Medical Writing – a useful job description.

Communigen is a medical communications company based on the Oxford Science Park. We are looking for an individual to undertake a short-term contract in the office as an Editorial Assistant during March and April. The role will primarily be within the field of epidemiology and tropical medicine/infectious diseases, and will involve assisting our Medical Writers and the Editorial Director with online searching of the medical literature and scientific databases, extracting and synthesising information and data, organising and managing associated references and communications, and liaising with our Medical Writers who will prepare a report of the findings. Additional duties may include updating internal databases, liaising with external personnel (e.g. journal editorial offices) and other editorial assistance, as required.

The individual should be a life-science or PhD student/graduate who is enthusiastic about being part of the Communigen team. Some knowledge of tropical medicine/infectious diseases and/or epidemiology is preferable but not essential and the individual should also be:

• able to undertake online scientific searches according to agreed criteria
• confident with interpreting information from database searches
• organized
• self motivated
• personable
• a good communicator.

 

Leadership in Action Course

Loved doing this 3 day course for the graduate school; very intensive experiential course where everybody was required to lead one activity and get feedback on their leadership.

Tremendous energy in the group and may students / postdocs powerfully affected.

But a couple of people — men – is that significant? seemed very turned off by the experience and claiming not to be getting anything out of it. I suppose what this tells me is that learning styles which are still in my view imperfectly understood – vary so enormously.

I found that doing this course with 2 very experienced professional trainers enhanced my own thinking and learning. Lots of ideas for our new employability programme at Kings.

 

A job description

 I like this job description – found somewhere in my archive. Under qualifications it says:

Some of the shared characteristics of our successful hires include:…..

Many PhD students could say ‘I can do that’

 

Responsibilities

- Arranging and conducting interviews with senior executives, academics, and industry experts in search of best practices
- Conducting significant amounts of secondary research and documenting those findings
- Analyzing business problems using root cause analysis, hypothesis generation, survey design, benchmarking, and other qualitative and quantitative methods
- Presenting interview and research findings to senior managers: verbally, and in writing
- Creation of research deliverables, including essays, executive summaries, case studies, essay graphics, presentations, and speeches; significant contribution to the idea generation of the team—framing both research questions and preliminary answers
- Assisting with program and research agenda development
- Supporting the team through other tasks such as scheduling interviews, coordinating meetings and teleconferences, and preparing research materials and summaries for the team.

Qualifications

Some of the shared characteristics of our successful hires include:

- Experience conducting primary and secondary research
- Curiosity for exploring the frontier of knowledge regarding corporate growth strategies
- Excellent oral communication skills and demonstrated ability to conduct research interviews
- Strong writing skills and experience creating graphical representations of data
- Ability to locate and procure sensitive data from original sources and senior executives
- High proficiency in distilling massive amounts of data into important relevance for senior managers
- Ability to analyze quantitative and qualitative data
- Strong project management and time management skills
- Ability to work either independently or in a team environment, depending on the task at hand

More Group work

A lot of it this week, which is all tot he good. I did a session on Stress on Wednesday – not too happy whith how it went. Establishing the right expectations form the audience is problematic. I oped for a guided discussion but sensed that they ewere wanting sometihng a bit more instructional. Have just finised the 2 day Effective Researcher course with Rachel. Lovely, lively and insightful students, but i am not sure of the programme meets the real needs of the students. I think we are committed to running it again once, but a rethink needed.

PhD closing in on a prized job!

Through persistent networking, I passed on my CV to an acquaintance who works at TOP consultancy who then forwarded the CV to the principal  who is in charge of PhD recruiting! She wrote back to me saying I should incorporate his comments and send it back so she could officially submit it on my behalf! She also invited me to come over to the office to have a quick look. I think this is a really good opportunity to meet the right people. I need a nice suit!

Below are the comments I received and I have incorporated them in the attached CV.

* Would suggest adding if she is top 5 or 10% of here year as no-one will understand the overseas undergraduate uni scoring system

* Would add a short summary (2-3 lines) on her PhD research – what it is etc… shows ability to communicate a complex topic simply in language a recruiter could understand

* Would add in value of scholarship (looks more impressive with values)

* Would add any paper publications and which journals they are in, could be a simple 1 liners, eg, wrote 3 peer reviewed papers, all first author in highly acknowledged journals in Biochemistry – further detail of 1-2 lines could also be added, plus could give a few examples of titles etc.. to show which journals and/or impact value /citations of paper which helps show it’s success (however, these are only worth doing if the recruiter understands what they are looking at so not worth a lot of space on a consulting CV as it’s relatively unlikely the recruiter will know the journals – except for science & nature, but for 1-2 lines it is often worth doing.

