Don’t miss our Academic Careers in the USA Event – 5pm Monday 20th May

By uczjsdd, on 14 May 2019

We often get asked (by you) about getting into academia in the US, so we’re shipping in a real expert to give you the lowdown. After spending 15 years as a tenured professor, department head, and university advisor, Karen is now an academic careers coach. Join us at the below event to get the benefit of her advice! Sign up via the links below.

‘Hacking the Job Market’: Academic Careers in USA

Lucas Lecture Theatre Strand Building KCL

Mon 20 May 2019, 5:00 PM to 7:00 PM

Sign up here: https://uclcareers.targetconnect.net/leap/event.html?id=3273&service=Careers+Service

Dr Karen Kelsky, author of The Professor is in will speak about the current American academic job market and offer tips for getting on to the much coveted tenure track. The event will begin with an interactive session by Kellee Weinhold (strategic communications and academic productivity coach for the Professor is In).

5.00pm- 6.00pm – Acing academic interviews

Kellee will move through standard interview questions, explaining common errors and weaknesses and providing examples of effective answers with attention to brevity, spin, word choice, tone, body language, and more in an interactive session

6.00pm-7.30pm – The US job market and how to hack it

Karen will walk you through the conditions of the current American job market, the most common mistakes made by job-seekers, and the ways you can maximize your chances of success while looking for a tenure-track job in a lecture style session.

Karen will cover:

-The big-picture conditions of the U.S. tenure track job market

-How to think like a search committee

-The four core qualities of a successful tenure track job candidate

-The all-important 5-Year Plan

-The ethos of job market documents

-The most common mistakes made by job seekers

-The three keys to academic interviewing

-The non-academic option

Karen also examines the pervasive intangible pitfalls that can bedevil job documents and interviewing, including narcissism, excessive humility, and hyper-emotionalism. You’ll leave with a broad understanding of the real (as opposed to fantasy) criteria of tenure track hiring, and how to tailor your record and application materials to maximize your chances of success. Finally, she will also touch on the current political situation and outlooks for US academia.

Sign up here: https://uclcareers.targetconnect.net/leap/event.html?id=3273&service=Careers+Service

Don’t miss our Arts and Cultural Heritage event for researchers!

By uczjsdd, on 7 May 2019

Here are the details of a not-to-be-missed event just for PhDs and Research Staff:

Title: UCL Careers Employer-led Forum: Careers in Arts & Cultural Heritage

Date: Thursday 23rd May 2019

Time:  6pm–7.30pm

Location: Seminar Room, UCL Careers, 4th Floor, Student Central, Malet Street, London

Overview:

The aim of this event is to help PhD students and other researchers with their career planning by providing an opportunity to hear from, and network with, employers from the Arts & Cultural Heritage sectors who are PhD holders themselves.

Our guest speakers, from Historic Royal Palaces, British Museum and Battersea Arts Centre, will offer tips on how researchers can use their qualifications and experiences to enter this field, as well as giving information about their sector.

Participating in this event will enable you to:

• Gain awareness of career options for researchers in the Arts and Cultural Heritage sectors
• Engage with professionals from within these sectors with Q&A and informal networking
• Understand how to use your qualifications and experience to your advantage in this field

This event is open to all research students and research staff with an interest in this area.

Speaker information:

Dr Meg Peterson: Project Manager for Research & Partnerships at Battersea Arts Centre

Meg Peterson, Ph.D. is the Founder of 21 Artists, a company focused on fostering, documenting and evaluating art and social change through artist development, social impact evaluation and consultancy. Meg is also the Project Manager for Research & Partnerships at Battersea Arts Centre, working to foster learning and collaboration through exchange programmes, research projects, courses, workshops and seminars with universities and other institutions along with designing and managing the social impact evaluation for various social change programmes. She has just completed her degree at the University of Exeter’s Business School researching cultural entrepreneurship, combining business model innovation with social entrepreneurship and cultural policy to develop a new model for innovative value creation in the creative industries. Meg also works as a practising illustrator, painter and photographer to augment the work she does as a curator, evaluator and academic.

Dr Helen Anderson: Project Curator, British Museum

Helen Anderson has a background in Archaeology, Anthropology and Art History from the University of East Anglia, gaining her doctorate in art and neuroscience in 2010. Following her PhD she worked as a Research Officer at the Rock Art Research Institute at the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg before taking up a post at the British Museum working on a four year digital humanities project in African Rock Art. She is currently working as a Project Curator in the Africa department at the British Museum with a focus on the early photographic archives from West Africa.

Dr Constantina Vlachou-Mogire: ACR Conservation Science Manager for Historic Royal Palaces

Constantina worked for 10 years in Greece in object conservation before moving to the UK to do a PhD at University of Bradford, focusing on the production of late Roman coins using analytical and experimental archaeology techniques. In her current role as Conservation Science Manager for Historic Royal Palaces Constantina is responsible for the planning and execution of research projects informing the preservation of the diverse objects and interiors of the Palaces. This is primarily a cross disciplinary work involving bringing arts and science together and collaborating with colleagues from different departments within the organisation or external partners such as UCL. Constantina is also a Trustee of the National Heritage Science Forum and since 2010 has been member of the BSI Committee B/560 Conservation of Tangible Cultural Heritage.

Booking information for Research Staff

Bookings for this event must be made using the myUCLCareers booking system – you will not be able to book via DocSkills.

Book via myUCLCareers

Booking information for Research Students

You can book through the DocSkills Employer-led careers events page

Book via DocSkill

How can you use your research skills in Academic Publishing?

By uczjsdd, on 1 February 2019

Anouska Bharath is completing a PhD in Mechanical Engineering and is now a Market Intelligence Research Analyst at Springer Nature. Here she kindly shares her career journey, and some useful tips she’s picked up along the way.

Tell us about your current role and organisation.

My role at Springer Nature is not what I assumed before joining the firm actually. Being in academia for some time, and especially in research, my view of this industry was much like that of a fan-girl! I was in awe of the glamorous and intelligent work that scientific editors and analysts do in big publishers, and my academic career fed increasingly into this vision. Having started as a research analyst, I couldn’t progress to an editor’s role until my PhD was complete (and this is still in completion stage). As my first year passed however, I realised that my analyst role in scientific research is actually exactly what I love! Dealing with data, finding trends, and ultimately discovering stories that really propel our position as a global research hub.

How did you move from academia to your current role?

I love the academic environment, and furthermore I love the journey that I had from my BSc in Statistics to my (almost) PhD in Engineering. Academia is an industry that you really cannot describe to others who haven’t themselves experienced it. It’s a rollercoaster of emotions and you constantly question how “good” you are at what you do every day. It definitely built me to withstand those emotions when they pop up outside of work. The application process wasn’t easy, nor was it straightforward. While UCL has lots of support services for career moves, as a PhD student you really don’t have any time to put toward even thinking about life after thesis submission! Well I didn’t anyway. I decided that I needed to experience something other than academia however, as it just felt healthier to branch out into one of my “passions” for a bit. My passion has always been writing, so this company seemed ideal – mixing science with writing. The problem of course was that without my PhD complete, I was disadvantaged applying to a publishing firm like Springer Nature. Many applications, LinkedIn stalks, interviews, and cries later, I secured a role as a research analyst here. The process was gruelling, but so worth it.

What does a normal working day look like for you?

