My husband is in the middle of a job search. He’s currently a post-doc, and wants to find something more permanent. It’s a much more difficult process than we were planning on – but factoring in his area of research and the economy, I guess it shouldn’t be so surprising. Since it’s taking him longer than we thought to find something, I thought I would start looking for job postings, just to see what’s out there. I immediately became so overwhelmed.
I don’t want a research-centered academic job at this time, so that means post-docs, RA’s, etc. are off the table. The problem is those are the only type of postings that I know how to find. It took me a good couple of hours of clicking links on various pages to find a listing for a science museum position, and from there I found a couple more (and a whole page dedicated to museum jobs, but only in the USA).
I know what I’m looking for (any of teaching, outreach, science education research), but not sure where to look, especially if I’m trying to find positions in certain geographical locations (or with someone that will let me work from home, perhaps from a different city). As grad students, we are not trained for non-academic jobs, and are not really given any guidance on how to find such jobs. So, it seems each person has to re-invent the wheel, and figure out on their own how and where to look.
Since Anna got some good advice recently, I was hoping I could tap into the NN resources. Does anyone have any advice on how to look for non-academic jobs? Any job boards, resources (websites, books, etc.) that you found particularly helpful (if you have/had a non-academic job), or that you recommend to your peers or students? It doesn’t have to be specific to astronomy – any science would be great.
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated, and I plan to summarize the responses in a future post.
Ah, since I benefited last time I feel I should come up with something. I had a “rejection related depression” some time ago and started searching for sites with alternative careers. Here are some of the things I found – I have no idea if they will be useful to you, and I haven’t looked in a while (the paper got accepted and my motivation for science magically returned :))
http://jobs.phds.org
www.eurosciencejobs.com
http://www.the-scientist.com/careers/
Good luck :)
Thanks Anna! My “rejection related depression” has been 3-4 years in the making now. I figure it’s a sign that perhaps research isn’t my bag :)
Alyssa, it seems that things are tough in the job market in most locations. You could try making a list of companies/institutions that interest you, then contacting them personally (by e-mail or a written letter) to see if they have any unadvertised positions.
As for general job sites, Chronicle.com may be useful (both for academic and other related positions). You could also look at local universities; they may have administrative or non-tenured positions listed in their job database.
Thanks, Ken! I agree that looking for unadvertised positions is a good way to go.
Alyssa – this is not an advert, but Nature runs a science careers fair every year called The Source Event. This year’s is on Friday (25 Sept) in London. They have lots on “scientific careers that aren’t doing research” – including a couple of Nature editors talking there. Just in case you are interested. They’ll be holding another event in Berlin in December. As it happens I wrote a post to remind readers about the event on Monday this week, so check that out for links/details if you are interested.
Other than that, the Nature Jobs website is free to access, and carries ads (as well as articles and a NN forum and other resources) for all sorts of science-related jobs. (There are other good sites for science related jobs also – as Anna says above and also the journal Science has one which I don’t think is limited to any one country).
Good luck.
I’ve found cool non-academic job postings on NatureJobs, but there is a severe shortage of local (Ontario) non-academic, non-research jobs advertised. I’ve decided that there just aren’t that many jobs, or that they’re really unorganized. For example, the Ontario Science Centre puts ads on their own site, but I wouldn’t know where to look for them outside of their webpage.
There’s a BC group called Life Sciences BC that represents all local biotechs (their job board is here), maybe Ontario has something similar?
Thanks for the resources, all!
Maxine – I’d love to go to the Nature career fair, but obviously I won’t be able to make it this Friday. Do they ever host events in North America?
Eva – I agree that non-academic jobs don’t seem to be posted in very obvious places. You kind of have to go from site to site. That’s why I’m wondering if there is some database somewhere.
Cath – interesting! I’ll have to look into that! You’d think if there is a BC one that an Ontario one would exist too.
I haven’t come across any databases, but site to site is painful but most effective I found. When I was looking for alternatives to research after my PhD I found talking to everyone really opened a lot doors too. Even people I thought I was just making small talk to – a few of those conversations led to some interesting introductions.
For those in ON – the government of ontario has a pretty big listing of government jobs – policy, some lab jobs, but places like the science centre or centre of forensic science list there too. There are definitely certain times of the year they post a lot of jobs.
Good luck!