Dr Alice Moon has a PhD in Biochemistry, and now works here at UCL Careers as a careers consultant for the Engineering faculty, working with departments to offer careers support to their students. Alice kindly told how she got here, and shared her top tips for researchers considering leaving academia.

How did you move from your PhD to this role?

I did my PhD for the classic terrible reason that I didn’t know what else to do. I performed well in my degree, and I had a tutor who said I should do a PhD, so I did. I hadn’t done much of the careers thinking I now recognise as so important. Despite this, I quite enjoyed many aspects of research, and I found myself wanting to be an academic. However, after my PhD I did a couple of post-docs which generated pretty unexciting results, so it would have been a bit of a battle to stay in academia. And at the same time I felt like my values were changing. I looked around at work and didn’t see any role models I wanted to be. It still seemed really difficult in academia even at the supervisory level, with constant applications for funding, a need to move around to get jobs, and being impacted by larger institutional decisions.

So I left my post-doc, but again I did it without doing much careers thinking. I simply knew I no longer wanted to be an academic, and had a feeling there must be something better suited to me out there. I didn’t know what my options were with a PhD, and I’d always used and been interested in science, so I tried to get into intellectual property, but I wasn’t hearing back on my applications. My partner at the time was a scientist and wanting to leave, and he was applying to accountancy grad schemes. I felt like that wasn’t for me, but then he told me about the National Audit Office because I was interested in society, and encouraged me to apply. I sort of applied on a whim, but then I made it through the various application stages, and I ended up in an accountancy graduate scheme.

I probably went into that role thinking I had it all sussed. I didn’t feel I needed to be the best at it, so I thought I could just do enough to get through the exams and it would be fine. But it was so difficult, in fact one of the most difficult years of my life. Graduate schemes want 150% from you, so I was studying and taking exams as well as doing the work. Probably from week two I had doubts about accountancy as a career path for me, but there was so much momentum – for example, in week four I had two exams which I had to pass or I’d be asked to leave – so I didn’t have the brain capacity to think about whether it was right or wrong for me, I just had to focus on the work. I took 11 of 12 exams, and passed 10 of them. I stayed for just over a year, and then I left. It was definitely valuable to learn about financial reports and business models, which I’d had no understanding of as a researcher. But it wasn’t the right step for my career, and it was so full-on that afterwards I had to take time out to recover.

So for about three years I was focusing on personal rather than professional development. For me, that meant a mixture of travel and working in a café start-up, and temping. I wanted to keep things light, and not take on anything too new and serious, because I wanted the next step to be more considered. I did a lot of networking as part of the career exploration process, and took an interest in other people’s jobs and what they liked about them. That was essentially the first time I was reflecting on what I wanted and liked in a job. And during those conversations, a friend of mine inspired me. She studied drama/dance as her degree and now works as an office manager in a media company. When I asked her how she chose her path, she told me she’d thought about what she liked in a job, and she realised she didn’t want to have to wear stiff smart clothing, she wanted to work in a pretty environment with nice lighting and furniture, and she wanted people to thank her lots and appreciate her. And that’s what she gets from her current job. It was a bit of a revelation for me, as it was the first time I’d ever encountered someone thinking about the more day-to-day factors involved in being at work.

As she is one of the happiest people I know in their job, I tried to take the same approach of thinking about what I wanted day-to-day. I realised I didn’t want the output of my work to be a report. And I started to recognise that my strengths were in interpersonal understanding, and that I wanted to work with people. I wanted to work more flexibly than a post-doc – I didn’t want my field and skillset to be so narrow that it dictated where in the world I could work, I wanted flexibility to live life on my terms. I wanted a sense that my skills were innate in some way, they were part of me. I didn’t want to have to have technical expertise, for example, using a very specific piece of machinery. All of this led me to gravitate towards coaching, but I didn’t want to take a coaching qualification without knowing it was the right next step for me. And then I met someone who worked at UCL Careers, and she told me about her job as a careers consultant, which entailed one-to-one guidance and groupwork. There was a qualification involved, which definitely wasn’t a draw for me as I didn’t really want to commit to another qualification, but the employer would pay for it, and I got to start the work and see if I would like it before embarking on that study. It sounded good, and so here I am!

What does an average day look like?

It’s really varied, and often depends on the time of year. Seeing students is a big part of the role – offering guidance and practice interviews. In the Autumn and Spring terms delivering workshops is a key feature, so is the planning and preparation for those workshops. I also work closely with academics and academic departments, figuring out what they want for their students. In our team in engineering there’s also someone who looks after employer engagement and someone who looks after sourcing internships and vacancies, so I’m often liaising with them and informing my work through their knowledge. I also work closely with colleagues on projects, which can take various forms, from putting together new events to thinking about online content.

What are the best things about the role?

I find working with students massively rewarding. I enjoy the conversations we have, I feel like I learn a lot, and I feel I have (usually) helped them move on by the end of our conversation, so there’s a tangible immediate value to my work. Thinking back to my days as a post-doc, it would take a long time to see the impact of what I was doing, so it’s refreshing to see the impact there and then, and especially reflecting on my own journey, I know this career thinking is important. I also enjoy being in a university setting, where I get to work with so many stimulating ideas; whether that’s the most innovative teaching and coaching methods, or the engineering innovation that impacts employment and careers for the students I support. I also enjoy working with my colleagues and getting to be creative in how we approach the task of helping students.

What are the challenges?

The role is incredibly varied, which I really like, but I also know it’s a very different way of working to when I was in research or accountancy. I have to do lots of different things well now, so there’s a lot of time and quality-management involved. I’m no longer focusing on one thing and making it perfect. Instead I need to get lots of things done in a way that’s high quality but efficient, and allows space for a broad range of tasks. There’s also a lot of managing a busy calendar, and managing it around lots of colleagues who are also managing busy calendars themselves.

Is your PhD useful in the role?

A PhD isn’t essential for the role, although I have several colleagues who also have PhDs. There are definitely some similarities between my research years and this role; I get to work with ideas, and I have a fair amount of autonomy, I’m always learning and can take a scholarly approach to my work. And an ability to research means you can stay up to date in innovations in teaching, coaching, employment and recruitment processes etc. Having the PhD experience also helps me when working with students considering moving to PhD study, or with PhD students thinking about what to do next.

What’s the progression like?

It’s great to be in this sector as it feels there are loads of opportunities to progress in different directions, which is refreshing compared to my time in academia. For me personally, I really enjoy our core practices of guidance and coaching, so that’s something I want to develop, and perhaps take that on as an area of expertise if I move to Senior Careers Consultant level. There are also ways to move upwards if you want to take on managerial roles – Team Leaders, Deputy Heads, Heads. And in Higher Education more widely there are lots of opportunities to move around and support students and/or research in different ways, and movement between roles isn’t unusual.

Some careers consultants will go freelance at some point and work with private clients. I have considered having more of a portfolio career in that way, and if I did ever want to do that, this is a great platform to start from. So I feel very positive about the opportunities, and I feel very strongly that I have control over what I want my role to look like in future. I’m the one getting to choose.