I don’t get to do much scientific writing. I focus a lot more on creating analytical reports that go out to help keep our journals in universities and hospitals. I analyse scientific papers and themes, funding streams, and big institutional users, in order to create reports and critical analyses for business strategy. A typical day would be me interacting with my sales team to figure out what strategic move to make analytically in the regions I cover, catching myself up on the latest trends in science, and keeping an eye on new data streams in scientific funding, publications, journal usage, and submissions.

What are the best things about working in your role?

I have to say the best part of being at Springer Nature is the support I get every day. Academic settings truthfully aren’t as conducive to such cohesive support; just because of the nature of your goal in academia. My team here has always been so supportive and accommodating as I transition from “student” to “analyst”. Otherwise, Springer Nature is also a very diverse platform in itself – allowing me to be a part of the “larger picture” in the research industry. As a big player in scientific research, we have a scheme called Grand Challenges whereby we target research features toward tackling the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. I recently actually set up a fruitful relationship with UCL’s Grand Challenges committee as they are also doing the same. Watch this space I guess! I love how much the company invests in employee wellbeing – it’s like being on a really cool “bridge” between university campus and industry. We actually even call it the Springer Nature campus! The amount of clubs and societies is amazing, and the initiatives taken toward personal and professional development are unmatched. There’s even a wellbeing committee (of which I am a member) that ensure we maintain interactive wellbeing schemes – like sports challenges, bake sales, on-campus movie screenings, and charity events. I feel so lucky!

What are the biggest challenges you face in your work?

The biggest challenge I faced when starting, was the added element of time pressure to my work. Being a research student, the time pressure was always from my own clock (so to speak). My deadlines impacted no one else but myself. In an environment where the deadline affects the next person in the process chain, the need to be accurate yet timely became very important – but this was new. It took a while, but I think I finally started to strike the balance! Of course the need to get up at the same time every day was also new and never became easier…. J I also had a hard time communicating in way that non-academics would understand. In fact, communication in general was never a big part of my academic journey. For me specifically, the added commitment in the evenings/weekend of my thesis write-up remains. The strain here however will not be applicable to other new starters.

Is a PhD essential for your role? What skills do you use from your PhD in your current role?

For my “role-on-paper”, a Masters would suffice. But for what my role has become, my PhD has been invaluable. From increasing my speed/capability in analysing large datasets, to just knowing the science industry – it’s been really useful. Of course, the qualification itself would help more in editing arms of the company.

What’s the progression like/where do you see yourself going from here?

The progression in this role would take me into more top-level business strategy, and probably further away from the science! PhD-telling, this will be decided once I qualify 🙂

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

Hmm tough one…there are so many things! But you know what? Learning as you go has never been more accurate for skills like these. Communication, team-work, presentation, listening….they’re all the standard “application fillers” we all used! But they mean nothing until you really have to put them into practice. If you’re looking to work in an industry like this, I would apply to Springer Nature purely because I have had such a wonderful time so far (unbiased I promise). Network yourself crazy – even just online. I remember I followed lots of Springer Nature employees, and even reached out to one who helped me prepare for the interview. Building a network was invaluable when preparing. Also be prepared to get a few rejections – I even got one from this company at first! But realise that it’s all part of the process, and it WILL make the next one even better. Good luck!

Taking a PhD into Clinical Trials

By uczjsdd, on 17 December 2018

Dr Mariam Al-Laith has a PhD in immunopharmacology from UCL, and is now a Clinical Trials Manager at King’s College London. Many PhDs speak to us about moving into clinical trials, so we asked Mariam to give us the lowdown on her role and how she got there.

Hi Mariam, what are you up to now?

I manage a large multi-site (30 hospitals in the UK, 3 in the Netherlands) CTIMP clinical trial. As part of the study we collect samples to analyse and store in a biobank, therefore the trial also involves five university labs. These labs are based in different areas of the country because the samples need to reach the lab within four hours of being taken from a patient.  Part of my role is to coordinate all of the logistics.

Walk us through your journey from PhD to your current role.

After my PhD, I was awarded a one-year Royal Society fellowship which allowed me to conduct research in France, and this was then extended by 6 months with a French fellowship.  When I came back to the UK, I was a post-doc for three years in the Department of Pharmacology at Cambridge.  After that I started a family, and at that point gave up lab research. When I returned to work less than a year after having my first child, I took up a desk job as a Research Development Officer at UCL’s Department of Oncology. The role was part-time, three days a week, which worked well for me with my new family. After another break to have my second child, I moved into a Campus Manager role at the Whittington Hospital for UCL’s Medical School. I was in this post for seven years and then I worked for a year as an Executive Researcher for UCL’s Department of Speech and Language Therapy, all part time.

When I decided to start working full time again, I decided I also wanted to move into clinical trials. It was quite tough to get into because everyone was asking for experience. I had a lot of work experience of course, of management and research, as well as finance management, but none in clinical trials directly. It might have been easier to get in as a Trial Administrator or an Assistant Clinical Trial Manager, but because I had so much experience I wanted to go in at a more senior level.  So, to upskill, I attended courses that were offered to staff at UCL about clinical trials and Good Clinical Practice (GCP). I made a lot of applications and eventually, helped by the extra courses as well as my experience in management, research, universities, and the hospital environment, I was luckily able to secure my current role. I have been in post for five years now. I joined the team from the start of the project, so I had to amend the protocol, submit the ethics and MHRA approval documents, and prepare all of the associated paperwork for running a multi-centre clinical trial.

What does an average day look like?

It’s very busy and varied, as I’m entirely responsible for all aspects of the trial management, including the finances. At the beginning of a trial there is a lot of documentation to prepare. Now as the trial is underway, I’m monitoring progress, making sure the data is clean, organising training sessions for sites to help them follow the protocol, liaising with people working on the trial, arranging for samples to be stored at the biobank, managing the trial medication and the randomisation system, documenting what is happening on the trial, writing reports for the Trial Steering Committee meetings, and managing the trial assistant and trial monitor. It’s never boring!

What are the best bits?

I like that the work is very varied. And the most rewarding part is when people come back to me and comment that the trial documents have been well written, that everything has been well run and explained, and that the sites have been well supported. People are appreciative of what I do, which feels very nice.

What are the downsides?

At times it can be overwhelming, so a good trial manager must keep calm. Sometimes people do the wrong thing over and over again, or College Finance Departments are under pressure and so they don’t process invoices for payment on time, making hospitals and other stakeholders complain because they haven’t been paid. All of that can be very frustrating, but you must keep a cool head.

Is a PhD required for this role?

It’s preferable for you to have a science background so you understand some of the terminology. A PhD is not required, but it does help you develop a range of skills, such as analytical and writing skills, writing documents, manuals, SOPs etc. – as well as a good understanding of how research works, which you need for this role. For these reasons, a PhD graduate can likely enter clinical trials work at a higher level, maybe an Assistant Trial Manager, than someone without a PhD, who may have to begin by processing samples for clinical trials in the lab.

Whether you have a PhD or not, you must be dedicated in this role, and you must have a good eye for detail. You have to be a careful reader, and be able to write very clear, logical, precise, accurate documents that people can follow. You have to submit a lot of documentation to various bodies, and the information you submit has to be accurate. A single small mistake, even just a typo, can lead to you having to revise and submit again.

Where do people tend to go if they move on from a Clinical Trials Manager role?

There are a lot of opportunities in the pharmaceutical industry, contract research organizations (CROs), university clinical departments, Clinical Trials Units, hospital Research and Development Departments etc. You could move on to a senior role, manage several trials, or manage a clinical trial unit.

What tips do you have for researchers wanting to move into Clinical Trials Management?

