PostDoc Discussion Forum

Agree, the comments are far better and more useful than the piece of tripe article.

Check out the link for general advice for graduates, http://realworldgraduate.com/. You might already know a lot of this but it always pays to refresh. There's also some great content tweeted daily. Let me know what you think.

I can relate to this article and the feelings of disillusionment felt by the writer. Even with a science PhD, I had great difficulty looking for employment upon leaving academia and it took me a year to get sorted out. It's now almost 5 years into a job (and increasingly established career path) I did not plan for when I did my PhD. In fact, taking the PhD was a way out of ending up in a similar 'pen pushing' situation. However, I could be in the position of the article writer and be in that dark place full of disillusionment he is still in. We're in a world where simply to have a job is an achievement in itself. I guess I could have approached things differently and made us of a publication record I did manage to build up during and after my PhD. Attempts I have made to get back on track always seemed to coincide with something going wrong personally (relative's health, fallout with a girl I knew etc.). However, I've a job and established pension plan now and I guess many of you can relate to the point of view of protecting what you have got (financially as well as employment-wise) rather than endangering it by trying to find something new. I have the additional problem that I removed my PhD from my CV in order to ease my way back into employment. If I was to move back on track, I would have to officially tell my current employer about the PhD as any new employer would need my current employer to give a reference. Although I believe they unofficially know, it might still cause problems. As an aside, I would NEVER recommend removing your PhD from your CV, given how easy it is to trace your PhD these days on the internet (if you know where to look - Ethos, Proquest, University repositories, even Google). Instead, prioritise relavent skills to the job on your CV and possibly deprioritise your education rather than hide it. Ian (Mackem_Beefy)

Moving is the biggest thing really. I went travelling with my other half after a few years working post first degree because, well, it's more fun. When we got back we just applied for jobs anywhere. This was the middle of the recession with loads of people going out of work, but because we were willing to move anywhere (and we had a bit of luck and are well qualified) we managed to get jobs within a month or two of returning to the UK (I had a job within 3 weeks). If people can't move it massively restricts their options, which is a great shame. Also, remember in academia, many foreign universities teach in English.

You mean Chinese, Portuguese, or German considering the current economy! ;-)

Many Dutch universities teach in English and I have presented with people from Sweden before - they worked in English too.

yeah, but they don't teach 'how to drag your husband from his english life to a swedish one without him getting in a mood" :p