Tips for researchers

If you think you might like to be a careers consultant, get involved in talking to the careers team at your university, and see if there are any opportunities for you to work shadow, or to get involved in helping at events. Also take on opportunities to support students, such as teaching or personal tutoring or supervising.

And for researchers thinking of leaving academia more generally, in my experience of talking with current researchers and those who’ve left, I notice there can often be a sense of disempowerment –a feeling they don’t have any useful skills and they won’t be valued outside of academia. But there are so many opportunities for you to be valued in the world. So I would encourage you to take each and every chance to explore what else might be out there for you.

In the first of a new series looking at how to navigate your career during uncertain times, we speak to a Biological Sciences PhD who graduated during the last recession, and is now a Science Teacher in a private secondary school.

• Tell us about your current role and organisation.

I work in a private school as a science teacher. At the higher levels I cover just biological sciences, but at the younger ages I sometimes cover more subjects. I also take on additional responsibilities for sports and arts clubs I’m interested in.

• How did you move from academia to your current role? 

I’m not much of a planner, and I’d been so wrapped up in my research that I hadn’t looked ahead and thought about how to progress in academia. When I did, towards the end of my PhD, I realised I didn’t have any teaching experience whereas other PhDs did.

So I contacted people in my department who let me do a few guest lectures on their courses to fill the gap. I also got involved with a charity that puts researchers into schools. I was doing it just to have some more teaching experience on my CV, but I found I really enjoyed the whole process! I realised teaching in schools would offer me the stability and people-contact that academia wouldn’t, so I started to consider that as my plan A and academia as my plan B.

While researching teaching, I was surprised to learn that private schools didn’t always need their teachers to take a teaching qualification, which was appealing as I didn’t fancy more study at that time. So I applied to private schools, and after making me deliver a teaching demonstration, one of them took me on.

• Did graduating into a recession have an impact on your career path?

I think there might have been something about the stability and recession-proof nature of teaching that appealed to me because of the credit crunch. Maybe that wouldn’t have meant as much to me if the world had felt more stable at that time. Also, I probably would have found the PGCE teacher-training route a bit more appealing if I’d felt more secure in getting a job afterwards. During that time it felt important to be earning money and not to go back and study again.

• What does a normal working day look like for you?

My days are very full. I’m up early and teaching students most of the day, and then a lot of evenings are taken up by marking or prep work, and some by extracurricular activities I run for the students. I like to think of creative ways to teach, which is fun, but it adds to the prep time! Obviously adapting to online teaching over the past year or so also took a lot of prep.

• What are the best things about working in your role?

There are lots of great things. I like working with people, I find it really energising. I missed that in academia, and so that’s probably the best bit for me. I also like still being in touch with science, and in a broader way than academia allows.

I went to a state school myself, and I never imagined I would work in a private school. But there are some particular perks to it that are worth mentioning. The pay is very good, and as I’ve progressed and taken on more responsibilities – both extracurricular and within the science department – it has increased. It sounds gauche to talk about, but I’m earning a lot more than my colleagues who remained in academia – even the very successful ones. Some private schools even throw free accommodation into the package! The holiday is also unbeatable. Of course all teachers get lots of holiday, but private schools often have even more holiday than state schools, so that’s been really nice, especially for those teachers who have young families. And just like academia, travel is one of the unexpected perks! Outside of pandemic conditions, some private schools send their pupils on fantastic field, sporting, and social trips, which always need teachers to supervise, so I’ve managed to travel to some amazing places for free – although obviously I’ve had to spend a lot of the time working!

• What are the worst bits? 

The flip side to the amazing holiday benefits is that it’s difficult/impossible to take holiday during term-time, and during term-time the workload can be very heavy, especially if you take on extra responsibilities as I have. That way of working – very intense followed by long breaks – suits me, but it probably wouldn’t suit everyone.

• Is a PhD essential for your role? 

A PhD isn’t essential, but the organisational and communication skills I developed during the PhD help. Having the PhD may well have helped me bypass the PGCE route too, and the teaching experience I had picked up during the PhD was obviously valuable. I also think it adds some extra credibility for the pupils and their parents, who often have very high expectations of the school.

• What’s the progression like?

There isn’t quite the same pressure to “progress” as there is in academia, which I actually like. But there are still lots of opportunities. You can become a head of department, and then of course a deputy head/head teacher. And some people move away from teaching to work on the educational policy side or in educational charities.

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

If you think teaching might be for you, give it a go – you’ll soon find out! There are lots of opportunities to work-shadow teachers and deliver sessions in schools, so seek them out. Teaching experience at university level will help you too, but it’s fairly different, so you really should get a bit of experience in schools to see if you’d like it.

I’d also advise getting involved in as many different things as possible, especially if you’re not sure where you want to end up, because you never know where they may lead – look at how I ended up in teaching!

• Are there any specific tips you would give to people graduating into a recession?

I think people have to go with how they feel. The recession made me nervous, so I went for a stable well-paid job to reduce that anxiety. Not everyone will need to do that though. I suppose when I look at all of my PhD peers who also graduated in the recession, they’re all doing fine. So maybe my advice would be, don’t worry too much about it. You have the highest qualification you can get, and you’ll have developed loads of useful skills along the way, so you’ll be employable even in a recession, you just might have to compromise for a bit depending on what you want to do.

 

 

We’re of course still unable to come together on campus as we usually would. But as the days start to get brighter and longer this Spring, we have some great virtual careers events that offer a productive way to spend your lockdown down-time.

Online panel events

Studies tell us the majority of people who graduate with a PhD will at some point leave academic research. And yet while we’re still in academia, surrounded by those who have chosen to stay, this can feel difficult to truly believe. We’ll redress this balance with three panel events, each hosting PhD graduates now working beyond academia. Panelists will share details of their roles and career paths, and offer top tips for researchers wanting to transition out of academia. We’ll also be asking them about the effects the pandemic has had on their role and industry, and the impact they predict for the future. You’ll be given a chance to post your own questions to our speakers in the chat box too. Below are details of our three upcoming panels – as well as links for further info and booking.

Careers in Communication: Publishing, Editorial & Writing Panel
Thurs 18 Feb 2021, 5.30–7pm 

Contributors: Intelligent Emotion, MS Society, Nature Communications, Seques and freelance author.

Click here to book your place

Careers in Public Health Panel

Wed 24 Feb 2021, 5.30–7pm

Contributors: Future Care Capital, NHS England, Aquarius Population Health

Click here to book your place

Careers in Data Science & Data Analysis Panel

Tues 16 March 2021, 5.30–7pm 

Contributors: Causalens, Faculty AI, CERN.

Click here to book your place

Experiential workshops

We’re also hosting two employer workshops that will allow you to gain a deeper insight into the practical skills researchers need when moving outside of academia.