It’s a really good idea to learn more about clinical trials. There are loads of courses, and especially if you’re already in the university sector they should be easy to access. The first thing you should seek out is a Good Clinical Practice (GCP) session, for which you get a certificate. And ask to follow/shadow someone who is running a clinical trial. There are many people out there who are quite willing to mentor or at least have a one-off conversation to offer advice. And if you don’t feel you have enough experience yet to get in at the manager level, then try for an assistant level, or a sample processing or administrative role, and work your way up from there. You should also try to gain relevant experience while in your current role, such as project management, management of people, and finance management experience.

Festive career lessons from Home Alone

By uczjsdd, on 14 December 2018

How many times have I seen Home Alone? I couldn’t tell you for sure. But I know the number is big because it’s a blooming Christmas classic. When I first watched it I was but a stupid little child, so I thought the key themes of the film were about not taking your family for granted, good triumphing over evil, Christmas miracles etc. etc. etc. But last weekend I watched it through the wisened (wrinkly) eyes of a UCL Careers Consultant, and I was finally able to discern its true meaning. And as luck would have it, it’s actually all about careers. Below are the top three career messages I took away from this festive favourite. They contain spoilers…but come on, who hasn’t seen Home Alone?!

1. Build a brand

When Harry and Marv get their comeuppance at the hands of Kevin, they pay not only for breaking and entering the house in which they were found, but also for all the previous houses they’ve burgled. This is because they have a calling card, an MO, a brand: they are the Wet Bandits.

So ok, if you’re committing crimes, maybe a brand isn’t such a sensible idea. But when you’re looking for a job, having an MO can be very attractive to employers. It tells them who you are, and what you can contribute. So what brand are you building? If an employer googles you or peruses your LinkedIn page, what picture will they get? Is it clear enough? In your application documents and on LinkedIn, make sure you mention all of your interesting projects and achievements, and even include links to relevant work, like presentations you’ve given, code you’ve created, blogs you’ve written (hopefully about subjects that reflect your brand) etc. Then you too may be as recognisable to an employer as a Wet Bandit is to the cops.

2. Get organised

Kate and Peter McCallister seem like nice enough people with a very lovely house, but they certainly wouldn’t win the award for Best Parents Of The ‘90s. Their problem boiled down to a lack of organisation. They woke up late, took their eyes off the ball, and ended up flying to Paris without their youngest son. Oops.

Just like Kate and Peter, jobhunters often learn the hard way that it’s good to be organised. Well, not quite like Kate and Peter. They rarely inadvertently abandon their children. But instead they find themselves in a pickle when they’re called to interview for a job they have little recollection of applying for, and the job advert has now disappeared. What’s more, they’ve sent off so many applications they’re not sure exactly what they said in this particular one. They then have a decision to make: ask for the job advert to be sent over, thereby admitting their disorganised approach to the employer, or face an interview underprepared. Awkward.

So don’t learn the hard way. Learn the easy way: from this blog about Home Alone. When you’re in jobhunting mode, keep clear records – maybe even in a spreadsheet – of where you’ve applied. And save every job advert, person specification, and application, ready for when you’re called to impress in person.

3. Make time for fun – it may even help your career

Home Alone’s Kevin knows how to enjoy himself. He plays with BB guns, seesaws, and Micro Machines, and he watches gangster movies. He does these things because they’re fun, but they also turn out to be pretty handy when he has two burglars to tackle.

At UCL Careers, we may be guilty of making you think your career plans should motivate every choice you make. Actually, that’s not really how life works. Often you have to put yourself out there, do what you enjoy, and work out how that might be useful in your career later down the line. This is exactly what a UCL PhD-turned Life Sciences Consultant told us when we interviewed him a few months ago. He loves theatre, so he got involved in writing show reviews. When applying for Consultant roles, he used this as evidence of his written communication skills: he can put together accessible and persuasive writing about a show, even with the limitation that he couldn’t reveal the plot to his readers. And clearly it worked – he got the job! His advice is “Although to some degree you should cover the bases, do what you enjoy, and figure out how to tell the story in your CV along the way”. Great message….even if it was obviously nicked from Home Alone.

What’s a Medical Science Liaison and how do I become one?

By uczjsdd, on 12 November 2018

Dr Rachel Greig has a PhD in Immunology and is now a Medical Science Liaison (MSL) at Incyte, a pharmaceutical company. We know a lot of you are interested in MSL roles, so we asked Rachel to tell us all about her job and how she got there.

What are you up to now?

I’m a Medical Science Liaison at Incyte, so I build and maintain relationships with key healthcare professionals in my therapy area, which is oncology.

Walk us through your journey from PhD to your current role.

At first I loved my PhD. But after 18 months, I became disillusioned with the fact that you can be plugging away at things for a really long time and they can still not work. I also saw colleagues who were really good scientists getting knocked back for grants, and that seemed an incredibly hard path to follow without much gain. So I started to think academia wasn’t for me, but I had no idea what else was out there. I finished my PhD without a plan, and it was 2008 so the recession had hit. I decided to just try to get any job in any office, but I couldn’t get anything because there were no jobs going. It was quite a weird time for me.

I ended up getting a job temping in an office for an organisation called the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC), who regulates certain healthcare professionals such as paramedics and physiotherapists. I started off answering phones, but because I got on well with them and they could see that I was ready for more, I secured a higher level permanent role in the Education team. I was visiting universities that offered relevant healthcare courses and ensuring they were good enough to produce a professional in that field.

After a year I wanted a new challenge, so I took a job at the charity Breast Cancer Now. The job required a PhD, as I was evaluating science to help inform everything the charity said and did, including commenting to the media, giving health information to the public, or putting together political campaigns. It was very varied, I did a lot of work with the media, I met patients, and I went to events at the House of Commons for policy work. But after a few years there I wanted to try a new environment, and I focused on pharma. I’d been working alongside the pharmaceutical industry for a while, and I’d always been interested in drug access. Plus, to be frank, I was at a stage where I was interested in earning a higher salary than charities can pay, so that was factor.

I was drawn to MSL roles as they would use my PhD, are very science-focused, and need someone personable who likes being out and about talking to doctors. So I applied for lots of MSL roles within Contract Research Organisations and Pharmaceutical companies, but I kept getting turned down because I didn’t have experience as an MSL or within pharma. In the meantime I went to a meeting with the ABPI, the body that represents the UK pharma industry. There I met a woman who worked at Lilly who was running a corporate affairs project in the cancer team, which seemed like much the kind of work I had been involved with at the charity – working with different groups involved in cancer-related policy. She mentioned there would be roles coming up in her team soon and asked for my CV, and they took me on as an Oncology Public Affairs Manager. I loved that job, I worked with different charities and the ABPI, with NHS England and the Department of Health, trying to find sustainable ways to fund cancer services and medicines. I’m pretty political anyway, so I really enjoyed the role, however, policy work can be frustrating, as ultimately the government doesn’t have to listen to the campaigning of charities and companies, and can make decisions based on other political factors.

After three years I felt it was time to have a different kind of conversation, so when my Medical Director offered me the opportunity to move into the MSL role at Lilly, I took it. The MSL role is far more about scientific conversations; talking about the data behind drugs, the benefit drugs provide versus the risks; talking about research that’s needed and how doctors and researchers can help with that, and how you can offer your drugs to fund their research projects. I did that role for about a year, at which point some restructuring changes at Lilly prompted me to find a new opportunity, and led me to my current MSL role at Incyte.

What does a normal working day look like for you?

