Category: Career

  • Wish I’d said that

    You know that moment when you walk away from someone at a conference feeling that you’ve made a bit of an arse of yourself and then realise with dazzling clarity what you SHOULD have said? This post is about that.

    At a workshop today at Glasgow University, we were discussing reputation, profile and generally having greater personal impact. I asked everyone in the group to introduce themselves to their neighbour as if they were meeting at a conference. I didn’t give them time to prepare (although they had constructed a mind map of their profile/career/research vision earlier) but instead asked them to say the first things that came to them. After a few minutes we stopped and then reflected on what they said, what they should have said, what they definitely should NOT have said and generally what would be different if they could press rewind.

    Here is the summary of the discussions. I’m posting these because they make up a useful checklist that might help you to prepare for a future introductory conversation. As you read each item on the list, think “How will I do that next time I introduce myself to someone new?”

    – I should have brought the conversation around to wanting to keep in touch and asking for their contact details

    – I should have talked a bit less about myself and instead asked questions which would have helped us find the common ground between us

    – I should have talked more about the impact my work has on the public

    – I should have worked out what to say in two minutes so I didn’t miss anything key

    – I shouldn’t have asked for a job (it was clumsy and felt awkward)

    – I should have been more explicitly about what I wanted and why I was talking to them (I.e. I SHOULD have asked for a job)

    – I should accept that sometimes “big names” just aren’t interested in early career researchers (I’d argue that they probably would be if they could see why you were interesting…)

    – I should have created an opportunity for a conversation to start instead of giving a “mini-talk” that left the listener stunned into silence

    – I should have found a way to be more interesting to the other person (by understanding what they were doing)

    – I should have emphasised the novelty of what I do

    – I should have had this conversation with a chaperone who would have helped me to talk about my highlights, novelty and made it clear to the other person why I was worth talking to 

    Much of his speaks for itself but a few final comments. The apparent discrepancy between “I shouldn’t have asked for a job” and “I should have been clear about what I wanted” isn’t as contradictory as it appears. It’s fine to approach someone and say that you are going to be available for opportunities soon and to ask their advice or whether there are likely to be any openings in their group/institution in the near future. It isn’t fine to have a conversation which appears to be about something else and then bluntly switches into “Gis a Job“. Think about the flow and how to set up the conversation so you feel comfortable asking about opportunities.

    I also loved the final point about the chaperone. Sometimes it’s much easier to have someone there who will celebrate your successes. Who can do this for you in your network? Next time you are at a conference and someone suggests that you talk to a senior academic, ask them if they would mind making the introduction. These introductions can be virtual as well as “in the room” so don’t be afraid to ask people in your network to build your connections (they may be grateful to have an excuse to make the contact and to do both you and the other person a favour!).

    Happy networking!

  • Enterprising Women

    This page supports the Enterprising Women programme which I run at the University of Edinburgh and which was developed by myself and Janet Wilkinson.

    Here’s where I’ll post useful links and any ideas which connect to the themes that we looked at on the three days. For those of you who haven’t attended the course, the themes are:

    • creativity
    • comfort with cash
    • control

    Creativity

    For creativity, I’m going to be lazy and link you to the existing pages on this site which cover this topic as well as the site I developed from the original Girls Geeks workshop which was the “grandmother” of Enterprising Women.

    Creativity – different for me, different for you a fairly old blog post but covers my creativity philosophy

    Deadly 50 – the introducing yourself activity which we do

    The Entrepreneurial Knickers post  and the website that grew out of them…

    http://www.entrepreneurialknickers.com/ (yes, really)

    Comfort with Cash

    The two books I recommended were

    Nice Girls Don’t Get the Corner Office

    Nice Girls Don’t Get Rich

    (both pretty cheap on Kindle and highly recommended although best not to read in public as there are lots of “D’Oh – I do that!” moments in them both)

    We looked briefly at the Research Professional site which you can use to search for funding opportunities. If you access the site from within the University you should be able to search without a login.

    If the University mystifies you as much as it did me when I worked there and you’re a postdoc, why not go to the next Get Connected event in January and find out exactly who does what.

    We talked about Athena Swan as a facilitator for improving equality but also as a potential opportunity to demonstrate leadership if you get involved in this in your school or institute. Contact your local champion once you’ve got to grips with the ethos of the award.

