Hello! I can't really offer any advice, but I sympathise with your situation :-(. A lot of the stuff you wrote could have been written by me. I have also finished my PhD and can't seem to find anything, whether it's academia, industry or unskilled. My skills are either not right, my experience not enough, or I'm overqualified. It's a complete pain - we've worked so hard to hard to get where we are, only for it to be absolutely pointless.

I also can't really move around the country - my husband has a good job, and as he's in the building/engineering industry it has been hit by the recession too, so he doesn't really fancy his chances in finding something else. He was already made redundant 2 years ago and luckily found this job straight away, but who's to say that he will be this lucky again?

Can you really not work voluntarily or anything while claming JSA? MY mother in law is constantly trying to tell me that I should sign on, because I can get expenses for voluntary work or for attending interviews. I have no idea if she's right or not - I haven't signed on because I'm not eligible for anything anyway. I'm stuck with living off my parents, which makes me feel so uncomfortable especially now that I'm married. In my defence however, I asked them why they were still giving me money now that I'm married (they said they wouldn't). My dad claims that I am still his daughter, so he's just going to keep doing that.... It doesn't make me feel much less guilty though. I've never asked for a penny off them :$

Anyway I've written some sort of essay here :$. I know I haven't really helped your situation, but at least you know that you are not alone. Come and chat to us when you're feeling down, because there's people here that understand :-)

Do any of you unemployed PhDs have any business ideas? I'm sure we could use our skills together to think of something :p

So, I actually got an interview for that job in Primark. It's only for 4hrs a week. My partner thinks I should forget about it and not go, because it's pointless and I'm undervaluing myself (his words, not mine). Hmm.

I started in August, which is when I submitted my thesis. I passed my viva in November, and after finishing my corrections etc. I started voluntary work in January in the same research group where I did my PhD. So at least I'm getting out of the house - I'm just not getting paid for it :p

You've inspired me to apply for a Saturday job at Primark. We'll see what happens! :-)

It's ok to feel sad. I feel sad too, a lot of the time. I tried for retail jobs before the Christmas period, had one interview and didn't get the job. Now, there's pretty much none available where I live so it's not really an option anymore. Had another rejection for a science job the other day. I'm seriously rubbish at interviews :-(

Sometimes I resent having done this PhD - but sometimes I'm a bit proud of myself too :-)

Yep - thesis submitted in August, viva passed in November. Applied for around 30 jobs since August, industry, academia and Boots! No interviews until December, 5 since (4 academia and one in Boots :p ). First industry interview next week...

Thank you to you both :-)

The interview is for a research post, as far as I can tell there is no teaching involved (and I also have no teaching experience, so that probably wouldn't make a very good presentation ;-)). It's also for a specified project.

It just says "a presentation on your recent research". I just don't know if it means they want to know what I did (in the typical Intro, Methods, Results, Conclusion style), or what techniques I used that are similar to the ones needed for the job, or what else :$

Hi everyone,

I have an interview next week for a post doc job, and I have to give a 10 minute presentation on my recent research before the start of the interview.

I'm really stuck on getting started - I finished my PhD a few months ago, so I have plenty of material to use (it'll be more of a problem picking out the most important bits to keep it in the time limit...), but I'm struggling in how to aim it correctly, if that makes sense.

I guess I don't really know what employers are looking for in this kind of presentation. Does anyone have any advice for me at all? I'm in the life sciences, if that helps..

Thank you :D

I should tell my future husband to do an EngD, sounds like that's where the money is :p

He's in Building Services though, I guess that's not as good as some of ther other engineering industry. He's got a BEng, is doing a PT MSc, has nearly 7 years experience and isn't even on 25k ;-)

Probably still better off than me though, with a life sciences BSc and PhD I've applied for jobs in industry that pay 18-20k. I can't even get interviews for those either :$

I'm in a similar position - I submitted in August, and have been looking for jobs since then. I had my viva in November, and finished my corrections soon after that. I've had a few job interviews for research posts, but I got turned down because of lack of experience. Like you, I feel that my skills are not in demand. I've tried applying for jobs in shops etc. before christmas, but no luck. Now it seems like hardly anyone is hiring in that area.

Luckily, my fiance has a job, and my parents are still supporting me (which is really embarassing at 25, but I'm very very grateful), so the money situation is ok for now. It doesn't mean that I don't feel awful about it though.

What I'm doing right now is unpaid lab work in the research group where I did my PhD. It gives me a reason to get out of bed in the morning, and it gives me more experience. Hopefully it looks good on my CV too.

The sooner you contact your supervisors, the sooner you can get the ball rolling with finding another external and arranging another viva date :-)

You never know, your supervisors might not even know yet that your viva has been cancelled - their letter may be lying in some pigeon hole somewhere and they haven't received it yet....

