Silver PGs

Vitae has PGs blogging here. A recent blog there on Silver researchers - do they offer a contribution to the postgraduate community? has elicited over a dozen comments from older post graduates. As an older post-grad myself, I appreciate the blog and the discussion since I'd not thought of myself as too old to start the PhD when I applied because it was something I'd always wanted to do, wanting the process, the opportunity to research, and learn how to research better than I had done when I'd had other opportunities. I think I have contributed ot the post graduate community - in the OUBS, in the university and to the wider community through this blog.

However, it came as a surprise to me to receive career development training because I'd never had that before - perhaps why my 'career' has not ever taken off. My school didn't do career training. Girls were going to marry and be mothers, so they could go to university perhaps, or teaching, or if not bright enough for that, then nursing or clerks in the civil service. That was my 'career training'.

It'll be nice if I get a research job after this - I've enjoyed the PhD and would love to do further research. A career position would be a bonus.

Career development workshop

It seems a tad late in my life for anyone to give me career advice - I don't remember getting it at school, or college, or though my OU studies. Nevertheless, it is now the thing to do, and I duly signed up for a career development workshop.

The most interesting and useful thing I think I've learned as that I need to rewrite my CV for an academic application. I've been writing it for AL posts, and keeping to one page, but apparently if I apply for research posts I should be using a couple of pages and putting my education and qualifications near the top, whereas it had seemed to me, that you should put your work experience near the top, and education wouldn't be so relevant later on in life.

I've got the chance to rewrite and get feedback on it. I'll do that and see what the trainer suggests.

BAM doctoral symposium: career & RATS

I enjoyed this session that Chris Huxham gave on potential careers after PhD (Who for? For me?!).

RATS is a mnemonic for

• Researching
• Administration
• Teaching
• Service

It had more or less the same content as the OUBS research week session in July (See here). But

1. was visually interesting and
2. added a service component

That service component sounds likeHandy's portfolio, volunteering, doing extra that is socially useful, like joining a special interest group or volunteering for a board. It would help the networking as well as open other areas of research or work. I don't remember all her arguments.

But her visuals included RATS!
Moving rats in cartoons - I wonder why she got the images from

Careers

Universities have three legs to the career stool:

1. admin or management
2. research
3. teaching

We heard three of our academics discussing the issues surrounding these strands.

The researcher recommended the need for mentors and some structure of support. She's loved the job, always has, but fell into it by accident.

The teacher quoted Pinchto intrapreneuring - do it then ask - I think he said. Teaching is less quantified in its assessment than research. aim to be on committees but teaching is less well paid than outside work, and you can't avoid the students.

The administrator explained something of a university management structure. The job involves management roles like keeping resources coming in. Managing makes a dent in your publication rate but these roles mean that you are in the centre of things because you ave collective responsibility for the management of the school so you have to have issues, dilemmas and different perspectives on performance.
The downsides of management: demanding, difficult to put boundaries, collective responsibility, takes discretionary time and mental energy.

Conclusion: management gives you the chance to experience real management and use that experience in the maelstrom (Edgar Allan Poe), which can be valuable. It is a stimulating experience which is avoidable, but needed if your career aspirations are to lead a university.

OUBS research week - publishing

Dave Wilson talked to us about writing and publishing in international academic journals, both in a general context, and from a PhD.

The first depressing thing he said was that publishing in highly ranked journals improved the perceived quality of a business school, which gave rise to pressure to publish in top journals, which would want high quality business schools to write for them. It sounds cyclical - at least that's how I sketched it. He referred to Barley (2006) who wrote about "transgressive papers" (slightly misquoted) that get normalised by a process that stifles innovation. Citation clubs exist to boost their own publication rates (Cynic). The lesson is that you should cite.

Advice:

• submit to special issues
• write with others to demonstrate you can work in a team
• write for A and B rated journals
• have a theoretical or methodological or empirical core message
• address the "so what?" question "This work is important because .."
• be able to describe your PhD in 4-5 sentences
• match the subject to the journal
• don't try to rush it! (this was so depressing because you may not publish till four years after your PhD)
• use your conclusion of your first draft as an introduction to your second draft
• if you get a "revise and resubmit" response, that's a reason for champagne-opening!

The greatest buzz is when you get cited!