Skills Beyond Academia –
Developing Business Skills and Navigating the Corporate World 
Thurs 18 March 2021, 12.30–2pm

Want to learn more about businesses, how they operate and the markets they work in? Interested in finding out those key businesses skills you’ll need before leaving academia?

Join us to hear more from researchers working in organisations across various sectors, learn more about the business world and the skills needed to be successful whilst having the chance to ask your questions about what it takes.

Contributors: Capco and Abcam

Click here to book your place

Careers Beyond Academia Taster Session in Data 

Thurs 25 March 2021, 12.30–2pm 

This taster session for data will allow you to experience a hypothetical task which someone in this role would undertake.

This is a practical opportunity to gain experience of a career in data. Improve your understanding of the industry and the types of careers available whilst networking with an organisation which hires researchers.

Led by: Celonis

Click here to book your place

To see our full list of careers workshops, book a one-to-one appointment, or view job vacancies suitable for those with a research background, log into your MyUCLCareers account.

Dr Ardavan Alamir has a PhD in Physics and now works in cyber-security at G-Research. We caught up with Ardavan to hear about his role and career journey so far.

Tell us about your job.

I work as a Tech Lead Cyber Data Scientist at G-Research, a fintech organisation. Cyber security is very important for the business. The cyber function collects a huge volume and diversity of data, big data. So my role is to help the cyber analyst sift through the data quicker with the help of data science. One particular area of focus is the use of anomaly detection to find unusual signs of activity that we could be indicative of a cyber attack.

How did you move from academia to here?

I finished my PhD and I was looking for a PostDoc. The search didn’t go well. Then a friend who works in Big Data and data analytics strongly encouraged me to switch to Machine Learning. I studied the famous Andrew Ng course on Coursera. It was brilliant. Then I started to apply and I found my first job in an Education Tech company.

What was the recruitment process like?

Interviews have 2 main focuses: technical and behaviour. For a data scientist role, a lot of the interviews will revolve around Machine Learning, Deep Learning, Probability/Statistics, SQL queries and Computer Science Data Structures/Algorithms. So you need to make sure you learn the key topics of these fields. You have a lot of sample interview questions online. Great resources are glassdoor, leetcode.com and interviewquery.com. The behaviour part is about finding out about you as a potential colleague.

What does a normal working day look like for you?

I start my day with a team meeting at 9am. In the morning I try to do some personal learning that will be useful for my work. Then I work on a current project. I also have regular meetings with my fellow team members to discuss progress with current projects.

What are the best bits?

Getting to do cutting edge research and getting paid much more than in academia!

What are the biggest challenges?

he worst bits in the corporate world, especially in bigger corporations, is the politics. You have Game of Thrones all the time, especially for employees at manager level or above. When you stay in a technical role, it shouldn’t concern you too much though you will witness it.

Is a PhD essential for your role?

No, but what the PhD helped me with is the ability to do effective research in a new area, see a project through its end, and computational and analytical skills.

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

Definitely do some online courses on Machine Learning, Stats and Algorithms/Data Structures. These are the 3 key areas where most companies will interview candidates. I would even say that acquiring knowledge in these three areas is more important than doing personal projects. And definitely have passion !

Dr Keith O’Brien earned his PhD in Experimental Psychology from UCL, and now works as the Global Behavioral Insights Lead for Simply Business. Keith kindly spoke to us about his role and his transition into industry.

Tell us about your job.

I am the Global Behavioural Insights Lead for a growing technology company called Simply Business (SB). Simply Business is an insurance broker with over 750,000 current customers in the UK. We have over 750 employees across offices in London, Northampton, and Boston (US). Our success to date has been a result of simplifying the insurance market for SMEs, (small businesses) helping customers find and buy the right insurance easily, with a strong focus on data-led experimentation. If you use price comparison websites in the UK to find insurance for a business (maybe your ‘side-hustle’) you are probably using our service.

My role sits officially in our ‘Digital Product’ organisation, which spans across teams in the UK and USA, reporting directly to our C-suite team (i.e. the Chief Product Officer). As our ‘in-house’ behavioural scientist, my role is to identify (and argue for) improvements to our organisation and products based on behavioural science/economics. This sometimes requires running ‘experiments’, which can range from quick pilots (or prototype tests) with customers (to test ideas/assumptions), to ‘lab-style’ studies (controlled experiments), to ‘scaled-up’ RCTs or ‘A/B tests’ with real-life customers.

While that all sounds very serious and rigorous, and it can be, if you visited our offices you might be surprised to see us all in jeans and t-shirts – playing a game of pool or table tennis in our open-plan offices. Or building some strange robots, like a guitar-operated drone. We pride ourselves on creating a place where we enjoy working – and we’ve experimented with new initiatives like ‘4-day work-weeks’, flexi/remote-working far before anyone else (or COVID19). Our unofficial motto is ‘Build Something Better’, and that includes in society; which is why we have been a certified ‘BCorp’ for the last 3 years due to our actions on climate change, racism, inequality, etc..

How did you move from academia to your current role?

I handed in my PhD in 2016 since joining UCL through the MSc in Cognitive & Decision-Sciences. In 2017, I was balancing teaching fellowships at UCL and LSE in psychology/decision-sciences and being the Assistant Director of the Centre for Behaviour Change at UCL. At the time I was trying to square my passion for understanding human behaviour, with applying that knowledge to tangibly improve people’s lives. Teaching was an outlet for that passion, a buffer against the reality that academia is rarely supportive or enabled to do real-world research.

I came to the realisation that the career I dreamed about, spending my days developing experiments and RCTs to improve people’s lives with psychology, was: a) about 20-30 years away, provided I landed a tenured professorship with ample funding; and b) highly improbable, if I insisted my path to that professorship would be via real-world (non-lab) research. I took a leaf from my MSc in Cognitive & Decision Sciences, and rather than calculate some Expected Value estimates of leaving academia vs staying, I tallied up the pros/cons. Written on paper, it was clear I’d be happier overall to leave.

I was headhunted for my role at Simply Business by a fellow academic who consulted for private industry, and knew more companies were eager to apply behavioural science. I took  the role gladly, being promised (literally), “you’ll get to think up interesting experiments to run to improve our organisation”. The left-wing firebrand in me never considered working in the financial services sector, let alone insurance (the least ‘sexy’ of the financial services). Yet I discovered insurance is a rich place for applying behavioural science. Insurance is founded on the concepts of risk and probability, requires decision-making under uncertainty and limited information, and ultimately is incentivised to make people safer (i.e. healthier, drive safety, etc.) – if only to improve the profit margins at least.

My key piece of advice for making yourself appear suitable to employers, is to: a) learn how your skills and expertise addresses their challenges in simple language; and b) explain clearly how you would go about actually doing the work. Too many behavioural scientists in interviews (not just graduates) are clearly gifted in what they do, but are unprepared to show how they would work with other people and teams to get it done.

