Hi,

I am heading towards the end of my PhD and started to wonder about what I want to do after. Some ideas include lectuership, teacher or I.T techncial support person. What I am worried about is trying to find these sorts of jobs. Is there any advice you can give on how to go about trying to find a job after your PhD because at the moment I am scared of the prospect of never finding a job that truely makes me happy.

Hi Fluffybear,

Okay, I work in private sector (and have since finishing PhD) so I don't really know much about applying for postdoc/lectureship jobs so hopefully other people will happily fill in the details.

I'm going to be honest with my views about people going into teaching and unless it's something you really want to do and have passion for, then don't do it. When I was doing my PhD I was seeing someone (and living with) who was a teacher and it's long hours, hard work, often thankless and not the profession that so many people have a rose tinted spectacle view of. All the people I know who are teachers have one thing in common - they always wanted to be teachers. However, that's only my own view.

Public sector is about to see massive job cuts; again I've never worked in it so hopefully someone who has can comment with more authority.

Private sector is the way I went (and what I wanted to do) and there are lots of job sites out there - monster and reed, for example. I don't know what your subject area is so can't really advise any further on potential career ideas.

As for finding a job that truely makes you happy, that's a worry for everyone. What I will say is these days it's not uncommon to move jobs - I was in my first job for only a year before moving to my current one. I intend to move internally early next year as well - so don't fear you have to be stuck in one job forever.

Hope some of this makes sense - had a rather late night and head is all a bit whirry :-) But happy to answer questions on here or send me a message if you want to know anything more.

Hi DanB

Thanks for all the useful information and advice. What did you do your PhD in and what are you doing as a job now. My area is computer science. I don't know if this is a common feeling but is it normal to feel guilty if you put your heart and soul into your research but then in the end you get a job unrelated to it. I was wondering can you still publish work even if you get a job which is not in academia.

Oh I think it's quite normal - I started a PhD and wanted an academic career; after about 6 months I decided it wasn't the way forward. With so few academic jobs about, most people who do PhDs don't end up in academic careers, or necessarily even research careers. I know a lot of people who have gone into private sector, where PhD skills are valued even though the work isn't related remotely to the PhD itself. Where I worked previously there were 3 of us out of a team of 15, and now there are 2 of us in a team of 8 where I now work.

You can still publish but depends what area you go into and whether you can still do research as part of your work. I'll PM you some details of what I do.