Research staff

• New to the University
• Media coverage
• Policies and procedures
• Research Team Leaders
• Work-life balance
• International staff
• Your career
  • Academic case studies
  • RS Mentoring
  • Alternatives to a lectureship
  • Getting some teaching experience
  • Notes from lectureship course
  • Leaving academia
    • Non-academic case studies
  • Non-academic role within HE
  • Standing out from the crowd
  • Networking
  • Training
  • Staying in academia
  • Vitae booklets
• Research staff reps
• News
• Real career stories

Leaving academia

You may decide that research is not for you, or you may enjoy your research job but don’t want to be a lecturer.  It can be very daunting to think of leaving academia, especially if you have worked in a University for a long time. Don’t worry, many other researchers have made the transition successfully and so can you! During your time in research you will have developed many transferable skills which will be invaluable to other career possibilities. The resources below will give you ideas for alternatives, help you to think about what you want from a career and help you to sell yourself outside academia.

• Lunchtime Career Seminars - Regular seminars held in the Careers Service, providing an informal opportunity to hear about the career pathways of previous PhD and Research staff as well as interactive sessions on how to find jobs in your sector and geographical region.

• Vitae, the national organisation championing the personal, professional and career development of researchers, has pages on career opportunities outside HE, a section on marketing yourself and pages on managing your career, amongst others – browse their website for more useful information.

• Shinton Consulting (who run our “Moving out of academia” courses) have useful information about non-academic careers on their website.

• Researchers’ skills and competencies is a Vitae document which may help you to sell your transferable skills.

• Jobs.ac.uk has several articles on career development.

• The UoB Careers Service has information about different careers in their information library at 11 Priory Rd and on their website.

Case studies:

• Non-academic case studies.

• Making the transition – a set of talks from ex-Bristol researchers who now have jobs outside academia. You can also read the slides and audio recordings from previous presentations.

• Vitae career stories portal.

• Download What do researchers do? - a Vitae publication of case studies (PDF 1.27MB).

Training:

• You can browse relevant UoB courses.
• The slides from the Moving out of academia courses are all available to download:
  What are my options? (PPT 562KB)
  Where do I start? (PPT 510KB)
  Marketing Yourself into a new job (PPT 263KB)
• Depending on what career you are thinking about, you may want to consider re-training.