To think that its quite rude and pointless to keep telling someone about a lack of jobs in their chosen career if you don't have any advice?

[LRDTheFeministDragon]

This one is just getting on my nerves at the moment. I am studying and training for a job I hope to get sometime next year when I finish. I know there aren't a lot of jobs out there, obviously, the economic situation being what it is. But it's beginning to get really annoying that friends feel the need to keep telling me 'oh, there aren't any jobs you know', and 'proving' their point by telling me about other people they know who've been job-hunting unsuccessfully for ages.

I would understand if they had helpful advice, or if I thought they were genuinely worried about me and wanted to encourage me to pack in my training. But they're not: they know that basically I will have wasted a shedload of money if I pack it in now, so I'm probably not going to stop.

AIBU to be irritated? And how do I get them to shut up about their unemployed friends ... I know I may well end up in the same boat but I find it really annoying that they talk as if the fact other people are unemployed proves I won't get a job ... and couldn't possibly be for other reasons.

LRD, I too want to go into research/teaching - just about to apply for post-doc and more lecturing.

I had got so despondent that I wasn't going to bother applying for post-doc funding, but my supervisor's eyes pretty much vanished into his hairline. He said something like "Er, well you stand NO CHANCE AT ALL of getting it if you don't apply, right?".

Pay no heed to the nay-sayers. SOMEONE has to get the funding/posts. Why not you?

slight - that's interesting ... I had sort of assumed that, as with when you're at school, the personal statement isn't so important. Thanks for the heads up!

always - I'm quite happy to consider moving, I know it's sensible.

*eyebrows! He's not magic.

LRD if you want to be in academic teachning/research I advice you, if you haven't already, to see if you can get to present a paper from your undergraduate/postgraduate research at a conference. Even better if you could possibly get a paper published in a journal. In academia atm there's so much pressure on writing and publications that anything you have in that area to prove you can play the academic game should be a help to you.

goosey - thanks, I'll take that on board.

josie - bless your supervisor, what a nice guy!

I know people do get jobs, I just feel nervy my friends are either doom 'n' glooming ... or they know something I don't about my chances!

Note to self: wise MNers tell me to get my arse in gear and sort out CV. MNing the sofa is probably not what they had in mind!

YANBU.

You won't know until you try will you? Sure it may be tough. but no reason not to give it a go.

Some folk just love to point out the downside of everything. I always suspect they're the sorts who will never dare to do anything difficult and so can't conceive of the idea that someone else might at least want to try.

snup - yes, one of the nagging worries is I'm not yet published and well aware it is a prerequisite. I've done an international conference and am applying (with a fair shot I hope) for another. But I will apply myself to papers with more energy too.

LRD there's always more you can do to give an edge, my DH thought about his future CV when choosing part time work to get him through uni and talked more about that in his interviews than he did about his degree (because it was a vocational degree so everyone going for the jobs did the same course - boring for the interviewers!). Would have been easier for him to get some bar work but not as useful long term. He also submitted a paper for publication whilst still studying which gave an extra bit of interest to his applications and interviews.

Can you do any work experience with additional learning needs? learn sign language? that sort of stuff? But TBH it doesn't even have to be directly related to your course, if you run a club of any kind (or are treasurer, social sec etc) that can answer all kinds of interview questions (like give an example of when you organised an event/ large numbers of people) and shows commitment to ongoing personal development. Also i think it just looks good to show that you've juggled your studying with other commitments

You might already be involved with things that demonstrate good transferable skills and you don't realise it, if you have hobbies already then you just need to take a bit more responsibility in fund raising / running etc

I didn't see my extra curricular stuff as related to my course while i was doing it, but now I see how it all slots in together to give the impression I want to put across. I only wish I'ld done more whilst at uni but its never too late, there's still lots of volunteer and evening study opportunities about and I plan to keep my CV interesting even if when I get my new job :-)

Absolutely, LRD. There are some posters who very much enjoy spouting off without any knowledge of the subject. There are others who take pleasure in being 'naysayers', again without the knowledge.

If there were no jobs in whatever particularly field, then they wouldn't exist full stop. They do so somebody has to do them. If they're scarce, then congratulate yourself for being in a select occupation and presumably able to specialise in that career.

Don't be put off by anybody's comments here. If somebody gives you 'advice', question them to find out what they know and just disregard the claptrap, I think it comes down to jealousy of you at their own underachieving.

my DH's paper has finally been accepted for the next edition of the paper he submitted it to as a student (after numerous edits). Just having a paper accepted subject to edit might help if you feel that not being published is a massive brick wall - people know how long the process can take but at least you can show that you are learning the ropes of the old editing tennis match.

One of my lecturers says that a mistake she made was always trying to get papers perfect before submitting, it'll be tossed back so many times you wont recognise it anyway, she said she used to judge the people who churned off half cut stuff to journals but actually they ended up with more publications and it all gets taken apart and rebuilt anyway.

always - I don't quite know what to do with extra-curricular stuff. I don't have the same amount of free time I did as an undergraduate and I don't know if my teaching counts as extra curricular or not. We are encouraged to do extra curricular stuff, and I do read up on things like teaching dyslexic students, that I hope will be useful but which isn't directly relevant.