One of the good things about the MSL role is there is no normal day. Today I’m in the office organising an Investigator Meeting for a clinical study Incyte are sponsoring.  We’re hoping to have 50 or 60 investigators there so together we can share and discuss data from our study so far. Yesterday I went to a one-day conference in central London about graft-versus-host disease. Last Wednesday I was visiting a hospital in Cardiff, talking to a team working on one of our clinical studies. Last Thursday I was at another study site in Cambridge. Next week I’m going to a large cancer conference in Munich, and in preparation I’m reaching out to investigators on our clinical studies to see if they’ll be there so we can catch up. Last week I organised for one of the doctors we work with to speak at a range of hospitals in Dublin, which benefits the hospitals to hear from an expert speaker, and benefits him and us in sourcing potential collaborators for his research. Tomorrow I have a meeting at another hospital to propose an add-on to a study an investigator is already doing. So there’s always different conversations you’re having. I also need to keep on top of the literature, and there is support for that internally.

What are the best bits?

For me it’s that I’m always on the go, often out and about chatting to people. And because Incyte is a small company I get lots of opportunities to travel, so I’m abroad at least once a month. That wouldn’t necessarily happen in a large company as they have more employees doing similar jobs. I’m also constantly learning, and I’m doing a job that helps cancer patients get access to medicines.

What are the downsides?

The amount of travel would put some people off, although I personally enjoy it. Another difficult aspect is doctors are very busy people, and sometimes we need data and updates but we can’t get in touch with them. It’s not nice to feel you’re bothering people who are doing such an important job, and sometimes no matter how much you chase you just can’t get what you need, and that’s tough. There is also a lot of compliance in pharmaceutical companies, as we’re a heavily regulated industry. That’s obviously for a good reason, but it can take a while to get used to, especially if someone comes in straight from academia.

Is a PhD Essential for your role?

It depends on the company, but you usually either need a PhD or to be a doctor or nurse, because you’re talking about science at a high level with key consultants, often leaders in their fields. In terms of skills, the PhD teaches you how to manage projects, understand data, and critique studies, which are all skills I use as an MSL.

What’s the progression like?

I’m not a very good person to ask, because I’ve never planned far ahead, but rather taken opportunities as they come! But in general, some people love the role of MSL and will stay with it. Or, depending on how the particular company is structured, someone could become a Senior Medical Science Liaison, and even a Medical Director. Or people might choose to move around. One of the good things about the pharmaceutical industry is once you’re in, they provide opportunities for trying different roles, and my movement from corporate affairs to the medical team is an example of that. For me, long-term I think I’d like to try something a little more strategic, something where I may be on the road a little less eventually.

What tips would you give to researchers who want to become MSLs?

If you’re sure an MSL role is for you, then probably relax out of that! The way I got into this, along with every other MSL I’ve met (bearing in mind they’re all in the oncology therapy area), is by transitioning from a different role within pharma. Most companies want to know their MSLs understand their company and the pharma industry. Now I’m an MSL with experience, I get emails about new MSL roles almost every day – so there are a lot out there, but you just need your break to get in. If you’re sure you’d like to be an MSL, obviously still try for the MSL role, but you might want to widen the net a bit too, and focus on getting into pharma first.

In terms of getting into pharma, I had a bit of luck, but I also put myself in positions where I could capitalise on that luck. For example, I went to a pharma networking event, and within my charity I was pushing for more pharma-related work. So I’d advise doing the same. There’s an MSL conference that a lot of aspiring MSLs attend, as getting to know current MSLs can be very helpful, so you might like to attend that. You should also recognise how important relationship-building qualities are to the role. If you can work in roles within academia, the NHS, or charities where you are building relationships with doctors, you can use that evidence to sell yourself for MSL roles.

Finally, if you’re a PhD or post-doc and you’re reading this because you’re considering MSL roles and your wider options, then rest assured you’re going to be ok! I left academia not knowing what I wanted to do, and without even knowing what an MSL was, so you’re doing the right things – well done!

A PhD’s experience in Life Science Consulting

By uczjsdd, on 18 October 2018

Dr Xun Yu Choong has a PhD in Neuroscience from UCL’s Institute of Neurology and is now a Life Sciences Strategy Consultant at IQVIA. Xun had some great insights to share when we sat down and chatted about his career.

What are you up to now?

I’m an Associate Consultant working for IQVIA, which was formerly known as IMS and Quintiles before these companies merged. IQVIA as a company offers a whole range of services for the healthcare industry from R&D to commercialisation, and as part of Consulting Services we do a broad range of strategy consulting work relating to Life Sciences and Healthcare. This could relate to anything from early stage product development all the way to understanding the best way to commercialise and launch a product around the world.

How did you get here?

I realised at the end of the second year of my PhD that I didn’t want to continue in academia, for a bunch of reasons, but mainly because I wanted to try something outside basic research that may translate more immediately to impacts in the shorter term. As one of the preparations  I started going to UCL’s grad school courses, and my first role I took was actually a direct result of UCL Careers’ Focus on Management which had brought in four major employers, one of which was GSK. During the course I found out about GSK’s Business and Technology Consulting Future Leaders Programme, which was looking for people to bridge the technical and commercial needs of the business, without needing a computer science background. That appealed to me as I wanted to see different parts of the business and learn about different aspects of technology in a large healthcare company.

During my year or so in GSK I learned a lot of seemingly obvious things that as a PhD student I hadn’t learned, such as what it’s like to work in a large open-plan office, and how to reply to emails in a business setting. It might sound silly, but these are habits and states of mind that are quite different between business and academia. For instance when you’re in academia there is less distinction between what is work and what isn’t, all the work is tied very closely to you, whether things move forward or not are frequently down to you to try pushing. Whereas in a large company everyone had an ascribed role, you are a part of a larger process, and it takes time to learn how to be part of that process. Naturally in my role as a Business Process Analyst I also learned a lot about the digital platform and how to be part of a team rolling out large scale programmes to a tight timeline.

However, at that point I realised I was again becoming a bit more specialised than I would have liked, and part of why I’d wanted to move away from academia was to try jobs that allowed a far broader view. So I started to look into other jobs, including consulting, and after going through rounds of applications again I fortunately ended up with three quite different job offers. Apart from consulting, one offer was in a smaller firm largely providing competitive intelligence services to pharma, which meant finding out information about the competition in a regulated way, while the other  involved internal risk auditing where I would have been part of a team visiting different parts of the business to assess how ready they were for different forms of risk. I went for IQVIA because it was the broadest and most commercial role, while I also had a good impression about the workplace, culture and opportunities to develop.

What does an average day look like?

In consulting, the “products” you deliver are the knowledge and recommendations present in your powerpoint slides, reports, spreadsheets and so on. Most of the time as an associate consultant I’m conducting primary or secondary research, creating project documents or helping to coordinate activities needed to deliver projects. The projects you have been assigned will define what the research part looks like, and these projects can last anything from a couple of weeks to 6-7 months. If you’ve got a project involving mostly qualitative research, say if a client wants to understand how payers in the NHS might think when faced with a certain drug’s performance data, then you might be on a phone call with an expert who used to make such decisions, interviewing them with a set of questions your team had devised. So these projects might involve more interviews, surveys,  transcription and analysis to understand what stories it presents. If you’re doing a more quantitative project, for example you may want to understand which regions in Italy we should focus on for a certain initiative, you might want some sort of quantitative data to collect and analyse, for example data on hospitals in the region. In those cases you’d be doing more analysis on Excel – nothing extremely technical – but the research you need to do for projects would depend on the questions posed. There are a broad range of other project types as well, such as organising and conducting workshops, expert panel discussions, mock negotiations and so on.

