How do I move on?

[Beenthereboughtthetextbook]

I'm a long term research staff in a STEM field. I've been very fortunate in some ways to find one contract after another. On the other hand, just being on short term contracts for a very long time (some contracts just a month long) has been incredibly stressful and it has affected a lot of my personal life. I had my mat leave twice heavily curtailed, had a harder time proving stable employment for mortgage approval, and I often lose out on annual leave I'm entitled to. I took on wider roles in teaching, supervision, KE, department committees thinking it'll all help (in addition to research). I have been successful on small and medium sized grants as PI. However my application for promotion was rejected (I suspect the decision was largely financial as I had a lot of academics supportive of me).

Because of all this, I had decided to leave a long time ago. But this is proving difficult to achieve. If I leave before my contract ends, I lose out on redundancy. But I also want to leave at the end of my contract with another job lined up. I am worried that once gone it'll be harder to rejoin the field (industry or academia). So far, however, I've had no success in job applications to industry, even ones with salary cuts. I've even had a job application rejected at the same institution despite my high expertise in the area.

The most despairing thing is realising that the university has no support for it's research staff and simply does not care. I do intend to go to HR and I've also joined UCU. But I wondered if anyone has been in a similar situation and if so what did you do?

I think you have to network your socks off. Applications should be at the end of a process where you have already talked to the prospective employer and they have advertised a job for you.

@Barrellturn thank you for the reply. This has worked for me internally but in industry, I'm finding this very difficult. Many of my external networks are not in a position to offer me a job unfortunately.

for industry, it is all about the skills you have, people skills, tech skills, writing skills etc.

get on linkedIn and connect to as many people as possible - can you find anyone who has the career trajectory you want?

@parietal I'm on LinkedIn but I admit I don't use it well. Alot of my connections are students and other academics. But it's a useful place to see where former colleagues are now working, so I'll see if it can help. Thank you.

This sounds just awful! Sorry no advice but read the post as interested to explore academic career. You have definitely put me off!
Wishing you the best.
Just a thought but universities have career departments? Can you go to them?

@Reginaphalangeeeee Thanks and I'm sorry, I didn't mean to put you off. I would hope that it's not so bad for other academic roles. However the climate has always been tough for researchers on precarious contracts and it's only gotten worse with the current financial situation. Careers services are often aimed at students. I'm on a redeployment register but lately there's been very few internal vacancies advertised.

Why do you think you will get redundancy if it's the end of your contract?

@clarrylove Fixed term staff who've worked for the university continuously for 2 years or more have the same redundancy rights as permanent staff. So if a contract ends and there's no option for a renewal, the staff is made redundant. I've worked continuously far more than this.

A friend of mine did similarly to you (from the life sciences) and, unfortunately. it is LinkedIn. She recommended treating it as a job in itself - reaching out / friending / connecting with lots of people, messaging them to ask for a chat or coffee (no pressure in asking for a job, just a chat about how to find a job) and then going from there. If you're comfortable, it can also be useful to post and say directly 'I am looking for [x opportunity] and would love to speak to folks who can help'. But you have to put in the work to contact folks, and you have to know what you're asking for. Best of luck!

@leeksinmiso thank you for the helpful tips. It's definitely out of my comfort zone to reach out to people on LinkedIn but it seems like I have to try. I was planning to post that I'm open to jobs but after I had exhausted all other options. But I see now that LinkedIn might actually be the only route.

I've had people reach out to me and ask for a chat and advice about getting work. I was happy to help, we all know how hard it is out there.

@Beenthereboughtthetextbook I totally get your frustration!
Are you in a big enough city to have enough industry jobs going around? Would you consider relocating?

@HHHMMM I'm in a big enough city and but I'm in a very niche field. I've been trying to broaden my search as a result but then my expertise in boarder areas isn't as strong. I definitely wish I'd specialised in something much more common.

So do you think the industry jobs in your niche field exist in principle in your city?

This is the first step that you need to find - make a list of companies that could employ someone with your skills. Depending how big this list is, you can think of next steps.

My bet is that the list is very short, and at that point it is better to look for alternative options/outside of your niche specialisation - what you can realistically get and at what salary.

I recently moved from academia (not in sciences though) and it is a complete mental shift when it comes to looking for and applying for jobs.

You need to completely change your CV from that 15-page academic laundry list of everything you've done ever to a focused, 2-page max skills/hybrid type one. Put the job title you want at the top of it. Use ChatGPT to help you tailor your experience to the job advert (or to the role you want). In fact, ChatGPT can be a great career coach - it can help identify tranferrable skills, identify potential roles, identify local organisations/companies that you could target. I did some CV workshops with the ivee platform and found them really helpful.

And yes, networking. I too hate(d) it and had always been crap at is as an academic, but I just forced myself to reach out to anyone on LinkedIn who I was even vaguely connected to who was doing something related to what I wanted to move into or who I knew well but had moved out of academia. I attended quite a few online webinars/ talks/ panels related to the area I was moving into, made a note of everyone else attending, and then cold-contacted them on LinkedIn afterwards if their role looked interesting. Everyone I contacted asking if they had 10 mins to spare for a virtual coffee said yes, bar one. I met some really interesting people as a result!

Ultimately I got my current job through a conventional application (saw the job advertised on a job board specific to the secctor I was moving to), but I think that's relatively unusual these days. Most new jobs come through people you know/ informal conversations, rather than conventional applications.

Good luck! There is life after academia...

@HHHMMM I think making a list is a good idea. I'll try to free some time for that, thank you.

@FlappicusSmith thanks for the detailed reply. I know I need to change my CV so I'll focus on getting that done. Good idea on trying webinars and talks. This is an easy one to start with and I have in the past used them to identify people of interest although not for job hunting admittedly. More out of my comfort zone is cold contacting them on LinkedIn. But it's been suggested a few times in this thread so I'll work on giving it a go!

If you're using your academic CV to apply for non-academic jobs then I'd wager that's the reason you're not being successful. You no doubt have all of the skills and experience to get a (better, more stable) job outside of a university, but your CV needs to communicate that clearly.

if there are meet-ups for the area you want to work in, that can be a good networking opportunity. Look on the meet-up website- I know there are lots for tech.