interview, which is a bit like speed-dating! There are four different tables with two interviewers at each, and all the candidates cycle through them in turn, changing table when the bell sounds. In my year there was a general science stand, two specialism-specific stands (so for me that was genetics), and then a stand on leadership, healthcare science and the NHS in general. You really get grilled on these stands, so you need to know a lot about what’s currently going on in your discipline, and in the NHS in general, and you need to be prepared to answer technical questions and be shown data. Then you’re given a mark for your performance on each stand, your scores are all added up, and you’re ranked against all the other candidates. Your rank will determine whether you’ll get a training place, and where that place will be.

Did you get your first choice of training location?

Yes I was lucky enough to get my first choice, which was the lab I already worked in. But I saw a few people who had to move across the country to take up places they were offered, which might not have been their first, second, or even third choice, so if the STP is something you really want to do, you may have to be flexible on location during your training.

What kind of experience is needed to get onto the program?

It’s a graduate scheme, so in theory all you need is a relevant undergraduate degree, however, it’s very competitive, and there are many applicants that meet the minimum criteria. In my intake I think there were about 16 Genetics trainees, and only one of them is a fresh graduate from university. About half of them have PhDs, and maybe around a third have worked as technicians in the NHS or in research.

What do you enjoy most about the STP so far?

I get to make a difference and help people through science. And I’m being challenged mentally; I have to innovate, and try to take my lab forward to provide a better service to patients, which is awesome.

 

What are the downsides?

Juggling the academic and the practical side of the training can be difficult, and you have to sacrifice your own spare time to get everything done. However, if you’re really passionate about the job, this isn’t too bad. Another key downside for people who like labwork would be the lack of lab time involved. I actually really enjoyed being in the lab when I was a technician, so I’ll miss it, but I’ve come to terms with it now!

The job can also be stressful at times. There’s a lot of work and tight deadlines to meet, and if something goes wrong, as scientists we have to be able to find a solution, otherwise we’ll be holding up the important work of the lab. But of course that’s also what makes it rewarding, how crucial the work we do is.

 

What advice would you have for anyone trying to get onto the STP?

I was lucky because I’d worked in NHS labs before, and although that’s not the case for all successful trainees, I would advise trying to get some NHS exposure, even if it’s just visiting a lab for a few hours. Talking to healthcare scientists, and reading relevant journal articles, will also help you to keep on top of developments in your field and in the NHS, which is important in the interview. I would also recommend practicing before taking the online tests, as you can definitely become quicker with practice.

 

If you’re passionate about the environment, UCL Careers’ Environment and Sustainability Week from 8^th Feb is a must.

Whether you’re looking for a volunteering position while you study, want to find out more about how to work in conservation and biodiversity, or are keen to develop your networking skills to break into this competitive sector, there’s an event for you. As well as the chance to meet a really diverse range of professionals, from Green Alliance to the National Geographic Wild, we’re also very fortunate to have Forum for the Future coming in to deliver a practical workshop on System Innovation, so you can get stuck in to solving some of the greatest sustainability challenges.

For those of you who know you want a career that benefits the planet but aren’t yet quite sure what that might look like, our Green Careers Discovery Evening on Tuesday 9^th February offers a lively and dynamic introduction to a whole range of different areas of work via group speed-networking. With organisations such as the Department for Energy and Climate Change, Mott Macdonald and Ofgem represented, this is a great chance to get to know people working in exciting environmental roles and hear their tips for how you can launch your career in the sector. We’re even offering a workshop on networking skills the day before to help you make the most of this valuable opportunity. And once you’re ready to apply, you’ll want to make sure your CV is up to scratch, so we’re putting on a workshop to help you see your CV through the eyes of the environmental sector employer.

So what are you waiting for? Sign up and find your path to a fulfilling career in sustainability. Places are strictly limited so early booking is recommended.

The UCL Careers Charities & NGO’s themed week is approaching and we have a host of charities and non-for-profit organisations taking over the UCL Careers library on Thursday, 4^th February to answer all of your questions at our networking event. Networking can be an incredibly powerful tool in your job search so it’s important that you do it right. Below are some useful tips to consider before attending the event.

 

1. Do your research.

There will be a full list of all the organisations that will be attending the Charities & NGO’s Networking Event on the events page of the UCL Careers website, so make sure you do your research about the organisations that are attending. Find out who they are, what they do, any of their recent projects, etc. Not only will this help you build the basis of your conversation, you can impress them with your knowledge of their organisation, and remember: first impressions count.

2. Have a goal/purpose

It’s always a good idea to set some goals before the event to help you stay focused. Think about what you want to find out at the event and the reason you want to attend e.g. finding out more about a particular role, advice on getting into a particular sector. When doing so make sure this information isn’t available on their website, meaning you will come away with some really valuable information!