Generally speaking as a new joiner you would mostly be focusing on project delivery – conducting research and creating materials, for example – while a more experienced project manager will be the main point of contact with the client. Nonetheless, you are fully involved in contributing to the thinking and discussion on how the solutions eventually shape up, and you’ll often be on the client calls and have a chance to offer input. For some projects I have travelled to client offices to present, but so far I’m usually supporting on the phone when needed – this may vary between different projects and indeed between different companies.

What are the best bits?

The work is genuinely very interesting – if it weren’t an important problem for the client they would unlikely have paid for consultants to advise on it. I am happy that my role is focused on Life Science and Healthcare as that is where my interest lies, and within this industry there is still a huge variety in scopes of work, which consulting allows you to broadly explore. My colleagues are great, they come from varied backgrounds, are highly capable and most importantly are very lovely people. There are also very experienced principals whom you can learn a lot from. After a while you get used to switching between project teams, and it always makes for a very dynamic environment.

What are the worst bits?

Classically in consulting, schedules are less predictable as they depend on deadlines set by the client’s needs, and by how the research goes. In IQVIA we work on multiple projects at a time –  usually two, occasionally three – so sometimes it can get very busy if you happen to be on two projects with the same peak periods.

Saying that, from what I understand life sciences and healthcare-focused consulting generally offers more stable hours than some other forms of consulting. There’s also not a culture of showmanship in the sense where working longer is perceived more favourably – the main focus is to deliver project work on time and to a high quality. But because we often can’t fully predict when we will have to stay late, there needs to be some flexibility involved, though any challenges would be dealt with as a team. On the plus side, it also means that if you book time off way in advance it is most likely you can go as you are unlikely to have started a project yet, and your staffing can be built around those leave dates.

Do you need a PhD?

I think PhDs are undervalued. The technical expertise and in-depth knowledge doesn’t even cover half of what they can do, and PhDs often don’t realise how much more developed their PhD has made them in multiple ways. The classic selling points are that PhDs are analytical, they’ve been involved in problem-solving and can conduct research. Because of this most consultancies recognise the value of PhDs, and some consultancies, including IQVIA, accept PhDs  at a higher entry level that undergraduate or Masters students.

But I also think the softer skills developed in PhDs is important, and the challenge with most PhD students is being able to articulate this. For instance PhDs are incredibly resilient because research fails all the time, and you get used to failing and dealing with it. Consulting involves thoroughly addressing client questions, and sometimes these change quickly given new developments and you have to go back to the drawing board; PhDs will likely be able to deal with that situation.

One thing PhDs may struggle with if they enter consulting, and probably a lot of other non-academic workplaces, is the concept of things being “good enough”. There are more deadlines and more acute pressure to deliver, so you can’t be obsessed with doing everything absolutely perfectly, but rather learn to deliver projects that are of an excellent standard within the  limits set. It’s important to think about the big picture as well instead of getting bogged down in every detail, which can take time to adjust to.

What’s the progression like?

One of the good things about consulting is the clear frameworks for how consultants progress. Loosely speaking the more junior levels focus on project delivery and analysis, middle levels get involved with day-to-day project management of increasing complexity, while the more senior roles provide strategic leadership and advice. You are expected to progress within reasonable timeframes, with an industry average of around two years per level. If you demonstrate the qualities required consistently, there is little reason for you to be held back, so the progression opportunities are clear. In consulting in general there is a relatively high turnover of people who join for a few years and then move onto other roles. After being exposed to so many different projects, areas, and companies, part of the reason may be that you may hit upon an area that really appeals to you, and decide to focus on that as a next step.

What are your top tips for researchers wanting to get into this career?

Look at your CV as a character profile rather than a list of things you’ve done. The STAR [Situation Task Action Result] model is pretty useful, use it as a guide for each trait that you would like to tell an employer about. This involves not just describing what was actually done, but also the impact of your action, and what this shows about you.

It’s also useful to consider all the things you do as potential evidence of different abilities. There are no specific technical requirements for consulting, and there is a strong emphasis on transferable skills such as working in a team and being able to communicate effectively, which you can draw upon from any experiences that may be relevant. But because “anything goes” in a consulting CV, if justified, you need to be very clear about the profile you’re building up and what different items in your CV are meant to achieve in portraying your abilities. In other words, what does this item show about my abilities and are they combining to meet what the position is looking for?

As an example, I enjoy going to the theatre a lot and occasionally write assessments for shows, so I made the argument that writing these assessments requires conveying what was worthwhile in a show, without spoiling the plot, and this honed an ability to communicate opinions succinctly. So think about what your pursuits bring to your character, and you may be surprised how much can go in your consulting CV. On that note, it may be surprisingly useful in terms of supporting a future career to do stuff that you enjoy and that you find meaningful, instead of constantly tailoring what you do depending on what you think is “constructive”. So although to some degree you should cover the bases, you should also do what you enjoy, and figure out how to tell the story in the CV along the way.

A PhD working in Biotech Venture Capital

By uczjsdd, on 25 September 2018

Dr Jonathan Tobin has a PhD in Molecular Medicine from UCL, and is now an Investment Director at Arix Bioscience. Here he tells us about his current role and career path.

What are you up to now?

I’m a Biotechnology Venture Capitalist. That basically involves finding interesting and novel ideas for new drugs and therapeutics, and either building a company from scratch – finding a management team, and putting money into the company, and helping to develop the products; or finding a company that already exists, with a management team in place, and leading an investment into the company. Some of our investments are in very early pre-clinical work from academia, some are already in patients – phase II or phase III testing. We work in the UK, Europe, Israel, Australia, US, and Canada, and we have an office in London and one in New York. We’ve got about £250 million to invest with. A part of my role is helping raise capital, but that responsibility mostly falls to the CEO. Our capital comes from a variety of sources, including pharma companies, institutional investors, mutual funds, family offices, and wealth managers who manage money for clients. We’ve invested in 15 companies in the last two years, and four of those we’ve started from scratch ourselves.

How did you get here?

I’d always been interested in business, partly because my family have always been in business – they own a firm of chartered surveyors founded by grandfather in 1930. When I was growing up all the dinner table conversation was often about business, few in my family had really been to university or been academics. I was the first person to show a strong interest in science and research, but at the same time I had been imbued with a business mentality. If I hadn’t been so interested in biology I might have joined my Dad’s company, like he joined his Dad’s company in the 1960s.

Instead I did a PhD with Prof Phil Beales at the Institute of Child Health. Phil was an excellent mentor and helped me a lot. I was quite lucky that UCL were generous with training programmes for graduates. I took advantage of a lot of courses; at that time they had one at London Business School for PhDs, and there was an entrepreneurs training course called the London Entrepreneur’s Challenge. There were courses in writing and presenting and professional management skills, a residential course in Wales for a week – and it was all totally free, which was amazing. I don’t think many people really took the time out of their PhDs to do that stuff because they didn’t realise how useful it would be. I always had one eye on something beyond working in the lab, but I knew that I wanted to do science. I thought I might like to work in venture capital from when I was a graduate, but obviously I had to train first in the science before I could do that. So it was on my radar from the beginning, but it takes a while to build up the skills to do it.