    Many of you were keen to make more of social media, LinkedIn in particular, but not sure where to start. There are lots of guides including the excellent ones on LinkedIn itself. Here are a few:

    https://university.linkedin.com/linkedin-for-students

    https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/10-tips-students-new-grads-linkedin-omar-garriott

    https://targetjobs.co.uk/careers-advice/networking/273059-social-networking-and-graduate-recruitment-manage-your-online-reputation

    https://targetjobs.co.uk/careers-advice/networking/328863-a-graduate-job-hunters-guide-to-using-linkedin

    Finally, many careers services will have their own guides, but I have a particular regard for the Careers Service at Manchester, particularly their support for researchers:

    http://www.careers.manchester.ac.uk/findjobs/graduatejobs/networking/linkedin/

    I mentioned a guide I’d seen which helped people make the transition from Facebook to LinkedIN – I haven’t been able to find this on the web so it may be very out of date, but here is a copy of it from my archive.

    From Facebook to LinkedIn

    The first “call out” to something generated by one of our enterprising women is the MODON research site established by Nathalie.

    http://modonresearch.com/

    Keen to feature more here so please send me any links!

    Control

    The final day is in December – stay posted!

    (We’ll almost certainly refer to this at some point…)

  • A badge of honour?

    Yesterday I spoke at the “Taking Control of your Career” event for the Institute of Physics (there’s another blog based on the day here). The event was aimed at young female physicists and it’s perhaps inevitable that the topic of imposter syndrome came up. As I listened to the first speaker, Dame Professor Athene Donald talk about her career and acknowledge that she had made mistakes and that she felt imposter syndrome I could feel the relief from the audience as they realised “It isn’t just me”. Athene’s talk is available on her blog and many of the ten messages she shares can be related to imposter syndrome. As a regular reader of her warm and wise blog I found her earlier post “Getting Away with It” struck a similar chord last year.

    My day job of running researcher and academic development workshops means that the topic of imposter syndrome comes up regularly. Most people feel at some point or another that they are “getting away with it” and although I feel this most of the time, the more I hear talented and successful people talk about it, the more I see it for what it is.

    I feel imposter syndrome when I stretch myself. Even though I intensely dislike the feeling that I’m about to be caught out and humiliated (and it has happened on a few occasions) it is far, far preferable to the mind-numbing alternative of living my life safely cocooned in my comfort zone.

    As I wrote my slides for the Taking Control event I added a line to my final messages which conveyed this:

     Imposter syndrome is a sign that you are stretching and learning.

    When it actually came to say it, I went even further.

     Imposter syndrome is a badge of honour.

    Which makes a great tweetable soundbite, but I think warrants a bit of explanation for those who weren’t in the room. On my (long, long) journey home I started to worry that this might be interpreted as trivializing the impact imposter syndrome can have on people. Earlier in the week I had read a beautifully written guest blog post on Professor Pat Thomson’s site by an anonymous PhD student on her fears and how they are affecting her confidence in her academic abilities.

    I’d encourage anyone reading this to look at the post, but perhaps more importantly the comments at the bottom which are filled with empathy, advice and a constant stream of “me too”. Although it definitely helps to know that you aren’t alone in feeling this and to recognise that imposter syndrome comes as part of learning and stretching, it is critical to have a strategy for coping with those feelings and managing the impact they have on us.

    When I talk about this in workshops I use the word resilience and point people to some of the resources that helped me to ensure my coping strategies were all they could me. I also wrote a blog post containing these links and my own resilience strategy.

    If you feel the grip of imposter syndrome, recognise it as a sign that you are working towards your ambitions and congratulate yourself on having the courage to stretch yourself. But don’t do this in isolation – talk to people about the triggers (in the case of the student on Pat Thomson’s blog this seems to be partly down to the imbalance between critical and positive feedback from supervisors) and see if you can make changes. A resource I seem to point people towards pretty much every time I leave the house is the excellent “We Have To Talk” – a guide to difficult conversations.