3. Prepare some questions

The key to be being interesting is to be interested. So ensure that you prepare some good questions ahead of the event. This way you can structure your conversation giving it purpose and flow and avoiding any awkward silences. In the charity and non-for-profit sector your passion is incredibly important so may sure you ask some thoughtful questions that reflect your interest. The networking event will be a rare opportunity to ask questions that you normally wouldn’t get the opportunity to ask so preparation is key.

4. Don’t ask for a job!

Networking is about gathering information – not asking for jobs. This is a classic mistake which people tend to make and does not go down well with employers. Instead you should use this opportunity to discuss ideas and present your skills as people are much more likely to respond to your enthusiasm and understanding. Talk to the professionals about how to find vacancies and how to keep updated with their recruitment opportunities. This may help you to discover unadvertised vacancies as well as getting some tips along the way whilst maintaining professionalism.

The UCL Careers Charities & NGO Networking event will take place from 5.30 – 7.00pm on Thursday 4^th February. For details of how to sign up please visit the following link: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/careers/events/getinto/charitiesandngos

 

Though important, there is so much more to working in the charities and NGOs sector than shaking a tin, volunteering or delivering aid to those in need on the frontline.  Many charities and NGOs are run as professional businesses that carry out functions such as research and lobbying, as well as raising and redistributing funds.  In the pursuit of addressing human or environmental needs, the sector can be intensely competitive in terms of attracting media attention, funding and other resources.  Most non-profit organisations rely on paid staff as well as volunteers and the sector attracts intelligent people with a passion for their work.

UCL Careers Charities & NGOs Week aims to dispel some of the myths that surround working within this sector.  Through a series of four events, the themed week will provide students with an opportunity to gain a deeper insight into the the diverse range of roles available to them, from campaigning and policy work to international development and disaster relief.  The interactive session on how to prepare persuasive applications will help students to demonstrate their motivation and enthusiasm and ultimately increase their chances of job success.  The final event in the series will provide an excellent opportunity to network, be inspired and pick up some top tips from the experts, who are currently working in the sector.

For further details about UCL Careers Charities & NGOs Week including how to book:
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/careers/events/getinto/charitiesandngos

One of our Careers Consultants recently interviewed two candidates currently on the NHS Scientist Training Programme. We’ll be sharing these interviews this week and next to help inform you about the value and opportunities available in the programme, and give you real-world insight into the experiences of current candidates. This week we’re sharing our interview with Aled Jones, while a finalist in the Bioinformatics stream. Check in next week for our write-up with Heidi Kuoppama, during her first year on the Genetics Stream.

Applications for the NHS Scientist Training Programme have just opened. Find more information and apply here.

Aled Jones has a degree in Human Biology from Loughborough University and is now entering the final year of the three-year Bioinformatics (Genomics) NHS Scientist Training Program, during which he has been based in the Genetics department of Viapath at Guy’s hospital London.

How did you decide to apply for the bioinformatics STP?

I first became interested in Genetics during my undergraduate degree in Human Biology, so after graduating I took a job in forensics and saved money to fund an MSc in Medical Genetics at Newcastle University. It was here that I was introduced to clinical genetics in the NHS, the role of a Clinical Scientist and the scientist training program (STP) and realised that was a path I wanted to follow.

I applied for the genetics training scheme but I didn’t get onto it. The feedback that I got was that the competition was very stiff, and successful applicants had PhDs or previous NHS lab experience. To increase my chances I got a job as a technologist in the Cytogenetics department at St Mary’s hospital,Manchester.

I was there for four years. I had intended for this job to be short term, a foot-in-the-door of the genetics scientist training program. I enjoyed being in the lab environment, so much so I started to realise the role of a genetics clinical scientist wasn’t for me. I loved the labwork, being busy, and the trouble-shooting elements but I didn’t enjoy analysing and interpreting the results of the genetic tests. That was only a small part of a technologist’s role, but it would be a much bigger part of the genetics clinical scientist role. It was great to find this out in advance but it also meant that the goal I’d been aiming for had vanished.

At around that time next-generation sequencing was starting to be adopted in the clinical service, and this posed lots of challenges in terms of the wealth of data produced. There were many talks which said there was a huge shortage of bioinformatics expertise within the NHS. I was very comfortable on a computer and realised there may be an opportunity here, so I spent my lunchbreaks teaching myself about different aspects of bioinformatics, and learning the Perl programming language on the advice of the department’s Bioinformatician. I really enjoyed this and was looking for ways to move into it more when the NHS announced the bioinformatics STP, which suited my experience and aspirations perfectly. I applied for the first intake and I think that because I had NHS experience, showed that I had researched, investigated and “tried” bioinformatics, I had a good understanding of the training program and discussed bioinformatics in the NHS with colleagues from my lab, I was accepted onto the programme.

What was the STP application process like?

The basic requirement is a 2.2 degree, but it’s a really competitive program. Nearly everyone in my year’s bioinformatics intake has either a PhD or previous experience working within an NHS lab. It is possible to get a place straight out of an undergraduate degree (there’s one person in my year who did) with little or no lab experience, but you’d have to put in a very good application, and show you understand bioinformatics, clinical science, and the NHS.