Businesses want to know how you’d explain your role/approach to others in the business who have no idea what or why you do things in a certain way. They want to know how you’d demonstrate investing time/money/effort in something isn’t just to satisfy your ‘academic’ curiosity, but to satisfy often competing priorities of the business and people. For example, balancing business revenue, employee/customer satisfaction, etc. If you are convinced this would make a difference, how could you ‘create buy in’ for your idea? In academia we often convince others after we conduct the research, but in the private/public sectors you need to convince people before it.

What does a normal working day look like for you?

During these COVID19 times, I would want to tell you that I wake at 7am to prepare for a day in the City of London…but that is not to be. However, I do enjoy that remote working lets me have a lie-in and savour a morning coffee. I start work around 9am, logging onto Slack to greet our team and check what updates might have come through from our US team overnight.

I’ve an unusual luxury, hard earned, of having 9am-12pm most days dedicated to ‘deep working’. This is a time where people are not supposed to add meetings to my diary or distract me. During this time I work on designing experiments, or analysing data; or reviewing proposals from different parts of the business (e.g. Product teams or HR) to ensure they are addressing/changing customer/employee behaviours in the right way.

12pm-1pm, meetings will start to pop-up. I spend 2xhours a week mentoring people internally and externally (e.g. MSc students from UCL) in behavioural science. 1pm-2pm is lunchtime, or a group trip to the gym – provided by our work benefits scheme.

2pm-5.30pm is when the US ‘wakes up’. I’ll have a variety of meetings with teams from across Product, HR, and our operations teams, on the projects we are running to improve or completely redesign our services, products, or potentially our business strategy. Often this results in discrete research projects for our research (or ‘Insight’) teams, and I’ll collaborate with our Data Science/User Research teams to determine the best approach to get the right answers.

5.30 is where I’d normally ‘log off’, or jump on a Zoom call to do Yoga with some co-workers. There are times where the US offices will need some input (they are ~5 hours behind), but rarely this goes past 7pm. On Fridays, I dedicate 2 hours in the afternoon to self-directed learning, which could be upskilling in SQL/Python or reading academic journals or industry reports.

What are the best bits?

Working with a diverse group of colleagues, spanning multiple disciplines, and constantly being challenged to come up with ideas and solutions that are both a) realistic to implement but also b) based on scientific understanding and methods. It is enriching to work with designers, product managers, data scientists, user researchers, HR representatives, and senior leadership figures from the UK and the USA.

Co-creating ideas, with a team, to impact something tangible – while sticking to the core value of improving customer’s lives – that is what keeps me going. Every day is different – while writing this I’m submitting ideas on how to change both insurers and customer behaviour to be more environmentally sustainable in their choices and supply chains.

What are the biggest challenges?

Prioritisation of ‘what is important’, and being (more) reliant on others to get the work/research done. When I started my role I created a massive list of ideas and experiments – as there were hundreds of optimizations or improvements I could see through the lens of behavioural science, on both the customer and employee sides. Prioritising was hard, especially if something I believed was important wasn’t immediately clear to others. It is a skill, one I’m better at now. I also focus on more transformative pieces of work than ‘simple tweaks’ (e.g. how do create a product that improves customer decision-making; how do we create a system to improve employee wellbeing & performance?). Every week requires me to re-examine requests from teams, existing work in progress, timelines, and make decisions as to what is the most ‘valuable’ thing to work on.

A strange challenge I found was the reliance on others. As an academic, you get to be almost entirely self-reliant, self-directed, and you need to pick up nearly all the skills you need to conduct a piece of work yourself. You are the sole driver of your work, career, and success. In my role, your success is more reliant on others. If I need to access some data, I could either learn SQL and Python (which I did), or wait for our Data team to get what I needed. If I want to launch an RCT on our websites, I need to work with Product Teams and software engineers to both convince them it’s worthwhile and actually make it happen. You learn the invaluable ‘soft-skills’ of how to explain to others why your ideas are important, valuable, and can help them reach their goals etc. If Robert Cialdini was reading, he would say you learn the art of influence.

Some things can happen in days; other times it can take days, months, or even years. For example, a simple ‘presentation-order’ test on our prices has been in a ‘backlog’ for 3 years, but we designed and implemented a trial for employees around a 4-Day Working Week in a few weeks. That is reality for you!

There are positives to relying on others. More people involved means more input on what you want to do, how best to do it, and more support to get it done. We share in both success, and ‘failure’. Feeling ‘part of a team’ is something academia really fails at, while in good workplaces it is key to success.

Is a PhD essential? 

I get asked this question about once a week by graduates and those already in the workplace looking to ‘upskill’ into a pure behavioural science role. So I’ll disappoint you like I do them: it depends!

A PhD is a great signal to prospective employers about all the right things a PhD gives you: critical thinking and the ability to research, absorb and communicate information quickly and simply. If you do a science-based PhD, chances are you have learned how to think about the world and construct testable hypotheses to go (dis)prove, and some data analytical skills. You also are self-motivated and self-directed, with a deep understanding of a subject area. In short, you’ve proven you can excel given time, resources, and a clear goal. What employer wouldn’t love that?

Yet, a lot of people who have similar (and better!) roles to me hold an MSc, not a PhD. Some do not personally carry out data analysis/experimental research, but instead coordinate teams of behavioural scientists who have more research-driven roles. Some are more consultancy-based, versus data-analytical. What nearly all these have in common is ‘relevant experience’ – which is a silly industry term for having worked in a job that isn’t academia for a period of time.

For me, I use the critical thinking and communication skills I learned in my PhD to show the logic to my ideas and create ‘buy-in’; the experimental design skills to design/help teams build their tests the right way to measure the right thing; and sometimes my data skills to get/analyse/build models with our own data. And finally, PhDs are amazing at reading giant swathes of information, digesting, critiquing, summarizing, and generating recommendations in a clear manner (think of all those Introduction sections you’ve done). I turn around ‘rapid reviews’ on research or reports at a pace that baffles some of my colleagues – but any PhD can do it.

What’s the progression like?

The industry has completely changed in the last 5 years, and is continuing to evolve. In 2014 there were a handful of behavioural science units/teams/companies in the world, and graduates struggled to find a job opening. In 2017 there were over 202 behavioural science units in public-policy globally. In 2020, there are estimated to be over 650 teams globally, across various sectors. Roles are diversifying, like: ‘behavioural designers’, ‘behavioural scientists’, ‘behavioural marketers’, etc.

Until about 2016 there were no real careers to progress in, no different ‘career-levels’ of behavioural scientists. Now, in the public sector for example, you have Directors of Behavioural Science (such as Dr Laura de Moliere at the Cabinet Office), and Senior/Junior Behavioural Insights Associates. There are Chief Behavioural Officers in various industries (e.g. financial services, marketing, HR, consultancy), who coordinate a mix of insights and/or behavioural science teams. There are more ‘Head of Behaviour Science’ positions being created every day, indicating more roles are forming under them.

Progression at the junior/senior associate levels can be relatively quick, industry dependent, and easier if the team(s) are more established. This is where having a PhD might actually be a benefit, as they tend to accelerate up the career ladder faster and level out when reaching management level.