    When I summed up the day in my closing comments I made a few other points:

    • Capture your successes and get credit for your effort. Most of the CVs I looked at during 1:1 appointments barely scratched the surface of what was on offer. Take some time to stop and think about what you’ve achieved and keep your CV up to date (this is also a great reminder of what you have acheieved which is another resilience strategy)
    • Don’t be the person who say no to you – there are plenty of other people who can do that. This advice came from Professor Eugene Kennedy who spoke at the Dublin launch of the funding guide I wrote for the IOP. (You can find his slides on the Dublin launch page – full of advice.) He was making the point that we often don’t put ourselves forwards for opportunities because we assume we aren’t good enough – let someone else make that decision as they may be less harsh than you are on yourself.
    • As an early career researcher you have LOTS of time but you need to use your time wisely. The point I was making is that you have time to make mistakes and to have false starts but don’t just drift and wait for things to happen or for career inspiration to strike. Be proactive and show initiative but don’t worry about deciding on your whole life when it’s barely begun.
    • Be comfortable marketing yourself. I think this is more than a gender issue, but I see many incredibly talented women who are uncomfortable celebrating their successes. Even Professor Dame Athene Donald shied away from describing herself as successful at this event. We all need to be more comfortable accepting praise and describing our worth.
    • Finally, I emphasised the value of networking – being part of a supported community has given me the confidence to pursue opportunities and I get nearly all of my consultancy work because other people celebrate my successes. Build a network, be active in it, be generous with your praise and support of others and the karma fairy will ensure someone does the same for you.

    In summary I still see imposter syndrome as a badge of honour, but I take resilience seriously. I hope that the fantastic women I met yesterday felt as inspired as I did by the end of the day to continue to push themselves into the “stretch” zone but also to look after themselves and each other along the way.

  • Resources for new and aspiring principal investigators (PIs)

    This blog post contains the resources and links that I most commonly send on to academics and senior researchers who attend a training day I run on developing successful academic careers. The collection of links might seem a little eclectic as they stem from the discussions we have at these workshops, but I refer people to them so often that I thought a blog post was warranted.

     

    I’ll try to update this page as I find new resources – it also takes a little pressure off the plans to write some more detailed guides to social media and collaboration to add to the existing guides to time management and building a research profile.

     

    Most of my workshops raise awareness about the opportunities you need to create and take advantage of in order to progress your career. I am very conscious that most academics don’t sit around all day wishing they had more to do, so the first step we discuss is to reduce existing commitments.

    These two blog posts explore strategies for saying no:

    http://www.designsponge.com/2012/03/biz-ladies-saying-no.html (thanks to Dr Josie McLellan for this)

    http://zenhabits.net/say-no/

    Not everyone on these workshops has secured a permanent academic position, so this is a good place to give a plug to the GLASGOW Fellowship guide which offers advice on preparing an application and the interview process.

    Delegation is another key skill – workshop participants will get a guide to delegation, but in a rare example of not haemorrhaging intellectual property, I’m not going to post that here. Instead here are a range of links:

    The rather terrifyingly named Asian Efficiency site has a very nice step-by-step guide to delegation for freelancers which translate well for academics

    Libcom ( a site with infinite potential for distraction for any sandal wearing liberals) also has a gentle guide to delegation

    Social media is a really hot topic in workshops now and it’s been interesting to see the gradual shift from dismissing it as the natural home of freaks and time wasters… to being curious and open-minded about the potential… to finding at least 30% of any workshop group actively engaged.

    The following blog posts from academics might give additional insights into the value of social media to academics and researchers:

    http://www.katherinelwheat.com/lifeafterthesis/uses-and-misuses-of-twitter/

    http://deevybee.blogspot.nl/2011/06/gentle-introduction-to-twitter-for.html

    http://thermaltoy.wordpress.com/2012/05/09/what-is-the-point-of-twitter/

    http://occamstypewriter.org/athenedonald/2013/03/23/learning-the-foreign-language-of-twitter/

    http://www.nature.com/spoton/2012/10/spoton-london-2012-tweeting-to-spread-the-word/

    http://computingforpsychologists.wordpress.com/2012/04/23/how-many-social-networks-do-researchers-really-need/

    http://dynamicecology.wordpress.com/2012/09/13/why-i-use-twitter/

    http://dynamicecology.wordpress.com/2013/02/06/why-should-an-academic-read-blogs/

    This isn’t the only list of such articles – here is another list of science/social media related articles and resources,  from the Social Networking for Scientists Wiki (more US based).

     

    If you know of any others PLEASE let me know – I’ll try to keep updating this list.

