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Career Directions for Researchers

Applying for jobs outside of academia

Identify ways to look for jobs outside of academia through both proactive and reactive approaches.

Job-hunting is a skill, and through fine-tuning a well-crafted approach to looking for jobs, you will ensure you leave no stone unturned. More proactive strategies such as networking and speculative approaches can also help you access the hidden job market, which some estimates suggest make up the majority of the labour market! Whilst effective job-hunting strategies can help you find roles in all industries and sectors, this section will focus mainly on job-hunting for roles outside of academia. We cover recruitment processes for academic roles in more detail elsewhere on this website. However, looking for jobs and opportunities is only the tip of the iceberg; to successfully translate your skills into different sectors and industries, you should consider how you will present yourself and your skills to future employers.

Strategies for job-hunting outside of academia

Before you start looking for any job roles, it is helpful to firstly identify your skills, interests and values and reflect on the type of roles you would enjoy. Researching your options, exploring different job sectors and understanding the broader labour market are also key to understand not only what your options are, but how you can market yourself effectively for roles of interest. Take a look back at the Planning your career section on this site to help you identify your transferable skills. We recommend looking at our extensive advice on Student Futures+, in particular our resources on developing self-awareness, researching career options and the graduate job market.

When applying for job opportunities outside of academia, you will not only need to know where to look for these positions but also understand how to position yourself and your research expertise and experience in the best possible light to be competitive for these positions. Dr Chris Humphrey on his website, Jobs on Toast, has a useful guide to applying for jobs outside academia and transitioning from a PhD student to a ‘fellow professional’.

“At the heart of the fellow professional approach is the ability to present yourself and your capabilities in a language that your prospective employer can understand and relate to. And when applying for your first job outside of higher education, you’ll need to be especially thorough. Remember, the interviewers are hiring someone who is the best match for the job vacancy title and role description. If their first impression of you is as a freshly-graduated PhD or as a conventional university professor, this will trigger all kinds of stereotypes and preconceptions about you, before you’ve even had a chance to present yourself! That’s why you need to present yourself from the outset as a professional researcher, or analyst, or scientist or educator, who has a strong skill-set and relevant qualifications and experience. If you are already speaking the interviewers’ language, potential barriers will fall away.”
Dr Chris Humphrey - Applying for jobs outside academia

He recommends following the below 4 stages:

Dr Chris Humphrey’s 4 step guide to becoming a ‘fellow professional’

Job title – Consider what you are now going to call yourself professionally; what is that in the form of a job title? Look for suitable job titles and roles in the sector where you’re applying for work.
Skill set – Reflect on the skills you have gained from your research degree / research career and match your skill set to the sector where you are applying for work, e.g. project management, problem solving.
Work experience – Try to get non-academic work experience; reframe time spent working on research in language suited to your target sector; present your PhD as an experience on your CV (not just in Education but as a substantive experience in its own right).
Qualifications and memberships – Obtaining qualifications or joining professional bodies/ organisations relevant to your future sector can be useful and help demonstrate your career direction persuasively to employers. For example, gaining an accredited CIPD qualification to transfer into HR roles, or joining the Project Management Association.

Where to look for jobs

Head over to Student Futures+ for advice on where and how to look for jobs, including how to search for advertised opportunities and how to access the hidden jobs market.

You can also watch the short YouTube video below about the hidden job market and why employers use it to find suitable candidates:

Support for postgraduate research students

If you are a current postgraduate research student at Cardiff University, you can access various support services to help you look for jobs. You can:

Further resources

Use the below resources to explore this topic further: