Scientist wants to escape the lab - any ideas for a career change please

[Rugbylovingmum]

Hi all,

I'm due back at work in 2 weeks and dreading it . I'm sure part of it is the usual end of maternity leave blues but I wasn't enjoying work before I left and I think I'm ready for a change. I have a year and a bit left on my contract and probably need to finish it (I'd feel guilty leaving part way through) but I want to start thinking about options now in case I need to do training/get experience before applying for jobs. The problem is I have no idea what I want to do .

I have a biology degree, worked in industry for 3 years then did my PhD and this is my first post-doc post. The bits I like/dislike are:

I enjoy the problem-solving/analysis aspects of my job, love the flexibility and running my own project. I enjoy discussing work with collegues but then getting on with it my own. I love doing the background research/reading to find solutions to questions or new techniques and trying to create new assays/techniques to get a result.

I'm fed up of the repetitive bench work, I hate writing papers/thesis/grant stuff although I enjoy putting results/reports together. It's hard to explain but I'd like to do something were there is an end point (complete a project, solve an issue, ....) rather than this academic research that is very open ended IYSWIM. Oh yeah and I hate being made to feel as though I'm only doing half a job if I do less than 60 hours a week now I have DD but I suppose you find that attitude in lots of industries so I should get used to it.

Obviously I'm interested in biology but I'd change fields completely for a job I enjoyed e.g. DH works in accounts and I helped him study and enjoyed analysing financials. I would do some retraining but don't want to study for years again.

Any ideas???

The timing may not be great for this suggestion, but have you thought about a university admin role? Most universities have departments looking at research contracts/partnerships with industry/knowledge transfer etc. or specific posts supporting post -grads and post-docs. I know many academics who have moved into this sort of role and then into more general "management".

My only suggestion is to wait to take the plunge until the financial crisis eases a bit.

I'm an ex-Postdoc, also a biologist! I left my postdoc position after having dd because we moved countries. Since then I have worked as a medical writer (which I hated) and now work in Pharma (which is ok).

I really, really miss the flexibility and "working for myself" part of postdoc life. Yes, you work long hours but if you need to take an afternoon off or come in late in the morning or work Saturday instead of Friday, you can (at least in all my academic jobs).

However, the salary in Pharma is of course twice as good and the hours are fixed. I work in regulatory affairs and find it really interesting. Because I am juggling a lot of small, short term projects, I don't get bored the way I did with medical writing. You do have to sieve the corporate bullshit though which gets me down.

Being a management consultant would fit your skillset quite well I think but not short hours I'm afraid.

What about the civil service - working at DEFRA or something like that?

I've also always thought working for a water company would be quite interesting and satisfying, I find the whole sewage process fascinating [weirdo emoticon]

Civil service (the Fast Stream is still recruiting, and you could be a generalist or a science/engineering specialist) was my answer to the same problem. Lots of writing papers to explain complex stuff, lots of talking to interesting people. And shedloads of people with PhDs!

Hi all,

thanks for the suggestions. I'm going to take some time to have a look through them.

Marialuisa - that is the kind of job I had been thinking about and, as I work in a university dept, I can hopefully speak to a few people about options without it getting back to my supervisor.

Chandra - I have more than a year left on my contract then I have to look for a new job anyway. I'm really hoping the financial crisis starts to ease by then although I might just be being optimistic .

H4H - thanks for the reply, it's really good to hear from someone who has been in a similar situation. The flexibility of my post is the one thing that makes me worry about looking for something new. I have thought about going back to industry/pharma but wasn't sure what area/dept to look at. What does your job involve on a day to day basis? It sounds interesting. I remember the bullshit aspect of industry but I think I could live with it for an interesting job (and better salary/benefits of course ). It would have been better to look when we lived down south rather than the north of england but there must be some jobs up here.

BB - interesting ideas, I'll look into the civil service/DEFRA idea although I'm not sure how excited I can get about sewage .

Sorry notcitrus, x-posted. I'm off to look at the relevant websites now. Again can you give me a very rough idea of how you spend your days - I can read the job descriptions but always great to get an insiders viewpoint.

Hi Rugby - I've worked for the above-named dept among others. It varies a lot by job, but a typical policy post would include finding all the existing info on a problem and what the experts and all stakeholders (ie people who care!) think about what to do and the pros and cons of each, come up with accurate yet diplomatic responses for when MPs and the public ask questions about why we don't do XYZ, write proposals for Ministers recommending they do A and what would happen if they did B... followed by implementing A or B. Sometimes negotiating with the EU, UN, local authorities, other Depts.

Lots of finding out answers to questions and emailing and phoning people, interspersed with meetings and typical running project stuff really. Some writing tenders, more assessing other people's tenders...

The bureaucracy gets annoying sometimes but on the plus side they understand the concept of fixed hours, homeworking and part time (to varying degrees depending on your individual manager, admittedly).