     

    If these convince you, the introductory guides I tend to suggest are:

    http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2011/09/29/twitter-guide/ (very basic)

    http://www.rin.ac.uk/our-work/communicating-and-disseminating-research/social-media-guide-researchers (still the best I’ve found although any publishes guide to social media will gradually become outdated – I see signs that ResearchGate is proving more popular than Academic.edu at present)

     

    Most of our leadership programmes include MBTI – I know some people dislike this as a tool but I still find it very useful for demonstrating that differences between people are positive if you understand them. As a summary, I like the new MBTI heads which celebrate the 70th anniversary of the tool – rather fetching silhouettes with summaries of key words for each type (I know one academic who has hung his on his door as a warning…)

    http://www.mbtiparty.com/#gift (either click on “don’t leave without your free gift” or scroll way down until you get to the Party Favors (sic) section)  – enter your type and choose PDF or image. If you don’t like MBTI you will hate this page, so probably best not to go there…

     

    Another challenge for new PIs is the process of growing a research group. For this I still recommend the HHMI online guide – Making the Right Moves – it’s aimed at bioscientists, but the advice is largely generic and although there are now some omissions (it’s over ten years old), it still contains great advice.

    http://www.hhmi.org/resources/labmanagement/downloads/moves2.pdf

    Funding

    Although I don’t cover funding on any of my research leadership courses (I’d rather encourage people to make contact with their own research funing support offices as these are full of excellent helpful people), I’ve recently come across a couple of resources that are frankly too good not to include here.

    I was pointed to the first of these during a discussion with the director of a research support office, giving it a real seal of approval.

    The Research Funding Toolkit was developed by research funding experts and academics (arguably these are also research funding experts, but hopefully you’ll understand the distinction) and includes a series of excellent presentations,  checklists and a great blog.

    The next resource came indirectly through twitter. One of the most generous and honest academics that I follow is Dr Nadine Muller of Liverpool John Moores University. She writes regularly about the highs and challenges of academic life and her “The New Academic” blog is packed with advice and insights from Nadine and guest writers.

    The post on writing grant applications gives a fantastic starting point for any first time applicant and in the comments stream is a link from Neon Anonymous to their post entitled “All-the-things-ive-learned-while-i-should-have-been-working-on-my-thesis”

    In this post is a link to  “The Professor Is In” Blog and Dr Karen’s Foolproof Grant Template. Although written by an American academic for her funding opportunities, to me it appears to travel across the Atlantic very well.

    I’ve also recently found rather old but still very effective guide to funding:

    The Art of Grantsmanship

    The final links are to help people reflect their research culture online – the website of Prof Roberto Cipolla at Cambridge is a good example of explaining a model of supervision. As far as I can see he hasn’t updated this page for about 18 years (I’ve been linking to it since 1999)– but there’s no evidence he needs to!

    http://mi.eng.cam.ac.uk/~cipolla/phdguide.htm

    The second has been updated recently – the Barton Group at Dundee University. I think that the embedding of Geoff Barton’s twitter feed is really effective here as it ensures that the site looks current with minimal effort. The feed conveys his enthusiasm and humour. Also worth noting is the excellent guide to the UK academic system which demonstrates his commitment to supporting international students. Photos of the group and their successes complete a picture of a strong group, where successes are celebrated, international researchers are welcomed and where a comprehensive picture of the work in the group can be seen. (Having met Geoff and some of his group recently, I felt the page reflected the positive group culture really well.)

    Here endeth the brain dump, but please let me know which sites and resources I could add.

  • Networking – benefits for young researchers

    This blog post is principally written for the PhD students who attended the SULSA Young Scientists’ Event in May 2013. However, the links and themes will be relevant to any researcher interested in developing their networking, collaborative and communication skills. This is the first post which will focus on networking.

    I’ve previously blogged on the approach I take to networking (this includes my thoughts on starting conversations), but at the event we discussed the benefits and challenges for research students. I think this is an essential first step for the reluctant networker – working out what the benefits could be. Three stand out from my PhD

    1. meeting someone who we were considering as an external examiner (he didn’t like our work, so we thought again and I was spared a viva that would have been particularly challenging)
    2. explaining a problem I had fabricating samples with a research engineer, who solved it in about 35 seconds (and sent me the spacer material through the post a week later)
    3. learning about other meetings that were potentially more valuable (I was a bit of an outlier in my research group, so it wasn’t obvious which meetings were right for my interests)

    It probably helped hugely that I had to go to conferences on my own – if you go with your group try to spend as much time as possible away from them!