Personally, I am looking to move into a ‘Head of’ position, and managing a full behavioural science unit. Our parent company in the US is looking to hire behavioural scientists to work at all levels, so I hope to help them build their team there.

I would love to be a Chief Behavioural Science Officer someday, but I think there is a long way to go before the position is common in companies. A CBO role reflects companies’ acceptance of data-driven experimentation and the use of scientific knowledge to understand and change behaviour; or at least the aim to get there. We are still in a world where experimentation is scary for most, so it’s easier to do something without making sure it works. Other companies think they do experimentation well, but often have a highly fragmented approach to doing it well: one team could be off using AI to predict the best people to hire, while another team is struggling to understand why sample size matters.

What are your top tips for our researchers?

Reach out to people through your networks, or on LinkedIn. People like me love to help aspiring behavioural scientists, and we are all finding our way in this new field together. Offer them a coffee (classic persuasion psychology here) if Lockdown is lifted. Ask if you could shadow them, or if you could do a more formalised internship (even if for a few hours a week). Or if they’ve got any bits of work you could support pro bono (you might find they’ll try to reward you somehow).

You should try to get experience of conducting a project for a non-academic organisation as soon as possible. This doesn’t have to be an experiment – you can easily find organisations who are looking for a literature review and recommendations, which is something most MSc students and PhDs can do in a matter of weeks. The key bit here is recommendations, something that is actionable.

Organisations appreciate the in-depth material to refer to, and often expect it (typically because they want to show what they are paying for), but they really just want to know what they are actually supposed to be doing with it. If you always force yourself to think of providing recommendations, you’ll naturally start thinking about the company, the context of the research, what is the most important/least important thing you’ve found that is relevant to them. If you do this, you’ll be 90% of the way there on the skills you’ll need in any organisation – and you’ll be able to build a portfolio of examples where you’ve applied academic research to practical real-world issues.

Feel free to reach out to me on LinkedIn, I’m happy to talk to people and I offer the odd mentorship to help people in early-stage careers or those considering moves (so far, all have been successful).

Welcome to you, our new ‘prac-ademic’!

Figure: UK PhD destinations 3.5 years after graduation, taken from Dr Sally Hancock’s Hepi blog.

If you’re a UCL PhD student or member of research staff I’m sure you know lots of PhD graduates. At UCL you’re surrounded by them. So of course you know what PhDs do after they graduate, right? Well, not necessarily. Because if your sample consists largely of academic colleagues, it will be heavily skewed towards PhDs who’ve stayed within academia.

Most PhDs we work with at UCL Careers are aware there are options beyond academia, but they often feel the ‘normal’, the ‘expected’, or the ‘logical’ path is to carry on in academic research. But again and again, the stats show us this is far from normal.

A recent look at the career outcomes of PhD graduates comes from the work of Dr Sally Hancock, a Lecturer at the University of York. She investigated what 5,000 UK PhDs who graduated in 2008/9 and 2010/11 were doing 3.5 years after graduation. And as her graph above shows, 70% had already left academic research. Yes, that’s right – the majority of PhDs had left academia only a couple of years after graduating.

We can assume that of those 29.9% of PhDs in Dr Hancock’s sample who were still within academia 3.5 years after graduation (68.4% said they were university researchers, and 31.6% were Higher education Teaching Professionals) many will be on temporary post-doctoral researcher or teaching fellow contracts. And we know from previous studies, like the Royal Society’s 2010 look at STEM PhD destinations, that it’s likely not all of them will still be within academia in another few years.

So what does all this mean for you? Well, if you want to progress within academia you shouldn’t assume it will happen automatically. Get strategic, build networks, and take tips from those who are already succeeding. Look especially for advice amongst your contemporaries, as more progressed academics will have graduated into a very different academic environment. The graph below, taken from Schillebeeckx et al’s 2014 Nature Biotechnology article looking at data from the US, demonstrates just how much things have changed. It shows that over the past few decades, the number of PhDs awarded has risen at a far faster rate than the number of permanent academic jobs available, increasing the amount of competition for said jobs.

Figure taken from Schillebeeckx et al’s 2014 Nature Biotechnology article analysing data from the US.

And if you’re considering leaving academia? Well, go easy on yourself, because moving on to something new is the norm, not the exception. If it still doesn’t feel that way, seek out the stories and company of people who’ve already made the move. We’ve interviewed a few of them for you in our career case studies of PhD grads, and you can use platforms like the UCL alumni mentoring network or LinkedIn to find more.

And whether you’re considering staying or leaving, the UCL Careers Researcher Programme is here to help. You can access one-to-one appointments and our workshop schedule covering academic and non-academic employability skills, as well as job vacancies targeted at researchers, through MyUCLCareers, and you can read more details about our offering on our website. We are currently delivering our programme online, so please check out our summer schedule of webinars and online employer events here.

You can read Dr Sally Hancock’s full article here.

 

Do you want to use your scientific knowledge and interest in business to help commercialise new discoveries? Well, you really should have come to our Biology and Business event on Monday night, shouldn’t you? Don’t worry though, if you couldn’t make it along, we’ve collected together the key take-home points below.

Who were the speakers?

Matt Aldridge, a trainee patent attorney at Kilburn & Strode LLP, where he works at the interface between science and law. Matt has a biochemistry degree from UCL, and an MSc in cellular therapy from bench to market from KCL. Matt spent a year working in a lab-based role before moving into patent law.

John Cassidy, an investment associate at Arix Bioscience, a Biotech-focused venture capital group based in London and New York. John has a neuroscience PhD from UCL, and experience in life science consulting.

Mikhaila Chowdhury, a brand manager at GSK consumer healthcare, where she focuses on digital marketing across oral care and wellness products. Mikhaila has a clinical background in dentistry, completing vocational training at UCL’s Eastman dental institute. After leaving dentistry, she studied a masters in international health management at Imperial, then went through the Future Leaders Program at GSK.

Ismael Gauci, a senior consultant at Deloitte, where he helps clients solve problems across R&D and clinical operations. Ismael has a PhD in cardiovascular science, and before joining Deloitte, he worked at Deallus, a smaller life-science-focused consultancy.

Rachel Greig, a medical science liaison at Incyte, a biotech company, where she focuses on the clinical development of treatments in haematology and oncology. Rachel has a PhD in immunology, and experience in policy work in the charity sector, and in public affairs at the pharmaceutical company Lilly.

And Ella Nuttall, a manager in KPMG’s healthcare and life sciences division. Ella took up an internship at the Wellcome Trust during her Psychology undergraduate, then after completing her MSc in health psychology at UCL, she worked as a health psychology specialist for Lucid, a medical communications agency, before joining KPMG.

What do people like about combining life science with business?

The panel all agreed that the best things include working at the cutting-edge of science, and having access to people who are leaders in their field. For instance, Ella mentioned recent trips she’d taken across the world – notably to Japan – to speak with scientific experts to inform her consultancy.