Where in the North are you? York has a chunk of Defra, and there's the various agencies scattered all over.

I'm formerly a lab scientist, but have moved into bioinformatics - much less pressure, I'm able to work part time, and can work from home when it's essential. I don't miss the endless culturing, PCRs that don't work, bloody contamination which knocks you back several months etc etc. I do miss the banter in the lab a wee bit, but am in a nice office now. It's good because we have definite goals, but they are visible goals IYSWIM. It's good fun so far anyway

I am your clone it seems! I'm now a civil servant (but still miss my lab days!)!

Civil service - maybe look more at the Health Protection Agency, or there's a Cabinet Office Science and Tech office (GO-science?), Food Standards Agency, Health and Safety Executive. Although bear in mind that the general freezes on civil service appointments and headcount reductions going at the mo. Possibly the fast stream might be less likely to be unaffected by the current cuts, but more difficult to get into as well - keep in mind there that you get moved around a fair bit and I think expected to do quite an array of work which may not be always tailored to your specific current interests. Great thing about civil service is very good with flexible working and maternity benefits (so parent friendly...or at least it is at the moment before they start cutting it all! Fast stream probably less parent friendly, although in theory shouldn't be...but very competitive) Mostly/all London-centric for scientists.

Regulatory affairs - friend does this. Really enjoys the variety. Good perks. Tend to have to go in at entry level which isn't great money wise to start with (but comparable to starting civil service at probably a Higher Scientific offier rate). Good possibilities for promotion, moving around different companies so salary goes up and exceeds civil service.

Intellectual property roles within universities - finding out about academics potential business opportunities and getting the intellectual property rights sorted out.

Medical/scientific Sales - you probably know what that entails from working in a lab and having them come round. That type of job would be my seventh hell...but another option!

Lecturing/teaching position in a university (or school). Friend is uni lecturer with no lab responsibilities. Able to dabble in lab work and co-author here and there but more for her interest rather than a need to do so as her job is primarily a teaching/admissions/tutoring function.

Marking my place as an ex- postdoc (serial expat, in biologie too, not medical though) who didn't want to go back to the lab after having DD1, was thinking a lot and searching for something else, when DD2 sneaked up.
So I will be in your shoes in a few years.
Lecturing and sales would be a nightmare...
I don't mind retraining but most of the courses I would be interested are masters and cost a fortune that I don't have.

rlm, I am in a similar position to you I think though further down the line. I have been the same lab for over ten years now and have been on back to back 5 year programme grants. Current grant ends in a year and I am starting to panic! May be lucky enough to get on another one (my boss is writing the renewal at the moment) but am not sure how much money is being dished out at the moment.

I have been dreadful at doing career-type development stuff and have been basically pootling around at the bench for ever and am starting to think I am in a total dead-end careerwise. There is a very good careers service where I work though (UCL) and they offer various workshops for post-docs looking to move on- is there anything like that where you are?

and the options on this thread sound very interesting-hadn't even thought of civil service (though as has been mentioned, there won't be much money there either pretty soon). Another one to throw into the mix is clinical trials type stuff- my friend does this, she currently works for CRUK but has worked for various pharma companies in the past. Seems to involve a fair amount of travelling though which doesn't suit everyone.

zam - what do you mean by regulatory affairs?
I'm currently looking at roles that are more sciencey/policy/dealing with info and less management stuff, so suggestions here are interesting.

I'd suggest you register with this org and look around their website www.ukrc4setwomen.org/ . They even sponsor an OU course which helps you consider what you want to do, work life balance etc. I did it and found it very helpful. You can also join peer mentoring circles, and go to conferences etc. etc. Do look! Great ofr al women qualified in Science, Technology and Maths.

Thanks for all the replies - today has finished up being crazy busy so I haven't had much of a chance to log on or read and posts but I'll have a better read through tomorrow. Thanks again!

oops - that should be 'read any posts'.

I don't know huge amounts about regulatory affairs - but my friend worked for a pharma company and essentially it involved ensuring the products that her company produced compiled with the drug regulations for the UK (or other countries regs if international market). Basically I think regs were set in place following thalidomide and companies must comply with regs to ensure things like that don't occur again. She was involved from fairly early on in the product pipeline working with the clinical trials people to ensure that the tests they were doing would produce the necessary results/documentation to comply with regs. All the way through to liasing with government agency (Medicines and Health Regulatory Agency which I think is part of DEFRA?) to ensure they are on the right track. And down to working with medical writers to get the labelling right, again to do with compliance for regs. Seemed quite varied and quite interesting.

Thought of another job I looked at - editing for scientific journals!

You might find the change from the more flexible academia environment a bit of a shock. That dread of asking for annual leave when you want it (not much of an issue now as your baby is still v young, but when he/she starts school), taking time off unexpectedly etc etc. Is there nothing more interesting you could do in your line of work in the future with some extra training? You can change careers but nothing will be quite as flexible as academia, whilst still bringing in regular payslips.