    The SULSA students came up with a lot of positive reasons to develop networking skills – hopefully there’s something here to convince you to overcome your reticence and find ways to network more effectively.

    Networking benefits research –

    • talking about your work helps you to understand it
    • you hear about funding streams you might not be aware of
    • you can share problems and challenges rather than getting stuck
    • you can hear about things others have done that haven’t worked (as these rarely appear in the literature)
    • learn about different tools or approaches that might benefit your work
    • help answering technical problems
    • access to facilities or materials
    • have novel or creative ideas from discussions
    • of specific benefit to viva preparation:
    • access to constructive criticism
    • fresh perspectives from outside your group
    • hear about new opportunities – vacancies in other groups, jobs in related fields, other conferences and meetings, prizes, internships,
    • share your skills

    Networking benefits you and your career

    • talking about your work makes people aware of what you are doing (and the fact YOU are doing it)
    • learning about yourself (reflecting on what you enjoy talking about, who you engage with most positively)
    • learning about other opportunities (vacancies in other groups)
    • learning about alternative paths to research or academia
    • build your contacts
    • find potential mentors
    • get careers advice
    • gain confidence about communication your research, connecting with people

    As a platform for longer-term enhancement

    • knowledge exchange
    • meeting potential future collaborators
    • develop relationships with other sectors which could enhance impact activities
    • opportunities for travelling/secondments abroad

    A final note for this post – networking shouldn’t  just be about asking people for help, so this isn’t intended to give you a checklist to take to any conference, ruthlessly rejecting people who don’t offer anything useful! Rather, this post is to help to get motivated to engage and start looking for opportunities.

    Two links to blog posts that might help you take this thinking further:

    6 secrets to better networking at conferences

    Conference social skills

     

    And a final link from my friend Paul Spencer about the Matthew Effect. To quote this article, “a term coined by Robert Merton to describe how, among other things, eminent scientists will often get more credit than a comparatively unknown researcher, even if their work is similar; it also means that credit will usually be given to researchers who are already famous”. Networking as a young researcher begins to build your visibility and reputation.

  • The Power of Positive People

    I’ve spent most of this week where I spend a lot of my time – in UK universities working with research staff and academics. I’ve had lot of conversations about various aspects of academia and careers but two really stand out.

     

    One was with an institute director with whom I was discussing some ideas to support his researchers. We met at the end of a long day for both of us and I must admit I went into the meeting with some weariness. I received a email just before the meeting from someone who has a habit of sending scornful messages and was distracted thinking about how I was going to respond. I was facing a long drive home and an early start the next day.

     

    Two and a half hours later I emerged from a meeting which completely energised me. We had a great plan and determination to turn our ideas into an event or programme. We’d shared book recommendations and people in our networks. My good mood wasn’t due to the prospect of a new piece of work (although that’s great), but because I’d connected with a positive person. For those few hours, anything was possible.

     

    Academic life isn’t easy at the moment. I spent a day with new and emerging research leaders this week and the discussions about REF were demoralising for me (let alone them). It feels like the important things in academia that can’t be measured are being devalued, and that the sector risks favouring 4* papers over “4* people”. The pragmatist in me understands where REF has come from and that scrutiny of academia is part and parcel of public funding, but it worries me that we risk losing a generation of brilliant, committed people who are made to feel that they don’t tick the right boxes. 

     

    The second conversation of the week was with someone like this. They are exactly the kind of person who should succeed in academia. Passionate about their work, delivering important outcomes and yet demoralised by the perception that they are failing. During our conversation I recalled my meeting earlier in the week and we talked about the power of positive people. I suggested they find ways to spend time with people with a positive approach – working with them if possible.

     

    As we spoke about ways to find positive people and connect with them, two areas of opportunity cropped up – the impact agenda and the push towards collaborative research. Both of these are based on developing relationships and both provide the chance to meet people who care about the things you care about. Even if they are only a small part of your workload, these connections might “top up your happy tank” enough to get you through the daily grind. 

     

    Although I now work on the periphery of academic life, I’ve embraced both of these ideas. I’ve found another positive person (a teacher in a local school) and set up and run a very successful little science festival. (If you know me, you’ll know ALL about this, otherwise, check out last year’s event…). I think the success of this is down to the fact that both Andrew and I focus on what is possible, rather than what is difficult. I’m not suggesting it was easy to run the event, but it was fun and energising because we kept meeting people who were positive about what we were doing. Neither of us receive an income from our work on the festival but it pays a rich wage in terms of the people we meet and the satisfaction we get from delivering a great event.

     

    I’m also collaborating much more as part of my professional life. Although this means sharing rewards and remuneration, the benefits are huge. I use collaboration as a mechanism to spend time with other positive people – I perform better with them because they inspire me to push forwards and do bigger things. Not all of our projects come to fruition but we all benefit from the time we spend together.

     

    Some people have the negative default – focusing on what you can’t do and why “that won’t work here”. They often make good points and help us avoid repeating mistakes, so this post isn’t suggesting that you should avoid all negative thought. However, if the negative voices are all you hear, they will stifle you. 

     

    Time with positive people builds your resilience. They remind you of why you’re in your role and why it’s important. They give you permission to be positive yourself and to get excited again about being a researcher.

  • Reflections on FOM Young Scientist Day

    I spent the day at the FOM Young Scientist Day which aims to give young physics researchers in the Netherlands the tools they need to manager their careers effectively, be they academic or otherwise. I ran a workshop on academic career development alongside Sylvie Roke which I’ll post details of later (probably in the next few days!).The day started with three very powerful presentations from people with different career paths – Dr Wim van Saarloos, Director Foundation at FOM; Professor Sylvie Roke, EPFL and Dr Joost van Mameron, Coordinator Institute of Physics at UvA. Their careers have taken very different routes, but the messages they gave to the room were consistent.- take control of your career. All of them had invested time and energy in broadening their skills. Whether it is learning to touch type, volunteering for committee or paying for coaching, they have all done interesting and different things which made them more employable and broadened their perspectives. Sylvie went even further – she invested financially by paying a career coach to help her maximise her potential. To hear somebody of her calibre talking about the value and impact of the coaching on her effectivess (I work fewer hours than my colleagues so I have to be more efficient) was a real wake-up call for the audience, some of whom (it transpired later) were still to be convinced of the value of skills & career planning). We had a discussion later about the value that we give to our personal development and it made me think about the difficulty engaging many people to think about these issues even (or perhaps because!) when expert advice is available for free.- other people matter. Every presenter talked about a time where they had been “lucky” but on closer inspection, this luck was about being made aware of an opportunity they hadn’t spotted, being encouraged to apply for something or been recommended by others. In other words they were so highly regarded by those around them that their networks were looking out for them, recommending them and nurturing them. I think that this is a measure of the positivity that the first point illustrates. By being personally committed, they show that they are worth the investment of others.- know what you want and enjoy it. Joost talked about his dilemma when choosing the path out of academia and the factors which influenced this choice. He balanced his desire for a certain kind of work against a desire to work abroad. All the speakers made a series of moves which took them towards a particular goal. These goals weren’t necessarily ultimate goals, just the next step in their development. Careers often make sense in retrospect and for all that I advocate the process of career planning, I also recognise that you can only see so far ahead and career choice is often a step into the unknown. The key is to keep thinking “Am I learning? Am I happy doing this? Are there other things out there?” and to make the move when you need to.All in all a really inspiring day and I’ve added a couple of great people to my network. I’ll be writing a post about my workshop when I get back to the UK, but right now I’m off to put my shoe by the chimney, put a carrot out for the horse and sing??Zie Ginds Komt de Stoomboot. (Careers musing with free cultural insights…)

  • Confident Networking

    The natural networker is at an advantage in the modern world where relationships and connectivity are so vital. The rest of us can reflect on the behaviours and habits of life’s “schmoozers” and apply these to improve our own personal impact.

    This posting is based on a short workshop I’ve given at Dundee University for the last few years as part of their OPD researcher developer programme. The slides from the workshop are available on-line through my slideshare account and below.

    Confident networking 2

    The slides are hopefully self-explanatory, but there are a few messages I want to emphasise.

    The concept of networking and the word itself have pretty heavy connotations of strategic conversations, spotting “useful” people and getting what you want from people. All this is a bit of a turn-off even to those of us who are converts to its value. Far better to stop thinking about networking as a thing that has to happen at a certain time or place – just become familiar with what you want to say and why it is interesting to others and then let the conversations flow more naturally.

