Great idea chickpea. Researchgate is another site you can join like this.

Read for a purpose, such as writing a literature review. Then it's more focused. Keep PDFs highlighted with relevant sections in something like Mendeley, which is also good as a searchable database later on.

Innocent until proven guilty right?

They probably won't google you, and even if they do they will likely assume it's not you, just someone with the same name.

Yes you can get an MRes in a year - that's all you need to do the research and then you have time to write up (which you could always do from prison...).

I think go for it - like you said you will have something to focus on, plus maybe they are probably less likely to jail you if you are found guilty if you are doing something viewed as worthwhile such as postgraduate education.

But if it comes up later on and they ask you about it, you should be honest at that point. Otherwise they may lose trust in you.

Apply for the job.

I quit my postdoc after a year, pretty sure I burned a lot of bridges though, but I don't really care because I don't want to work in that region of the world anyway and I don't think it will affect where I am working now or where ever I do want to work.

A friend of mine also quit his international postdoc after a year, and now he just got another 3 year one, yet again, surprise surprise, back in his old UK department.

I think people understand that contracts go both ways - no permanent job for me? Ok, but don't expect me to value you as an employer then and understand that I may jump ship if something better comes along.

Yep, the best advice is to keep applying... It's a numbers game. Once you're getting interviews, keep refining your applications and interview techniques until you get a job. Just stick to jobs.ac.uk - it seems to have all academic jobs on there anyway.

Oh yeah defo use powerpoint - that will be expected.

Yep, most UK universities have this USS pension scheme for employees on certain grades. For some reason they seem to keep this quite quiet!

Employer contributions in most 'decent' schemes are around 8%, but they often match employee contributions as well to a point, so you can end up around 18%.

Contact unis you are interested in and ask them. I do wonder about the validity of online PhDs though.

Nope, don't mention it. It may never happen.

Yep, postdocs are different to PhDs. PI have grants for postdocs and then advertise them. It's highly unlikely you will get a postdoc by randomly contacting professors. YOu need to search for them like a job and then apply. Look for Research Associate (generally Research Assistant is without a PhD and is lower pay).

You can apply for postdoc funding yourself if you're very competitive, but for a first postdoc it's unlikely you will be. Generally postdoc funding is obtained by supervisors or PIs.

Think of future earning potential at current company vs after a masters. What is your long term goal?

You should aim for 10 mins and make sure it's at least 8 minutes. Talk about previous research if you have any ie undergraduate projects. Practice the talk out loud with friends and family - ask for their feedback. Talk about relevant undergraduate units and transferable skills too - what you learnt and how it can be applied to the PhD. Look up their papers and see what is relevant.

PS - you have to get used to doing talks if you're doing a PhD. It's never easy but it does get easier with practice.

I agree, I would rather be told it as is, I don't like people dancing around the point either. By less intense, I guess I'm thinking if it's written down I can go back over it later, with verbal feedback I will probably forget most of it and there isn't usually time to write it down as they are talking.

Oddly, this is what I am being taught is the 'best' type of feedback in these lovely training programmes I have to attend in my job. Personally I think it's a bit of a joke. Feedback should be tailored to individual preferences. I prefer to have written comments on my work, then the chance to discuss these comments later. At that point, it's less intense because I've had time to reflect on those comments, not have had them all trust upon me at once. My supervisor gave me this type of feedback so I was lucky. If you just want written feedback, then that's what they should give you. You can then ask questions on it if you don't understand, or if you keep making the same mistakes then they can discuss it further with you.

We are being encouraged to do audio recordings of feedback for undergraduate students, rather than writing anything or having face to face conversations. I'm told that research backs up this preference, but I'm yet to have been provided with any such research, and it seems too much effort to find these for myself since this educational research is so far out of my field. Apparently this is also quicker to do, but again, that's a personal thing in my opinion.