Today’s extremely competitive academic job environment can cause a great deal of heartache for the would-be academic. Here I want to add a few words of advice about how to maintain a methodical and pragmatic approach to looking for a job, particularly when the field is so challenging and the pressure so great. Understand employment…>
Written by Carol Carey
Carol Carey has worked as Lecturer and Senior Lecturer at a number of UK universities, including Manchester, Sheffield, and Exeter, for a total of eighteen years. She blogs on a number of topics in UK HE, including careers advice for academics, research, modern languages, and changing careers.
Understanding Corporate Behaviours and Values
A quick guide for academics When academics venture into the corporate world they may encounter references to ‘behaviours and values’. Although academic practice is of course underpinned by certain values (exemplified in academic guidance on issues such as plagiarism and research integrity), few academics will have been asked to consider these explicitly, still less to…>
Work-integrated Learning in the University of the Future
Work-integrated Learning (WIL) is a new conceptual framework to help universities build on their current employability work to create forward-thinking, future-driven strategies for offering practice-orientated learning across the curriculum. Employability has long been a key part of universities’ mission to produce graduates who can transition smoothly into the workplace. Under the terms of the Teaching…>
What Interviewers Really Think
We’ve all been in the position of the early-career interviewee, nervously looking across the table at a number of academics who seem accomplished and established in their careers. But what about the interviewers on such occasions? This article examines what some of their main concerns might be when interviewing early or mid-career candidates in particular….>
Unconditional Offers and the Visit Day
As outlined in my previous article Managing the (new) Admissions Cycle there have been great changes in the last year or so to the number of unconditional offers made by universities to applicants, with unintended consequences for the overall pattern of admissions across the academic year, as well as with larger, still unfolding implications about how universities…>
Managing the (new) Admissions Cycle
Changes are afoot in university admissions. In 2017-2018 the number of unconditional offers made to applicants shot up seventeen-fold, or 40%, from a mere 2,985 students in 2013-2014, to last year’s record of 51,615 (see UCAS’s 2017 End of Cycle Report on Offer-Making). This increase has been the subject of debates in Parliament and, according to the BBC, will…>
Impact and Your Research
If you’re an early-career researcher or lecturer the forthcoming Research Excellence Framework (REF2021) may be your first REF round, but it probably won’t be your last. The main way in which the REF will affect early-career academics is in its requirement for outputs (between two and four published outputs for full-time academics with significant responsibility…>
Making the Most of Research Leave
Research leave can be a blessing, but like other aspects of academic life, needs to be managed carefully in order to get the most out of it. Here are a few tips on how to make the best use of your time if you’re fortunate enough to be awarded leave to pursue research. Not all…>
Setting Up Placement Systems
The student experience lies at the heart of the modern UK university, with institutions vying to offer students the best in teaching and learning opportunities, research-driven expertise, top-of-the-range facilities, and excellent support services. But the one thing students really need in the competitive marketplace into which they will graduate is also the hardest thing to…>
Keeping Your Curriculum Current
Curriculum review is an essential tool for ensuring that the needs of a wide range of stakeholders in the teaching process are met. Students are, of course, the key stakeholders in the process, but others include employers, professional bodies, subject organizations, and even civic society at large. Curriculum review can take place on a number…>