    Imposter syndrome is a big barrier for many people – there’s a great blog post from Professor Dame Athene Donald : Getting Away with It, which I hope will reassure you if you suffer from this.

    There are also additional cultural barriers in academia – we are likely to either be networking in a “foreign” culture or to be networking with people who don’t share our cultural background. Although models of national cultural behaviour are, by definition, sweeping generalisations, they are also useful starting points. We mention two:

    Geert Hofstede

    Nanette Ripmeester

    (Interesting that they are both Dutch. Is that a national stereotype?)

    The fantastic jobs.ac.uk site also carries country profiles which may be useful background when talking to people.

    There’s far more “give” than “take” in networking – it is much easier to think about the value you can give to other people than worrying about how you will ask them to give you something. Focus instead on what you can offer – these ideas are expanded in the slides.

    Use social media to develop and sustain relationships before and after face-to-face meetings. Contribute your ideas and opinions if you have something to add to another researcher’s postings and be generous in sharing information. Hopefully the karma fairy will pay you back when you need it.

    I’ve found this excellent blog post from Rosie Redfield on Conference Social Skills. Her very wise words are consistent with my own messages in this workshop. I found this great blog post via another – Athene Donald’s post on Conferences and Courage. Both are strongly recommended.

    We talked about the importance of first impressions – here are some of the ideas we shared:

    when you describe your research think about the key facts and memorable highlights that you want to leave in people’s minds. How do you want them to describe you in a few words if they talk about you later to someone else? Are you giving them these phrases in the way you introduce yourself?

    aim to make the interaction an exchange of information; ask questions and encourage the other person by smiling and nodding as they talk; try to put them at their ease. Leave gaps in the conversation so they can come in and talk about their work. If the person you are talking to seems nervous, focus on the things they are competent on in order to build their confidence.

    look for common ground in terms of interests, background, shared motivations.

    convey your enthusiasm through your body language, the tone of your voice, smiling, being relaxed as you talk about why your work is important and interesting.

    if you think there is an issue because of age, gender, your topic etc look for ways to convey your credibility – explain where you are from and who you work for (if this helps)

    make it clear where to go next – ask the person for a card or if they mind connecting with you through social media, suggest a time to catch up later in the day, or simply thank them for their time and say you enjoyed talking with them.

    The links on the session handout are:

    www.academiccareer.manchester.ac.uk/

    setting up a researcher blog

    http://www.hhmi.org/educational-materials/lab-management/for-early-career-scientists 

    http://www.cio.com/article/164300/How_to_Network_12_Tips_for_Shy_People

    www.slideshare.net/sachac/the-shy-connector

    http://www.rin.ac.uk/our-work/communicating-and-disseminating-research/social-media-guide-researchers

     

     

     

     

  • Social Media: Need convincing?

    Today I’m working with a group of researchers the value of social media to their careers and doctoral training. A short workshop can only scratch the surface, but hopefully in this post I can point to a range of sites and share my thoughts on why it should be part of your life as a research student.

    Twitter – not just about celebrity minutiae, this micro-blogging site is a constant source of information, comment and opinion. By selecting the organisations and individuals who are most relevant to your interests, you can personalise the flow of knowledge. I follow funding bodies, individual academics, researcher networks and selected journals. As well as information, twitter connects me with a wide community. Unlike other networking sites, I can follow anyone who posts public information. I don’t need to know them or get their permission (although some people prefer to post privately to approved followers). If you fancy following me, please do. You’ll find my twitter feed reflects my interests and my personality, which I think is a good way of helping people connect with my work.

    Each time I scroll through the timeline on Twitter I find something useful. Either a blog posting from a professional in my field, news from a researcher about a conference, a news story which relates to research – I’m hardly ever disappointed.

    With time, I’ve also found that I can use twitter as a consulting pool – I posted a question recently about software for research project management and received many suggestions (these will be collated in a future post!). I can also comment on discussions or even take part in brief Tweet-meetings where you happen to coincide on-line with a group commenting on the same topic or idea.

    A recent tweet from Professor Dorothy Bishop pointed me to a great blog post aimed at nervous academics – this gentle introduction might convince you if I can’t.