After my PhD, which I finished just as the credit crunch started, I tried to get a job in the city as a pharma equity analyst. I had spoken to lots of people in the field during the second half of my PhD – people in banking and finance and consultancy, but no one was hiring in 2008 – it was impossible to get a job as everyone was being laid off because of the recession. So I did a post-doc thinking that I would continue my scientific training and I went into a much more basic scientific lab at what is now the Crick. I applied for a Henry Wellcome post-doc fellowship, and I thought if I got that and I could basically be independent from the beginning then that would be an interesting way to be a scientist. I didn’t want to work in someone else’s lab at the bench, as I was much more interested in designing experiments and thinking about the big picture, and a bit sloppy at the execution in the lab!

I didn’t get the fellowship. I think I failed largely because I was unconvincing about my motivation and passion to stay in academia. So I decided that tech-transfer would be a good stepping stone out of academia and into venture capital. I got a job at MRC Technology finding and assessing new drug discovery opportunities. They were very supportive of helping me learn. I spent a year there and it was really interesting because I learned loads of stuff; they sent me on courses about drug discovery and development, IP, licensing, negotiation, all sorts that I had never learned in science. I learned how to do due diligence in a really thorough way, and my job was doing due diligence on hundreds of biotech projects. But there were no career progression opportunities there, and I didn’t want to stay in tech transfer, so I signed up with a bunch of headhunters and got contacted about a job at Imperial Innovations who had just raised £140 million to do biotech investing – it was transitioning from being a tech-transfer office to a venture capital fund. They had decided they wanted someone with a PhD and science background, so I was lucky, I was in the right place at the right time. I spent five and a half enjoyable years working there on lots of interesting companies. And then I decided that I wanted be part of something new, where there wasn’t already a hierarchy, and I wanted to look at deals outside the UK, so I got the opportunity from a headhunter to join this new start-up, and helped build Arix Bioscience from its early days.

What does a normal working day look like for you?

I’m probably in the office about half to two thirds of my time. On a day when I’m in London I generally meet companies that are pitching, several companies a week in person or on the phone. I go to board meetings of companies I have already invested in. I’m often involved in executing deals, reading documents, and having conference calls to discuss terms of deals. There’s quite a lot of due diligence too, which involves quiet reading to research an area and figure out if it’s interesting or not, and as part of that I might talk to experts in the field to get their advice. I also manage an associate in London and one in San Francisco, and we have shareholders I often meet and present to. I’m generally travelling a few days every other week. This might be around Europe for conferences or to meet companies, I’m on the board of two companies in Israel so I travel there, we have an office in New York, so I’m in New York four times a year, and I’m on the board of a company in Boston, so I also go to Boston, once a year we go to the JP Morgan conference in San Francisco, and we have a shareholder in China that we visit as well. So quite a lot of long haul, of meeting people, and talking about their ideas.

What are the best bits?

Finding really cool projects and helping to turn them into companies is the best part. When you see really good results it’s very exciting. It’s the same sort of feeling as getting a great result in the lab. Even though I haven’t done the lab work, I have facilitated it, and I can see it will directly translate into new drugs which are helpful to people, which is quite satisfying.

Another reason a lot of people want to enter venture capital is because of the work-life balance and being in control of what you do. I work very hard and a lot, but it’s mostly on my terms. I largely come and go as I please, and I travel a lot to interesting places meeting very intelligent and interesting people, talking about fascinating things. Typically I get into the office after dropping my children off at school, and usually leave the office around 5.30pm. I do work at home a lot, and I do have to be “on duty” the whole time, so it’s a different mentality to being able to completely switch off when you’ve left the office. The work is completely proactive – I have to find work, no work just comes inbound. So if you’re not busy, you’ll be stressed about not being busy! And if you’re doing a deal you have to be on hand, for example I was on holiday last week and a deal was going on so I had to be on call the whole time. It was a bit stressful because we were camping in the New Forest and the signal was terrible. That’s the flipside for the freedom I guess, you’re always on duty.

For many people the compensation is also a draw. It’s generally well paid, and with the upside that if in the long run your companies are very successful then you can do phenomenally well. Obviously that’s an appealing feature of the role, especially if you want to live somewhere as expensive as London. But the interesting thing about this industry is that because everyone’s a scientist and a bit nerdy at heart, people tend to be more interested in the science and the excitement of developing new drugs that can help people, than the financial side which is just a very nice bonus.

What are the worst bits?

There’s a lot of pressure. In the short term there are pressures to find good deals and get them done. And in the long term, there’s a pressure to generate returns. Our business model involves raising money from shareholders and investing it in companies, then ultimately selling those companies to big pharmaceutical acquirers for a profit. Typically we’re looking for five to ten times the cash invested returned to compensate for the risk, as there’s a high failure rate. But it might take five to ten years for any given company to mature to the point you can sell it. If after ten to twelve years of being in the game you haven’t returned any money it’s like, what are you doing? It’s a bit like being in academia for twelve years and not publishing a paper – your career becomes a little limited at that point. If that happens, you might find you don’t have tonnes of transferrable skills as you’ve spent all your time being a critic rather than a chef. We’re not actually operators of businesses, I’ve never run a company myself, and I don’t necessarily have the skills to set up my own company and run it. So that’s the long term stressor in this industry I guess. And it’s fairly binary, a bit like academia, you just need one huge win to make your career. One major breakthrough is much better than having five or six tiny successes, which is fairly high risk in the long run.

The other thing that’s a bit frustrating is you’re dealing with a lot of different stakeholders; academics, tech transfer offices, pharmaceutical companies, lawyers, other investors, and there’s a lot of different motivations. Some people are motivated by money, some by the science, some by the politics, some by risk reduction, and that makes things interesting but tricky, it means you’ve got to deal with people who have very different views of the world, but you’re trying to achieve the same thing together.

Is a PhD essential for your role?

It’s not essential to have a PhD, but it improves your chances of getting in. I’ve just hired someone with a PhD in neuroscience followed by three years of consulting experience. Most people – maybe 75% – in this industry have a PhD or an MD. People who don’t have a PhD will have more operational or consulting experience.

My years in research have helped me in the role. I spend a lot of time looking at companies’ data and trying to interpret if the results are interesting and kosher, and I think I’m actually probably a better scientist now than I was because when you’re doing experiments that could lead to a drug, you have be super rigorous about controls and reproduction and having experiments done in a blinded way in multiple labs and under multiple conditions again and again and again. In academia you would never do that, because as soon as you see a result you move onto the next experiment and you don’t really, personally at least, question validity (though you’d hope eventually the community would produce enough repetitions to check validity, but that could be over a long period of time). In one of my companies we’ve spent a year and about $4 million repeating two experiments hundreds of times in five different labs in different conditions because we want to be 100% sure that the findings are legitimate. There just isn’t the money, the personpower, or the necessity to do that in academia. If you’re going to put something into humans though you have to be pretty careful. Also these projects are very expensive, so you want to make sure you’re spending your money wisely.

What’s the progression like?

Venture capital in Europe is a tiny tiny pool. There’s probably fewer than 20 high quality firms, and each might employ five or six investment professionals. There’s also low turnover because of the duration of the projects and the way the incentive structure works, as you get rewarded once your companies do well. So the further you are into your career the more upside there is.

Generally people start off as an Analyst or an Associate which is somebody who basically does due diligence, so they do a lot of reading and talking to experts, and they also go to conferences and start to source opportunities. Then next level up is a Principal who might have three or four years of experience and is starting to learn how to lead deals, but is not fully independent. And then there’s Partner or Investment Director who basically does the transactions, takes responsibility for the deals, is part of the investment committee that makes the decisions and ultimately has the responsibility for that investment, taking the credit or punishment for the success or failure. Then the highest level will be the Managing Partner who has started the fund and is more responsible for raising the capital. They would typically be a very experienced individual with a track record of success.

