Help! I need an answer to this quick. Today my dithery, but otherwise lovely supervisor asked me to write a proposal (which needs to be submitted asap) for a post doc for when I finish my PhD. When I asked him what to write he was rather vague and just said write your own job description. But I dont even really know what a post doc is? Help!

A Post-Doc position is (usually) a fixed-term position (12 months, 2 years maybe more if you are lucky)to under take a specific research project. You can sort of view it as being like a PhD studentship but better paid (because as a Post-Doc you have demonstrated your research capabilities). Which part of the proposal are you writing? Grant proposals (in my experience) don't usually have a 'job description' section, although you may be asked to include applicants CVs and obviously the costings for the salaries involved.

Thanks for the advice. Its kind of what I thought. I've just written a mini research proposal - its for my supervisor to then submit to the department, so I've just put in a bit of everything e.g. background, methodology, ethics etc.

Hi Sussanah, sounds like you have got the idea, best of luck with the application :o)