    And on the subject of blogging …

    Advice on setting up a researcher blog and a list of examples of blogs written by researchers from Tristram Hooley are available on the Vitae website. Rather than try to come up with something as good as this, I shall simply point you towards these and an article from Science Careers on the same topic. 

    Networking is one of the most important skills in modern career management and social media is a brilliant tool for keeping your network active and interested in you. I have a number of profiles on different sites – I tend you use Facebook as a personal space and tend to connect with people as friends, although I have set up a company page for Shinton Consulting Ltd. My professional network lives on LinkedIn and although I am regularly tempted by specific sites like academic.edu, they aren’t really set up for my kind of work. I think they are great for academics though and give you a showcase for work, papers, interests and collaborations.

    Content sharing

    A range of sites of available to help you disseminate your research to a wider audience. I am pointing you towards large general interest sites rather than research specific ones. Please add any suggestions for more niche sites to the comments below.

    Slideshare is for presentations – I post my slides here and find the visual impact and style of some of the materials on this site really inspiring – great for ideas to develop dazzling presentations.

    Flickr is for photographs and images. I’ve heard of students putting images of their conference posters on here. I use it for holiday snaps. Which I won’t bore you with…

    Delicious is a social bookmarking site which I use to capture great sites as I find them. I can also theme them for specific audiences or interests. A great way to use the cloud as it means I can point people to my bookmarks wherever and whenever they have internet access.

    Research specific sites are proliferating. Rather than duplicate the excellent guide that has been written for the Research Information Network I shall simply point you to it : Social Media- A Guide for Researchers is a must read.

    In the discussions I’ve had with researchers new to social media, there are also a number of concerns expressed about sharing information in open. I have to say that I remain convinced that the risks are outweighed by the benefits, but my golden rule for any post is ” am I happy for my clients, family and friends to read this?”. I think if you keep the potential employer of the future in your mind as you engage with social media, you shouldn’t do too much harm.

  • Social Media and your Career tamed

    After a lot of research (most of which was a classic display of displacement activity) I’ve finished the first draft of a short workshop on “Social Media and your Career”. It’s taken a lot more preparation than many of my workshops because I felt I needed to build up my credibility by developing a higher profile on various sites.

    I think I also needed to engage in a lot of information absorption, divergent thinking, playing with possibilities and ideas, then some lying down and making the web induced headache go away. (There you have it – the Shinton creative process* in a nutshell.)

    Even with all this taken into account, I was struggling to come up with a framework for the session. My problem is that I’m not, by any stretch of the imagination, an expert on social media. I spoke to people who were and was given all kinds of interesting leads to follow, but the cloud of information just grew. At about 3am last night I realised that the reason I’ll be in that room is that I am an expert on careers issues for research students and staff (or at least can pass for one in a dim light). Social Media brings career management into a new light, but the fundamentals which I’ve been working with for the last 15 years are still there. SM gives us a completely brilliant set of tools, but if you forget the fundamentals you can’t use those tools with clarity. Social Media quickly overwhelms and distracts. I’m aware that this post might be an exercise in “stating the bleedin’ obvious” but was an important moment for me as I had been rather dazzled by all the shiny toys and forgotten why I’d gone into the toy shop in the first place.

    I took a deep breath and came up with a set of  core career questions, which the workshop is now based around:

    Who am I? 

    What choices are out there? 

    What do I want to do? 

    What do employers want? 

    How do I find a job? 

    How do I market myself? 

    What am I worth? 

    I’m sure questions will occur to me as the session is finalised but these have brought my focus back. 

    The annoying thing is that up till this point, it is exactly how I had been using Twitter, posterous, LinkedIn etc – as resources for other ideas and to add value to the sessions I’ve been running for the last 6 months. The temporary loss of my focus is an insight I’ll be sharing in the workshop which is for researchers who are hardly known for having a lot of free time on their hands. It may be that it is a “growing pain” which all SM users have to experience, but if I hadn’t had the commitment of a “gig” to push me through, I might have run away and hidden in a library or book shop.

    I’ll be posting information on the workshop in October.  For now I’m just feeling a lot more comfortable about the event and now looking forward to spending the next few weeks looking for sites and apps that will breath new life into all my work.

     

     

    * there may also have been some knitting, BBC7 and coffee consumption.

    (and if this post goes directly to my twitter and facebook page, then I have the excellent Tristram Hooley to thank, as he explained how!)