Some pros were particular to certain sectors. Matt enjoys playing with language and arguing a point, and his role in trying to prove a new invention is original allows him to do that. Mikhaila enjoys the creativity involved in her marketing role. Rachel enjoys the variety that her role brings, as she finds herself visiting different hospitals and interacting with different experts each day. And Ismael and Ella both enjoy the problem solving aspect of consultancy.

Panellists also spoke about the added dimension of having to think commercially, not only scientifically, as appealing to them. Mikhaila and Rachel see the movement between roles and divisions that is possible within large pharmaceutical companies as a benefit – once you get in, you can try new things.

What are the downsides?

The downsides varied depending on the role. The working hours were mentioned as a potential downside of consultancy by Ismael and Ella, and John also commented on this from his past consultancy experience. Ella emphasised that considering what work-life balance means to you is important, but she and Ismael both enjoy the exciting projects they work on, which keep them engaged during potentially long hours.

Something John misses from consultancy is the teamwork and the structured development. Venture capital involves a lot more independence and lone working, and individuals must take more responsibility for their own development, which can be a challenge.

As a Medical Science Liaison, Rachel enjoys her frequent travel to different hospitals, however, she is London based, and so her travel is often simply a normal London commute. She noted that colleagues based outside of London who cover wide territories may spend hours in the car to visit hospital sites, which suits some people, but not everyone.

Matt is early in his training as patent lawyer, but he mentioned encountering more resistance to patent applications than he expected. When you’ve argued a case and it gets rejected, that’s a low point of the role.

Will my PhD help me get in?

Three of our speakers had a PhD, and one speaker was a qualified dentist. So if you have a PhD or MD in the life science industry, clearly you won’t be the odd one out.

The general consensus from the panel was it’s not worth doing a PhD just to get into the Life Science industry. But if you already have one, PhDs were mentioned as advantageous in patent law and biotech venture capital especially, to the point where some organisations may demand them. John certainly thought that many employers who understand what a PhD involves will appreciate the transferable skills PhD graduates bring to roles.

Should I get a business qualification?

The panel agreed that if you want to take a business qualification for your own benefit – so you can decide if you enjoy business, or so you can feel more confident in interviews – then go for it. Matt enjoyed his science and business MSc, which he applied for through genuine interest. However, the panel all felt that most employers think it’s easier to teach a scientist the principles of business than the other way around, and so your science knowledge and experience is likely to be more valuable than a business qualification.

So what can I do to enhance my chances of getting in?

• Accept that confusion and rejection are normal, and keep trying. Every speaker shared stories of being confused about what direction to take, and then of being rejected once they’d decided on a direction. These are completely normal parts of everyone’s careers, and the panel encouraged everyone to keep ploughing onwards. 

• Sometimes you need to take a job you don’t want to get to the job you do want. Sometimes rejection indicates there’s a gap in your experience that needs to be filled. So just as Matt worked for a year in a lab to gain hands-on science experience so he could get into patent law, and just as Rachel worked in public affairs to gain pharma experience so she could transition into a medical science liaison role, sometimes you may have to take a role you don’t particularly want in the short term, so that you can achieve your longer term goals. John too mentioned that it wouldn’t generally be possible to enter venture capital directly from science, as some prior business experience – perhaps in consultancy – would also be expected. And Ella mentioned that if you find it hard to get into larger consultancies, or if you don’t want to enter at the graduate level, gaining other work experience first – like her experience in a medical communications company, and Ismael’s experience at a smaller consultancy – will help.

• Get networking! Our speakers provided examples of just how crucial networking can be, as Ella found her first post-MSc job through speaking to an academic, and Rachel found her way into pharma through a contact she met at a conference. So attend relevant events, chat to people, and reach out to professionals on LinkedIn.

Check out the other events forming part of Careers in the Life Science Industry Week here.

9^th-12^th March 2020

From the 9^th March we’re hosting a week of daytime and evening events to help you explore careers in the Life Sciences. Here’s a rundown of the week and how it can help you.

What is the Life Science Industry?

The Life Science Industry encompasses anything that aligns with Life Sciences. So a huge range of opportunities fall under this umbrella, including roles in drug development, patenting, marketing, and selling new therapies, or communicating the latest developments in bioscience to policymakers, clinicians, and the public. We’ll kick off the week with a session at 12.30pm on Monday 9th March from CK Science, a science-focused recruitment agency, who will provide an overview of the Life Science Sector, and share the kinds of roles they help companies recruit for, including roles for undergraduates, masters grads, and PhD-holders.

Can I stay in the lab?

Yep! If you’ve enjoyed your laboratory experiences so far, come along to our “Roles in the lab” event at 6-8pm on Tuesday 10^th March to hear from a panel of speakers who’ve built careers in labs within commercial companies and the public/university sector. In all of our panel events, speakers will describe their roles, share their career journeys so far, and offer top tips for progressing in similar careers. There will also be an opportunity to ask your own questions of the panel too.

Can I work with data?

Certainly! If it’s the increasingly large datasets emerging from the lab that interest you, join us at 6.30-8.00pm on Thursday 12^th March for our “Data Science Careers” panel, where speakers from private, government, and university settings will talk about their roles, and offer tips on how to enter the field.

Can I work in the Life Science Sector, but leave the “doing science” bit to someone else?

You sure can! And we have four – yes, four! – events to show you possible ways to do it.

At 6-8pm on Monday 9^th March we have our “Biology and Business” panel, where speakers will share how they use their scientific knowledge in a commercial context. You’ll hear from professionals working across life science consultancy, patent law, biotech investments, and on the business side of big pharmaceutical companies.

At 3-5pm on Wednesday 11^th March we’re hosting a Strategy Consultancy Experiential Case Study Session, where Cambridge Healthcare Research will give you the chance to try out a consulting case study that reflects their daily work, and will be similar to the type of case you’ll face in the consulting application process.

At 6-8pm on Wednesday 11^th March we’re running a “Life Science Communication and Policy Careers” panel, where you can hear from professionals communicating new scientific developments to a range of audiences, including policy makers and the public.

And at 12pm on Thursday 12^th March a representative from the European Medical Writing Association will run an interactive workshop, providing a taste of life as a Medical Writer, and offering tips for improving your writing.

For another look at the full week’s schedule, visit the Careers in the Life Science Industry Week page.

Dr Robyn Parker has a PhD in Medieval History and now has two job titles! She works at UCL as a Public Policy Manager and as a Centre for Doctoral Training Manager. She took time out from her two jobs to have a word with us about her career.

Tell us what you’re up to now

My time is split between two roles. As Public Policy Manager I’m responsible for a year-long project based within the Bartlett Faculty Office 3 days a week, to create an engagement programme that amplifies and deepens the policy work of Bartlett academics. My other role for 2 days a week, which I was previously working in full-time, is managing a Centre for Doctoral Training (CDT) in heritage science. When I first started the split allocation I tried to demarcate the two roles cleanly into separate days, but that just doesn’t work! Now I split time more flexibly between them over the entire week.