I really don't have a good sense of how different extra curricular stuff is valued though - I just don't know if something like, say, learning a new language would be considered as good as presenting at a small conference, or what? One of my mates is hugely active in organizing a choir and directing plays, and these are really closely related to her studies too - but I look at how much time it takes away from her studies and I know I couldn't do it.

always - that's really encouraging ... I too am a perfectionist, maybe I should just go for it a bit more!

lying - thanks for the encouraging words.

"If there were no jobs in whatever particularly field, then they wouldn't exist full stop. They do so somebody has to do them."

that's my motto

if other people are doing it then I could be doing it, and if I've not yet got the right CV then that's just more reason to keep working on it and find round about ways to demonstrate that i can do it, not to give up and say "what's the point"

and y'know I think you can get away with lacking in one requirement for a job so there's no harm in punching a little above your weight if you explain in your personal statement how you can make up for it / catch up. I've done that in the past and got the job over quite a number people who had all the requirements asked for on paper. I guess they liked that I tried? (I had the qualifications and all other requirements except for the amount of experience they said was essential)

LRD, Hunt down conferences where the Proceedings are always published. There will be a fair bit of 'gatekeeping' and refereeing - getting the paper accepted for the conference on the basis of an abstract; and then having the written-up paper accepted for the volume - but that's what gives the paper its worth. And the networking opportunities are great.

Eventually you will be invited to contribute, and will be much sought after!

Ooh, I hadn't thought of that! Thanks Line.

Duh.

And I went to a conference like that (without presenting) recently.

well say the job you want involves presenting lots of papers and also being an ambassador for the university and meeting with other professionals regularly etc, then if you do say am-drama once a month and they ask if you're comfortable to do some meet and greet duties you can easily demonstrate that standing up and speaking is no prob. it seems to me that these day university staff have to wear a lot of hats

my mum was a lecturer and did a lot of entertaining foreign investors and other academics, everyone at the uni had to even the lab tecs.

LRD - I'm an academic and was told for the last couple of years of my PhD and during my subsequent postdoc that there were no jobs. Funny that, because I managed to get one. Eventually.

No one cares about extra-curricular stuff, so don't get bogged down in that simply to put it on your CV. As people have said above, the main thing is getting published. And there is a hierarchy of publications - ie. refereed journals are more highly regarded than conference proceedings. Monographs are the most highly rated. If you can get your PhD published that would be ideal. Unfortunately a lot of departments won't even interview applicants now unless they have a full submission for the REF, so this is really the priority. Teaching is considered less important, although the climate is changing with the new fees regime.

I have just graduated and just got a job along these lines. On a very humble, part time scale but still
I started 'pre-applying' (you can have that, Surrallun Sugar, I made it up) way before I even graduated: offering to micro teach one-offs for free in my specialism, getting extra qualifications in that niche, pitching development ideas to the management. Making a nuisance of myself . It helped that I had contacts at the place in question but I think it could be done without.

If you have any free time at all, is it worth offering yourself as a gopher at conferences? It'd be one way to make contacts.

Another thing to do is to network frantically. Job applications usually ask how you will bring funding into the department and these contacts (which can be another academic, or - depending upon your field - a museum or other organisation) could be external collaborators on potential projects.

crazy ... sorry to be useless, but can you explain what the RAE submission thing is? I've heard people talk and am just more confused ... how do you know if what you've got is good enough to count towards it?

I've been told, re. publishing, that you might get told in your viva if it's worth trying for it ... other than that, how do you get a publishing contract anyway? Not that I am anywhere near ready yet, but I want to know.

sue - the thing is, I'm miles away from my university and it's expensive to keep going up there (I am near my research materials, which I need to be). So stuff like that is tricky, and the universities near me have plenty of their own students.

The RAE has now been renamed the REF. Each permanent member of staff has to submit four publications. The basic order of prestige is: monograph; article in peer-reviewed journal; edited collection of essays; essay in collection of essays / conference proceedings. The other aspects of the REF are "research environment" and "impact" and you would need to show that you can contribute to both. Research culture includes things like putting on conferences or workshops, managing funded projects, etc. The latter is to do with the wider impact of your research beyond academia (in my field it usually involves an exhibition at a museum). All this would be for a permanent lectureship - things are relaxed somewhat for postdoc positions, though a publication or two would be useful for these too.

It would be worth pushing your examiners in the viva for their opinions of where is best to publish. Some theses are well-suited to being transformed into monographs, others work better broken down into a series of articles. Re. publishing contract - I sent a revised version of my PhD thesis to the publisher I felt was best in my field. They didn't accept it straight away (I hadn't really understood the difference between a thesis and a book at that stage) but asked for some revisions to be undertaken, which I did and they are now going to publish it. The difficult thing about this period in your career is being suddenly cut loose from your supervisor and institution and having to make your own way in the field with not a lot of guidance.

Thanks so much!

So you sent the whole thesis, unsolicited? Is it rare to get an acceptance like that, or is it the normal thing to do?

I was advised by my examiners to revise my thesis for publication, and sent it on to the publisher unsolicited, yes. I think that's fairly normal for a first book. My husband is an academic too (also in the Humanities) and is currently working on his second book - as he already has a monograph and is more established the publisher gave him a contract on the basis of just one chapter and a proposal for the new book.

DH's paper submitted as a student was a re-arraged version of his thesis (he is second author as a result), he also did that pre-applying stuff, got his face and name known. Worked for him