What tips would you pass on to researchers wanting to get into this area?

Enrol in as many courses as possible; business courses, biotech courses, go to events and get to know people. Do a lot of reading about the other elements of the job – intellectual property, finance, company law, entrepreneurship, management. There’s a lot of things you have to know about, not at an expert level, but enough to have a conversation with an expert. It also demonstrates a commitment to and interest in the area. There are lots of podcasts you can listen to about the subject matter. Also start to network, because generally people hire through their networks; the person I just hired was a recommendation from someone else who had met them. So start as early as possible to put out feelers and ask people – most people are happy to have coffee for 20 minutes and share some advice or ideas. And also if you can find a mentor early on in your career that’s quite helpful. Someone who cares about and takes an interest in your journey and can help you if they hear about openings or opportunities. Because otherwise if you’re stuck in the lab and you’re a bit insulated from the rest of the world, where are you going to find out about these things? And how are you going to demonstrate an interest and passion for the area? You may also have to play a long game. It’s possible that straight out of research, if you’ve been on courses and networked, you might get a job in venture capital at the most junior level. But more likely you will need a couple of years of non-academic experience first, maybe in consultancy for instance, where you have learned the rigour of doing work for somebody else, and have learned the macro picture of the industry, not just how to load a gel.

Careers Advice from Baz Luhrmann’s Wear Sunscreen

By uczjsdd, on 31 August 2018

Remember that weirdly amazing song by Baz Luhrmann, Everybody’s Free (to Wear Sunscreen), that was pretty much just a guy reading the words to an essay by Pulitzer-Prize-winning Mary Schmich? It reached number 1 and Gold status here in the UK. But more importantly it formed the basis of how I live my life. If I’m ever unsure about a decision, I consult Wear Sunscreen, and within it I usually find my answer. For it covers all of life’s important arenas: Health (“Be kind to your knees, you’ll miss them when they’re gone”), Love (“Don’t be reckless with other people’s hearts, don’t put up with people who are reckless with yours”), and Beauty (“Do NOT read beauty magazines they will only make you feel ugly”).

But of course the advice I want to discuss in this post relates to careers. And there’s lots of it. Here are four sets of key lyrics from the song, and how I see them relating to the careers of researchers I work with:

1) “Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth. Oh nevermind. You will not understand the power and beauty of your youth until they have faded. But trust me, in 20 years you’ll look back at photos of yourself and recall in a way you can’t grasp now how much possibility lay before you and how fabulous you really looked.”

We can all argue about where the cut-off for “youth” lies (I will always argue it’s located a few years older than me), but this lyric applies not only to the young. It’s about perspective. It describes how it’s tough in any one moment to see how much opportunity you have and how blooming great you really are. This can be especially true of the researchers I work with who have career worries. Sometimes it can be helpful to try to step out of the moment you’re in. What would Future You say when looking back at you now? What would Past You, with all their hopes and dreams, but also their doubts and uncertainty, think about what you’ve now achieved?

I’ve had two conversations in the last month that recalled these lyrics for me. First, I was working with a client discussing her desire to work overseas. She said it was something she’d always wanted to do, but the perfect time to have worked overseas would have been five years ago, and it’s way too late for her now. I asked why she hadn’t moved overseas five years ago. She replied it was because Past Her had thought it was way too late for her back then too. Hmmmmmmm. I wonder what Future Her might think?

The second conversation was with a PhD graduate who’d left academia. I was interviewing him for a careers case study blog (like these). His advice to current academics was to ignore the inner voice that criticizes you for leaving things too late – it’s a fruitless distraction. Sure, we advise starting your career thinking as early as possible. But for any one person, now is as early as possible. No matter how long you’ve been in academia before you start considering how to strategically get ahead in the field; or no matter how “late” you’ve left it before you start considering non-academic options, you’re currently the youngest you will ever be, and now is the soonest you can ever take action. Just ask your Future Self, and they’ll tell you how much potential and opportunity you have.

2) “Don’t waste your time on jealousy. Sometimes you’re ahead, sometimes you’re behind. The race is long, and in the end, it’s only with yourself.”

There’s plenty of evidence to show comparing yourself to others impacts your emotional wellbeing. But that evidence is a little complex, and how these comparisons affect you seems to depend on your own self-esteem and personality, and on whom you’re comparing yourself with.

From a careers perspective, sometimes comparisons can be helpful. They can reassure you that other people experience similar difficulties, uncertainties, and insecurities as you (they do!). And when looking at LinkedIn and The UCL Alumni Online Community at jobs “people like you” have, comparisons can provide career ideas and inspiration, and can motivate you to work hard and develop new skills.

But a vital part of the comparison process is self-awareness. Awareness of your own strengths, interests, and values. If you know and accept your own career motivations, then you can focus on running your own race, and avoid falling into the trap of feeling jealous of those bound to take different paths to you, because they want completely different things out of life. Our “How Will I Know What I’ll Like?” researcher workshop can help raise your self-awareness (check out our Careers Consultant workshop schedule to see when the next one is, and to sign up), and in preparation we ask you to complete a Jobmi.com strengths questionnaire, so why not start that now?

3) “Don’t feel guilty if you don’t know what you want to do with your life. The most interesting people I know didn’t know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives. Some of the most interesting 40 year olds I know still don’t.”

Speaking of not comparing yourself to others, everyone is different. Some people know exactly what they want to do with their lives and they’re happy doing it forever. That’s great, and if that’s you, come and see us for an appointment if you need help getting there. But studies like this, this, and this tell us that’s not true of everyone, and in fact, changing careers, sometimes multiple times, is pretty normal. So don’t put so much pressure on yourself to find the single one right thing. And try to see not being fixed on one route as an exciting prospect. If you view yourself as someone who may have multiple careers, then you can be more experimental, trying things you wouldn’t ordinarily try. And with retirement ages creeping upwards, you’re likely to be working for longer than previous generations. With all that time to work, why not actually aspire to try multiple careers? You never know, you may even enjoy one of them enough to stick with it forever.

4) “Whatever you do, don’t congratulate yourself too much, or berate yourself either. Your choices are half chance, so are everybody else’s.”

For me, this lyric evokes Dr Jim Bright and Dr Robert G. L. Pryor’s Chaos Theory of Careers. Yes. That’s right. There’s a chaos theory of careers. A butterfly flaps its wings in Japan and you become a Senior Portfolio Developer at The Wellcome Trust. This theory not only concedes that most people don’t have firm long-term career plans, but actually questions the value of having such plans in the first place. Given that seemingly small chance events can have a gigantic influence over the course of our careers, this theory says it’s far better to focus on smaller shorter-term goals and actions, and to be curious, self-aware, and open to new opportunities.

(On that note, do you even know what a Senior Portfolio Developer at The Wellcome Trust does? Why not take this opportunity to be curious and google it? We’ve given you a helping hand by speaking to one and writing about it here.)

From academic research to translating in the arts

By uczjsdd, on 2 August 2018

Ingrid Chen has an MA in Comparative Literature from UCL, and she studied for a PhD in Humanities and Cultural Studies at the University of London. She left the PhD behind for a role in Sotheby’s, and is now Deputy Director, Head of Translation Department at Sotheby’s in Hong Kong. We managed to coordinate ourselves across time zones and have a chat bout Ingrid’s career journey. Here is what she told us:

What are you up to now?