Sounds like you're doing great with all those publications :-)

I know it's going to sound really unbelievable and it's pretty pointless me saying it, but really try not to worry. I was really nervous about my viva. I was meant to have a mock viva 2 weeks before the actual thing, and I was so terrified that I couldn't even turn up. I couldn't even manage to send an e-mail to my supervisors saying "I'm really scared and I don't think I can do it, can we have a chat about it please". They weren't overly happy with me about that one.

I'm in biological sciences too, and when I asked people about their viva preparation I got responses ranging from "so-and -so read loads of papers for theirs" to "I read half my thesis and got pissed off so I gave up". I ended up somehwere in between - I started reading it and writing down questions, but it was so time consuming that I gave up on it pretty soon.

My viva started with the examiners asking a few general questions - they said my thesis was well written and easy to follow, and then asked me to summarise my work, what I did, why and how, and what I found. They then asked me several questions about my introduction, it was around 50 pages long and they asked questions for what seemed like an eternity :p I remember saying "I don't know" a lot. At one point I was getting quite upset that I didn't know anything (or at least that was what it felt like). At which point my external said "It's ok if you don't know", and we moved onto something else. A few times they had to coax the answers out of me, I'm someone who won't say the answer if they're only 99% sure that it's right :$. These were questions like "Do you know what kind of reaction happens here", or "how does this part of the pathway work", or "do you know any other proteins that do this". Or "I think this section is a bit out of date, in your corrections I'd like you to update this section, I can guide you with some references if needed" (though that bit never turned up in my corrections ;-) )

We then moved onto the methods section, and they asked me on several points to clarify what I did, with questions such as "why did you count the cells in this experiment?", or "so how exactly did you set up this experiment when you're actually doing it?", "do you have standard curve for this? If so, we would like you to put it in", or "what was the flow rate for this?". Just little bits where I left out some detail, or just helping them picture the set up.

Everything after that is a bit blurry - I remember a discussion about stats (I used wrong tests in one of my chapters), and a dicussion about why one of my experiments might not have worked.

After 3 hours they let me go (it felt nothing like 3 hours). They spoke for a few minutes and then called me back in and awarded me a pass with minor defiencies - a few spelling mistakes, some stats to redo, a few extra paragraphs here and there, some more details in part of the methods.

It really wasn't a gruelling experience, some of it was sort of enjoyable in fact. With hindsight I can appreciate that someone's actually read my thesis enough to ask questions about it :p

I wouldn't read too much into it - it could well be that he really hasn't got the time to read it with all the other work he has going on, rather than him having read it and decided that corrections would be too extensive. Mind you, I don't understand why it's taken him this long to decide that it's too long, very poor time management on his part.

I'm sure everything will work out - I know your supervisors have been less than supportive in the past, but I don't understand why they would let you submit if they genuinely thought that you wouldn't get your PhD. Don't let all the viva prep drive you mad. Before my viva, I spoke to several people in my department who had already done theirs on how they prepared. Responses ranged from "I read every paper I could find" to "I read half of my thesis and got pissed off and stopped". You know so much more than you think, and you are the expert on the work you have done. There will be many questions that you can't anticipate, because you would never think of asking them,as you have done the work.

I started mine when I was 21 and didn't really feel at a disadvantage :-)

You probably won't believe me that I understand, but over the past year this is exactly the post I could have written. So many people in my department submitted a few months after their 3 years were up - I took way longer. Every time I sat down in front of my thesis, I told myself that everything I would write was complete crap. That I had failed already, that I would never submit because I shouldn't even be there in the first place.
I spent a lot of time writing up at home, because I couldn't face seeign my supervisor all the time and having everyone ask me how it was going. I spent so much time trying to think of reasons to get out of bed in the morning, and spent many sleepless nights feeling guilty about how I've let deadlines slip by. I tried my best to ignore my supervisor when I was in uni, because I just couldn't face up to the fact that I was completely rubbish at my PhD.

I also made some bad decisions throughout my PhD, and when I was writing up everything came back to haunt me - I felt so guilty and stupid for it all. Everything was going far too slowly. It was a dreadful year :-(

In the end, I knew things were going very badly when the sup e-mailed me to ask how it was going and I couldn't even reply. I felt so rubbish about it - he emailed me again a few days later, and all I could reply at that point was "It's going badly, but you knew that already". Nothing else. In the end, he made me send him what I had done of my chapter, and we met up. I was so, so nervous - but it was fine. I think he knew that I felt awful - and so suggested I came back to uni to write. I didn't want to - I felt so embarrassed at not having finished yet. But I came back - and the month after, I submitted.

Point is, you will get there, even if it doesn't feel like you ever will. If you weren't meant to be in the situation where you are writing up your thesis, then you simply wouldn't be there in the first place. I know that the thought of giving up sometimes feels like bliss - but I also know that it just isn't an option. You really will get there - but it takes as long as it takes. Good Luck :-)