How did you get from your PhD to here?

Very circuitously and unexpectedly. When I was doing my PhD I only wanted to be an academic. My supervisor went on maternity leave in my final year, so I applied to cover her teaching. I’d taught all her courses already so I thought I’d at least get an interview. I didn’t, and I wasn’t sure what I’d done wrong and it really knocked my confidence. Looking back I can see I’d written a pretty rubbish application! At the time I didn’t fully understand the value of networking and publishing, so just concentrated on producing a really brilliant PhD.

After I finished I moved home and was pretty burnt out emotionally and stressed because of money, so money came first over academia. Off the back of teaching and student engagement I’d done during my PhD, I got my first role at Chevening, an international scholarship programme funded by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Making the move to a non-academic job was hard; I’d had this vision of being an academic and my future seemed tied up with that. I had planned to write post-doc applications and publish on the side but I wasn’t making an effort to do this on top of a full time job…

Six months into the job my mum took her own life and everything came to a head. I really needed a change of environment and since I was still considering academia I moved to UCL Laws doing PhD administration to be in a university setting. It was one of those jobs where you get there and think “What have I done? This isn’t advancing my career at all”. In hindsight it was exactly what I needed – a very supportive environment where I focused on both my own mental health and the mental health support and initiatives for PhD students.

During that time I had this slow rebuilding of who I felt I was, and what makes me happy and I realised academia might not be part of that anymore – it didn’t feel as important. My time outside of work has become super precious to me as has time with family and friends which I probably didn’t prioritise enough when I was doing my PhD, it was very all consuming for me.

After time and bereavement counselling, it’s been easier to think about my career and what it might be outside of academia. I got a secondment at UCL to manage a Centre for Doctoral Training in heritage science which I thought looked interesting and I was made permanent after the secondment finished. It was jumping in at the deep end to some complex financial and project management, and a steep learning curve!

After a couple of years I’d done a lot in the role to make it run smoothly, things were ticking over and I was wanting to do something less admin heavy. I went for the Public Policy Manager role because it was a lot of the project management skills I’d been using and I knew people involved with the project. I’m interested in making the world more just and fair, and that’s what people in the Built Environment are also trying to do. It’s been eye-opening because I didn’t do much knowledge transfer during my PhD so being part of the Built Environment has opened me up to a whole different way of being an academic.

What does a normal day look like?

CDT Manager: mostly it’s fire-fighting and establishing what needs dealing with urgently. Queries can be students asking about money, finance asking about transfers between accounts, contracts asking about signatures, social media posts to schedule etc. There can also be student support questions or dealing with management issues. A lot of balancing spinning plates.

Public Policy Project Manager: this role is all about strategy. Today we’re planning our launch event on tackling inequalities through our policy work. So I’ve been researching government areas of interest in terms of inequality and exploring what academics in the faculty have done regarding inequality, and considering how to bring these together to form event themes. There’s a lot of planning and strategic oversight and meeting the board members for interviews to see how they’re characterising the approach of their departments towards policy.

What are the best bits?

Public Policy: I love talking to people and finding out what they’re doing. I also like jigsaws; being a historian is about taking all the pieces of evidence and slotting them together so they make one picture someone might not have seen before, because of the particular way you’ve put them together. That’s what I’m doing with the public policy role, I’m meeting people individually across the department and the wider university – every little tendril that deals with policy – then combining it into one image of how we can approach this particular issue. I find that very rewarding.

CDT Manager: the best bit is working with students and running events. It’s fantastic to watch events you’ve organised work, and to chat to people and see they appreciate the effort you’ve put in. It’s also nice to know the PhDs think of me as their support contact.

So overall I suppose the best bits for me often seem to involve working with people.

What are the challenges?

Juggling two quite different jobs at once is pretty challenging! But individually:

CDT Manager: financial management. Our centre grant is about £6million, which isn’t the biggest, but it’s a very complex grant. You have to be very detail-oriented, and that’s not my natural orientation, so I have to get myself into a certain mindset in order to work like that. Saying that, my own financial management has vastly improved as a result of this experience.

Public Policy: My role is new and doesn’t really have equivalents across UCL, so I can feel out on limb sometimes and creating something more or less from scratch is really satisfying but can be quite draining.

Is having a PhD useful for your roles?

A PhD isn’t necessary for either of my roles. But a lot of people who work in policy across the university do have PhDs. I think it adds something that you understand the research process. I often use skills I developed in my PhD, such as quickly pulling evidence together to see the whole picture. Also writing skills and narrative creation – which is what I was studying during my PhD – because to engage and persuade policy makers at a higher level you need a compelling narrative.

For the CDT role having a PhD helps me build empathy with the students more quickly and easily than if I didn’t have a PhD. There’s an acknowledgement I know the experience, especially with the mental health work I did in Laws. That’s not to say that you can’t be fantastic at the job without a PhD, and many people are, but I think mine helps me in that way.

Where does one go from here?

I’m not sure to be honest! I’m still exploring what I enjoy. Through my policy work I’ve realised I’m really interested in how the university interacts with those outside of it. I enjoy creating conversations between people so something that combines these – policy, stakeholder management, something like that. Mainly I want to be part of something that makes a difference.

Top tips

First of all learn how to write applications and talk to people! I’ve got jobs because I’ve spoken to the people advertising the roles beforehand. It gives you a better idea of what they want from the job, whether it’s right for you, and you can put that knowledge into making a better application and giving a better interview performance. Nearly everyone is willing to help.

Don’t get too sad when things don’t go the way you want, or you end up in a position you think isn’t right for you, because you can always get something from every situation, and nothing is permanent.

Make the most of your current situation and what you can get involved with now. Some of my most rewarding moments at UCL have involved people I’ve met when I’ve gone and done stuff. Getting involved (while being mindful of your mental capacity for things) makes your work experience more enjoyable, and there needs to be a recognition that networking and relationship building isn’t only this ambitious thing that helps your career, for most people it actually also makes your life more enjoyable!

www.simoncallaghanphotography.com

Dr Rochelle Rowe-Wiseman has a PhD in Gender and Cultural History and is now Academic Development Lead in UCL HR. Rochelle likes to help you all develop – it’s her job! – so she kindly shared her career story with us.

What are you up to now?

As Academic Development Lead in UCL’s Organisational Development team, I am concerned with identifying and addressing gaps in support structures impacting the development and experiences of researchers, at all levels – from postgraduate research students to senior academic leaders. Like a consultant, I explore the issues that affect the experience of researchers and the environment we create for them, the research culture. I also sometimes get to do academic research again – mostly in my spare time.

Talk us through your career journey

My doctoral research produced a feminist history of beauty in the Caribbean and African diaspora which I eventually published as a monograph. One idea I dabbled in career-wise is museums and I worked for an oral history charity when I first graduated from my BA.  When I didn’t yet know I’d secured PhD funding, I was due to embark on a museum traineeship. Then fortunately I received funding which allowed me to concentrate fully on the PhD. I was keen to keep both avenues open, but it didn’t seem possible, the PhD required my full attention.