I’m currently Head of the Translation Department at Sotheby’s. When Sotheby’s wants to promote Western art to a Chinese audience, the catalogue, the essays, and the condition report need to be translated into Chinese, and that’s what my team deals with.

I joined Sotheby’s in 2010, starting in London with customer service, because there was a lot of interest from Chinese collectors wanting to buy non-Chinese art. Then an opportunity arose to join the Hong Kong marketing department, working on copywriting and translation. I moved to Hong Kong, and since then the job has grown into a department with a seven-person team responsible for translating over 60 catalogues per year, as well as all the corporate materials to show our Chinese clients.

I don’t actually translate anymore in my current role. I oversee the team’s work, making sure it’s all consistent and there’s a Sotheby’s style to it.

How did you move from academia to your current role?

I did a Masters in comparative literature at UCL. I went on to Birkbeck’s London Consortium with the Tate Museum for a Masters of Research, and continued there with a PhD. During my early years of study I assumed I would stay in academia and become a lecturer and then eventually a professor. But in the second year of my PhD I started having doubts, wondering where else I might possibly end up. Because the London Consortium had lots of curators it sparked my interest in art, and I started attending gallery openings and auction previews. Through these events I met people in the art industry who said you don’t have to be an art historian to work in the sector. So I started to do part-time work in galleries.

I didn’t finish my PhD in the end. I became lost in my thesis and wasn’t sure if it was something I really wanted to do. It’s like a relationship, after a while I was kind of tired of it. And then towards the end of my PhD, when I was already in two minds about finishing it, the Sotheby’s translation job came to me. I took it as a sign from God saying this is your chance to decide whether you want to stay in academia or not. And I chose to come to Hong Kong.

What does a normal working day look like?

My day is divided into three different time zones. I start by picking up emails from New York. Then I’ll move on to what’s happening in Hong Kong, then later in the afternoon or evening I’ll deal with what’s happening in London.

On any given work day I might look at the seasonal auction calendar at what’s coming up and what needs to be translated. The material I receive will often be full of new terms I’ve never seen before, and that requires a lot of research, and we have an archive of technical terms involved in conservation and the painting techniques etc. which we maintain to ensure we use consistent Chinese terms.

My work also involves people management. It’s a seven-person team and the translators are at very different phases in their career, so they may come to me for advice, either translation or career-related, and I’m a head of department who always listens, so I will try to be a good listener and help them with their problems.

We have to follow tight deadlines and there’s a lot of communication with the Specialists, who are writing the descriptions and documents in English that we will translate into Chinese. The Specialists are experts and perfectionists, they are honing their craft, which is great, but if they’re late that will delay our schedule, so we all have to compromise in order to achieve the goal assigned to us. So there’s a lot of management, communication, and research in the role every day.

What are the best bits?

I have intimate access to incredible masterpieces. For example we’re selling a Modigliani in New York and it travelled to Hong Kong, so before anybody else sees it I got to examine it up close. That’s something you cannot do as a visitor in a museum. Also, when you go to a museum show you usually don’t see the back of the painting. But the back of the painting holds information; the provenance, the condition, the artist’s signature, maybe a dedication. Because we have to describe items in a condition report I get to see all of this. It’s like there’s a separate exhibition for us, we get to see other angles. So if you’re an art lover it’s a great job for you to look at a variety of different things, not just paintings: we have a very strong Chinese ceramics department here so they’re usually very kind and they’ll let us touch these amazing pieces in pristine condition. There’s a lot of hands on experience. And sometimes there are the weirdest things for sale, like dinosaur egg fossils or a skull of a mammoth.

Anything that interests our Chinese clients we need to become sort of an expert it in, and that’s fascinating and unpredictable. So I get to be a semi-expert in many different fields, which I think is why I chose to work for Sotheby’s in the first place, because in academia you have to focus and specialise, but I almost want to be a renaissance woman rather than specialising in any one thing.

It’s also great to be producing something tangible – I’m not just building a castle in the clouds, churning out something that doesn’t mean anything to anyone other than me, which I sometimes felt I was doing in academia. Every time I see a catalogue I feel like they are my babies, I have something to show for my work, I can say I made this.

And what are the challenges?

The communication. There are so many different parties involved in producing one catalogue or brochure and time difference can be a big issue. One of the disadvantages of being in Hong Kong is that if we want to communicate with our global colleagues either we have to come in really really early or stay really really late. There have been times, especially in my first year or two of working here where I was leaving the office at 1am in the morning because we were waiting for something from New York and we had to finish it before going to bed. The good thing is that these days with cloud technology you can do a lot of the work from home, but for me personally I still prefer to come to the office for my work, and I prefer to work early than stay very late.

Has your research experience been useful?

When I left my PhD my parents were saying that if I only did another year or two I could finish it, why was I leaving it behind? Part of the reason was at that point I feared all of the things I’d learned through the PhD would not be very useful in my future, so why had I spent so many years before that acquiring these skills?

But funnily enough, the further I’ve got into this job, the more I’ve realised that the research skills I acquired have been really useful for my current role. A lot of the phrases and terms I’m working with have never been translated into Chinese before, so I have to do a lot of research. For example, I didn’t know anything about African art, but today I’m working on an African sculpture and I have to research what it’s about and how I can best describe it and its historic context. So research skills can be transferred into many different jobs, and they’re invaluable to me here.

Also some of the theories I learned in my Masters are useful for understanding contemporary art. Now I’m in the workplace, theories are not just theories. When I’m reading something from an art critic or an art historian, it all comes together and makes sense. I’ve received compliments from my supervisors who’ve felt that my translation brings more depth than outsourcing to an experienced translator because I understand the style required – so it becomes more persuasive, it becomes more intellectual in a way, and I do try to make sure that everything that we translate into Chinese reads as elegantly and as knowledgably as possible. So I think having my PhD degree experience, though I didn’t finish it, in the end was very helpful to me.

What does the future hold?

That’s a question I’m asking myself at the moment. Sotheby’s have never had a translation department before, so I don’t have a mentor to tell me where this type of role could lead me. And there are not many similar roles in the art world or auction industry, so in a way I’m in a unique position, but I don’t know whether that uniqueness is a good thing or not! I’m hoping I’ll progress to more of a creative role because we do publish some magazines at Sotheby’s, so there may be opportunities to write things or become an editor, and decide the direction of the magazine for the Chinese audience. I’m also taking courses exploring digital marketing, content creation and management. So this or next year may be a turning point for me where I decide the next step.

Would I consider going back to academia? Maybe, after all of these years and the distance they’ve given me, maybe I can go back and finish my PhD.

What are your top tips for getting into this industry?

Think broadly when exploring options. Humanities grads often limit themselves to working in ‘traditional’ humanities graduate roles. But these days there are a lot more opportunities. For example content creation is a big deal right now. And people with a humanities background can often create great content.

Something I lacked when I was studying was business acumen, which has to be acquired by getting experience outside academia. You have to know what’s going on in the marketing world or in a certain industry. Reading the Financial Times or other relevant industry publications is helpful.

Build a portfolio of writing examples, so employers can see what kind of employee you will become. Don’t just say you will be a great translator or a great writer, provide evidence. Create a blog, show you are consistently building something that has become your personal brand.

Networking is crucial. I approached Sotheby’s about the work I started doing for them part-time. If you just blindly contact an organisation there’s a high chance they won’t get back to you. So networking is quite important. I met some people from Sotheby’s who recommended me. Large organisations will receive many CVs and applications, so if someone from inside the organisation whom the recruiters trust recommends you, it makes a big difference.