* Consultancy likes to see some extra-curricular activities of some

Interview skills for Postdoc Research Students

This is advice given to EUI Max Weber fellows in Florence in 2009

Introductory and contextual remarks

The process of selection of candidates for jobs in significant large organisations has been undergoing major developments in the UK and elsewhere.

The drivers for these developments have included:

• The pressure of international competition
• Recognition of the importance of people as the carriers of the values and the value of an organisation
• The pressure, reinforced by legislation for equality, diversity and social justice within recruitment processes.

 

For a variety of reasons, ‘Academia’ has stood to the side of some of these developments.

Accompanying these new moves to identify the ‘best’ talent within the society has been an increased interest in ‘skills’ (variously termed as competence, capability or employability).

Significant parts of Academia remain sceptical of the ‘skills agenda’ as it has been called. They link it to a process in Higher Education described as ‘managerialism’. The fact that UK governments and other agencies such as the UK Research Councils have strongly promoted ‘skills’ strategies has increased suspicion in some quarters.

Weak and contradictory definitions of ‘skills’ has added to sense of confusion and distrust.

Interview training

We take a skills-based approach.

The underlying assumptions of its method and content are:

• that the ability to make a case for him/herself in a job selection process can be trained and developed in an early-years researcher
• that such development is an integral part of the broader development of the professional skills of an academic
• that an understanding of the principles of selection in recruitment is an important foundation for improved practice
• that experiment and simulation with structured feedback can provide enriched learning opportunities for the growth of understanding, self knowledge and confidence.

 

 

Advice to all postdocs

Before the interview

In the simulations it was not possible to test or observe the quality of your preparation, but obviously preparation is key.

In preparation you analyse the specific position in the specific institution. You discover the ways in which you match the stated requirements.

You identify strong matches.

You identify weaker matches.

You may identify ‘gaps’.

You will prepare a strategy. The evidence for the strong matches must feature in your answers.

You need to prepare a ‘defence’ for the weaker matches.

So: I have no teaching experience?

But I have been a student. What is it that I want from a teacher? How do I evaluate a teacher? What would I differently to improve the learning experience of the student. Do I know some theoretical perspectives about teaching and learning?

In the words of the professor – “Offer something”

 

At the beginning of the Interview

 

Body language.

You can make choices about how you sit – so it is good to observe yourself. However, body language is part of your personality – quite difficult to control.

Here is one suggestion that has helped some clients; it is about the attitude with which you enter the room.

This is an important business meeting.

I have a task to perform and that task is to persuade the panel that I meet the requirements for the job.

The persuasion will take the form of presenting the evidence, deriving from my knowledge and experience that I meet the requirements of the job.

I have a prepared position on the key questions that are likely to arise.

I will be alert to any cues in the exchange about the concerns of the panel.

One professor talked about the mixture of distance and relationship that was difficult to achieve. Another way of saying it is: formality and rapport. You start with formality and develop the rapport.

When asked about your research the temptation is to be long. Resist this temptation. Brief statements allow the opportunity for the panel to ask subsequent questions, and focus on the areas they are particularly interested in. Long answers frequently bore. Look for evidence of boredom in the panel.

During the Interview

Typically people become more relaxed during the interview. This is a natural process; you begin to reveal more of yourself. This is good. This is what interviews are for.

However, you may forget your strategy – so try to monitor whether your key messages are being delivered.

You receive a question that is not clear. Take time to clarify it – paraphrasing the question is helpful. “Just to be clear, you are asking me about the role of intellectual history in a social history curriculum?”

You receive a question you have difficulty in answering. Pause the interview. The panel will wait. “Give me a moment to think about that.”or  “Difficult question, and I am not completely clear about the answer, but let me make one or two remarks that I think are relevant.”

 

You are talking to each member of the panel – ‘include’ them in your gaze.

Easy questioning can be your enemy.

Tough questioning can be your friend.

Do not assume that you have friends or enemies on the panel. They are all people with whom you are doing business. This is a difficult attitude to adopt with people whom you know very well – but adopt it anyway.