Coming up to the end of my PhD I didn’t know whether to stay or leave academia. I’m now far more aware than I was then of some of the barriers women of colour face in higher education, and at that moment there was such a scarcity of role models – especially in the arts and humanities. I don’t know if that influenced my ultimate decision to leave, but I was certainly aware of it. I felt I had a dilemma. I loved elements of academia and I’ve always had a love affair with history and writing, and yet the career of an academic didn’t look appealing.

So my first few steps were more cultural sector jobs. I worked in the cultural department of a local authority organising black history month, and I taught History at undergraduate level. Then I got a learning and development job, organising and running training sessions within a university. I was doing this alongside teaching and I found the L&D job preferable to the heavy weight of teaching I was given, with too much marking and too many seminars. The temporary 6-month L&D job became a permanent job offer, but I turned it down, instead moving to Berlin where I fulfilled a book contract to write up my thesis. It no doubt sounds more glamourous than it was…but it was actually quite lovely. Alongside working on the book I took on freelance work as a proofreader, and I went to German language classes. I’d been quite isolated as a PhD student so it was wonderful to make new friends, speak German and develop an identity in such a special place as Berlin, at the time. On reflection it was something of a career break, although I remained busy with multiple projects.

When I was nearing the two-year-mark in Berlin, I started to think about my career more seriously, and I was starting to miss the part of my identity that was fully capable! I loved speaking German, but I wasn’t able to be my full native-speaking self yet. I’d also had some advice from an ex L&D colleague who advised that after two years the gap on my CV might become harder to explain. So I saw a job in the UK and went for it – Researcher Development at Exeter university. At Exeter I ran lots of workshops and absolutely loved interacting with and collaborating with research students to develop a stronger programme for them. I was there for over eighteen months, and if the social side in the city had been what I was after I would have stayed, but Exeter is pretty quiet for someone who grew up in London. Ha! So I took a slight sideways step into Equality and Diversity work in higher education. Whilst I learned a lot, I found the role slightly limiting, and though I expanded it in some ways, after a year I gave myself permission to look for other roles. That’s when I joined UCL as the Doctoral Skills Development Manager, managing the huge programme of training offered to PhD students, which allowed me to draw on all of my past experience. The role was great, and also from a personal perspective being so centrally located in a large institution suited me more, and made a huge difference to my overall satisfaction levels. I was in that role for two years. Then a new Director proposed a re-shape of the entire Organisational Development team. In the restructure I decided to apply for a promotion to the job I’m currently in – Academic Development Lead, a move away from operational oversight of a large programme and towards finding innovative solutions supporting researchers.

I’ve also, perhaps surprisingly even to me, kept up some research and writing. Since leaving academia I’ve given talks here and there about my research. I have also occasionally been invited to write something. Usually I haven’t had time or it hasn’t been the right project. But recently I was approached to contribute to a really fantastic-sounding book and I felt much more established in my main day job, so I said yes! And it’s been a struggle but really life-affirming. Writing gives me such joy! I certainly want to write more, and to reach new audiences.

What does the new role look like on an average day?

It’s very project led. I’m interested in developing more inclusive research cultures, including in doctoral education, I lead a working group for the UK Council of Graduate Education that aims to improve our understanding of this area, and what’s possible. In that vein, recently I spoke at the Black in Academia lecture series to encourage prospective black research students into research and knowledge-based careers. My talk will be available as a podcast.

I am also working on a project to explore what hinders principal investigators and what development opportunities and support services they need; another to encourage and make provision for early stage researchers to dedicate more of their time to skills development and to track this skills development. Another big project is Postdoc Appreciation Week, an annual festival to celebrate and nurture early stage researchers at UCL: as well as saying a big thank you to them for their contribution to research and discovery, we are creating opportunities for researchers to influence positive change in their environment and focus on their professional development. My aim for next year’s festival is to introduce more co-creation and ensure – as far as possible – no barriers to participation, so for instance providing more help with childcare and encouraging leaders to release their staff from projects so they can participate.

What are the best bits?

I’ve enjoyed staying within the university environment. I love to be surrounding by brilliant thinkers and contributing my piece to solving problems, I’m just doing it in a different way now. UCL is a great place to expand beyond the apparent limits of your role, and become recognised for your expertise, including in professional services areas. I like the creativity inherent in the UCL environment. And I like that I’m still using my research skills: going out and establishing what the problem is, then working collaboratively towards delivering a solution. I like that the projects are contained and defined, so once something is done I can move on to the next thing – again, as would a more conventional consultant. I get a lot of satisfaction from helping and developing people. I also enjoy developing and leading others within a team setting.

The best bits of my day are meeting and collaborating with people across the university, dreaming up and then realising ideas, leading events, inspiring others, giving the occasional talk and polishing things off, reports, papers etc.

And the worst bits?

Working in a really huge airless open plan office isn’t my favourite thing! But we do have flexible working so if we really want to get our heads down and concentrate on something quietly we can work from home or off-site.

Is a PhD essential?

In recent roles it hasn’t been exactly essential, but certainly desirable (on the person specification) and an asset. I have gravitated towards roles where a PhD has been a recognised benefit. And in cases where the job/employer hasn’t required a PhD grad, I nonetheless beat the drum of all the great things they’re getting because I’ve had that doctoral research experience. So it’s been an asset, in terms of ways of seeing, ways of approaching problems, and in this role in terms of building empathy with researchers.

What’s the progression like?

Increasingly I believe Researcher Development is a recognised area of expertise within a plethora of careers for Higher Education Professionals.  Certainly at UCL there are many educators and developers situated around the university with a range of valuable experience and expertise. People in Researcher Development may move into wider Learning and Development roles in literally any organisation, whatever the mission of that organisation. They might also choose to rise through the ranks of Doctoral Training or indeed senior leadership in Higher Education.

Top tips?

It may be an obvious thing for me to say, but nevertheless true: people don’t realise the transferable skills they’re acquiring in academic practice: in research, teaching, admin, project management, leadership, problem solving, public engagement. And after seeing a huge project like a PhD through, the sense of responsibility and commitment you’ll have, which you can bring to everything you do, is invaluable to employers. Really recognise the wealth of diverse skills you’ve likely accrued. For example, if you’ve done a tiny bit of budget management by organising a conference, you need to value and sell that skill. Because that little bit of experience will set you up for any role that requires you to do more of the same, and once you’ve had a taste of something you can scale that experience up. Also PhDs can be excellent at taking calculated risks. Having known nothing at the start of your PhD and just got on with it, you’re likely to throw your hat in the ring for lots of things that might worry others!

Also, I hear a lot about having the awful sensation that you’re breaking up with academia. But it’s important to remember that if you like the university environment, there are great ‘alternative’ careers you can forge within a university. It takes a lot to create a thriving university environment and there are many different roles you can play.