In the application form there are five questions to answer in quite a short space, so you have to be concise and to the point, and show evidence of your skills and motivation from your real-life examples.

There’s an aptitude test after the application form is submitted. If you don’t pass the test, no one will look at your form. The test is pretty daunting so it’s worth using the practise tests provided as much as possible. However, I didn’t feel I did particularly well on the test, and I got through!

 

The interview’s a bit like speed-dating. There are four ‘stations’, each lasting 10 minutes, where you are asked really prescriptive questions. Two of the stations were speciality-specific, one computer science based and genetic based which included interpreting the output of a genetic test, so my background in NHS labs was really useful.

What’s good about the job?

Working for the NHS may not offer the biggest salary, but I feel I’m doing something that really matters, ‘giving back’. With the STP you get paid a decent wage to get on-the-job training and a Masters degree. You learn a lot of really useful things during the training programme, and especially with bioinformatics, these skills open up a lot of doors, within and outside of the NHS.

I’m still training so I’m not the most useful person around the lab yet, but when I’ve had the opportunity to work on real bioinformatics projects that are useful to people in the lab, I’ve found it really absorbing and rewarding.

What are the challenges/downsides?

A lot of the challenges my intake to the program has encountered are to do with the fact that bioinformatics is so new, and we’re the first year of the bioinformatics STP, so we’ve been guinea pigs in a way. I think subsequent intakes will experience fewer of those issues.

But there are some more general challenges too. The way the programme works is there are separate modules, and each of these have competencies that you have to tick off in various ways, maybe through writing a report or giving a presentation, and sometimes these can seem a little disjointed. Personally, I’m better at getting stuck into one bigger piece of work, so balancing all these little projects can be tough at times.

Another thing I’ve found difficult is the switch to a fairly solitary desk-job. When I was a technologist I was in the lab, physically moving around and had built up responsibilities so I was in demand and often asked for advice, but now I sit at a desk all day and have little reason to interact with the rest of the lab, especially as at the moment I’m training.

And another possible downside is the way that the STP positions are allocated. STP vacancies come up across the UK, and depending on how you perform in the interview, you may end up being offered a position somewhere in the country you don’t particularly want to work. This is what happened to me. I was very happy living and working in Manchester, my friends and girlfriend were there, but I ended up with an STP offer in London, which was not one of my top choices. Guy’s has a great genetics department, one of, if not the best, in the UK, and so in hindsight it was a good thing, but the move was pretty disruptive to my and my girlfriend’s lives. I know people have turned down offers because they were placed somewhere they didn’t want to move to.  Although there is no guarantee you’ll get your choices I’d recommend researching the labs which you apply to.
What’s the progression like?

When I complete the program I’ll be state-registered as a clinical scientist. However, there’s no guarantee of a job, so I’ll have to apply for any clinical scientist vacancies that arise. I’m an optimist, so I think if a department has spent three years training a person in an area where there’s a skills shortage, they should be ideally suited for a job in that department. But whether departments will have the money to fund a post is a different story (trainees are funded centrally, not by the host lab and money is quite tight in many departments/in the NHS!!).

I’m confident I’ll find a job in clinical bioinformatics though as if I cannot find a role in a genetics department, I think there will be bioinformatics positions popping up in virology and microbiology departments as they too adopt next generation sequencing and encounter the same challenges genetics faced.

Also, with bioinformatics in particular, I’ll come out of the program with a whole host of new computing skills that I didn’t have before, and they’ll be valuable to a variety of employers, not just the NHS.

What are your top tips for anyone interested in the STP?

Take every opportunity to find out about the STP and the work of clinical scientists [reading this blog post counts!]. Lots of labs have open days, and representatives from the STP visit universities. If you’ve missed all of that, try contacting your local department and asking a few questions. This will help you to understand the programme, and to show your motivation.
Applications for the NHS Scientist Training Programme have just opened. Find more information and apply here.

Check in next week for our write-up with Heidi Kuoppama, during her first year on the Genetics Stream.

 

 

 

Are you sick of 2015 countdown lists yet? No? Good, because here’s another one.

Have you heard of Coursera? It’s great. It allows you to take free online courses in pretty much anything, and those courses are taught by university experts. In fact, UCL careers consultants helped deliver a course in Employability Skills in 2014 and 2015.

And now the good people at Coursera have put together a handy list of 2015’s most coveted career skills. When you complete a course you receive a certificate, and get the option of posting said certificate to your LinkedIn profile. By assessing courses with the most certificates posted to LinkedIn, Coursera have worked out the top 10 skills people most wanted to show off to recruiters last year. It’s a nice measure of what’s hot with employers right now, with ‘digital marketing’ coming out on top, and ‘data science’ featuring heavily in the top 10. Check out the full list here.

And to be notified when the employability skills course runs again, visit the course page and add it to your wish list.

 

S Donaldson, UCL Careers Consultant