Vitae Conference

This year at a posh Manchester hotel.  Really enjoyed talks by Alison Hodge of Qinetiq and Jackie Wilbraham Director of Science of Policy at Astra Zeneca. Sarah Blackford’s research onto MBTI types of life scientists was  fun. Otherwise I was left regretting the workshop sessions I did not choose: Kerry Holden on Scientists’ perceptions of their careers, Institute for Employment Studies work on doctoral graduates 3 years after graduation, VOX communications training. Special interest sessions were great – a fun one on facilitation and a brilliant e-learning programme on developing Researcher writing skills.

Will I return next year when the Roberts funding has gone? If not I will miss this event – great mix of academics, academic leaders and Human Resources folk.

How can postgrad provision better respond to the needs of business?

 

I sometimes think that Universities will never be at ease with business. The marrying of scientists and business seems to have been most successful in the area of new technology start-ups where the company culture is created by teams of recent graduates / PhDs.

 This mutual antipathy (industry/ education) is particularly acute in the area of Humanities.

The Researcher Development Framework – building on the Joint Skills Statement is a useful development.

The realities of research careers  – poor job security, low numbers of vacancies is never pointed out to would-be-postgrads since it would be seen to depress student recruitment which is the life-blood of the university.

When we bring employers in to talk about opportunities for postgrads the response form students is very poor. Students often say they would like to listen to speakers about other opportunities but in reality attend in low numbers. The demands of their projects seem to be at the forefront of their minds and there seems little appetite to look at other careers – especially since the barriers to entering them are considerable.

Are ‘internships’ the answer? The problem is that internships have lots of benefits for the student, they are costly to put on, and benefits to the employer are not clear – apart form those who use them as a staging post in their graduate recruitment programme – in which case second year undergrads are the preferred target. Would they encourage ‘careers tourism’ dipping in’ to see if you like it? An employer would like to see people who have a clearer commitment. Would they encourage employers to ‘use’ interns as acheaper option to employees: there is evidence that NGO’s and charities exploit this particular avenue.

Do businesses make good use of the experience and skills that postgrads can offer?

 Most businesses do not have a special entry stream for postgrads. Anecdotally I think that PhDs who go into banking, IT, consulting etc do well. Their research abilities match the requirements of blue-chip recruiters – particularly if they have structured training programmes like the Graduate schemes.

Banks have put on special recruitment programmes for students with high level quant skills, so this niche of postgrad study has a ready market in financial services. This kind of recruitment activity has diminished since the banking crisis, but has not disappeared.

The response to direct questions about recruitment of PhDs is often met with some consternation by employers liaising with universities. For them you are either a graduate recruit or an experienced hire. The Mckinsey junior associate / Phd entry scheme is an isolated example and is terrifically competitive for that reason.

For many employers a Phd is an extension of University undergraduate work and not the radically different experience I believe it to be. So a PhD is someone who has a more relaxed attitude to deadlines, who will want to analyse a subject in depth when a quick assessment is needed. It’s a mirror image of the prejudice of the academic who thinks that industry is about doing what you are told to maximise profit at the expense of science and –probably – ethics.

Do postgraduates have the right skills, knowledge and experience to progress in employment and get significant value from the investment in education?

Responses to a survey :

In some way and in some departments careers are neglected. The attitude is that anything other than an academic career is ‘less worthy’ and some students feel inhibited from discussing careers with supervisors and other colleagues.

Attendance at Transferable skills training is sometimes discouraged and sometimes merely forgotten about because deemed  unimportant.

PhD students sometimes have unrealistic expectations of their marketability and express dismay when they discover that they have to fight their way into the job market. On particular issue is the ‘Graduate Training Programme’ This would be a highly prized opening into business and the professions for anyone. Many PhD’s expect to go in at a higher level: actually this rarely happens.

When supervision works well students develop a powerful skillset. Self management, working to exacting quality standards, the ability to analyse problems at a deep level, the ability to debate propose and defend ideas, a confidence to network with colleagues – all are characteristic of our best postgrads.

In our institution a number of senior research recruiters say that it is hard to recruit ‘good postdocs’. This could suggest that there are plenty of rival institutions and industry R& D depts that are competing for them. This can only be at best partly true. Or PhDs are not developing the skills to become ‘good postdocs’ – which goes back to problems in training.

In my college, students in Physical Sciences appear to be the most positive to industry – but the numbers are smaller than other schools and they include a large number of international students for whom employment in the UK has been difficult for visa reasons. We occasionally see Engineering postgrads in their late 20’s with impressive technical qualifications but little or no industrial experience; these are not attractive to employers.