Author: James

Guidelines for Good Research Practice

1. Plan Your Procedures

2. Plan Your Time

3. The First Attempt is a Trial

4. Change One Thing at a Time

5. Don’t Rush

6. Don’t Do Too Many Things at Once

7. Revise Protocol of Old Procedures

8. Have All the Necessary Controls

9. Blinding and Double Blinding

10. At Lab Meetings Show Everything

11. Don’t Use the Bare Minimum

12. Don’t Ignore Your Supervisor

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Research Job Application Criteria Early in Your Degree

There are three main things that will determine your academic progression after your degree. The first is your number (and quality) of publications, the second is your number of connections, and the third is the number of skills you have developed.

A lot of people forget the last one, but often it is the most important. If you don’t have the skills listed as essential in the job criteria, then your publications are largely irrelevant.

To this end, it is worth looking at a few jobs you might like to apply for early in your degree, and seeing what skills you would need to procure them. There are usually a set of complementary skills that appear together in job criteria, which you can procure during your degree through collaborations and courses etc.

Get Practical Tips
 

  1. You will not be able to acquire every skill for every research job. Attempting to do everything will just leave you not very good at anything. However, there will be a core set of skills that apply to most jobs in your area of research, and it is a good idea to make sure you can do most of these.
  2. Attend student seminars and learn what techniques others are doing.
  3. Look for courses in techniques and ask your supervisor if you can attend.
  4. Before your interview, spend extra time researching skills you are less practiced at.
 
Read Personal Perspective
 

My PhD was quite strange because the techniques I learnt were not overly related to each other. When I applied for jobs, I often found that I had some of the required skills but not all. If you don’t want this to happen to you then make sure you possess a good set of complementary skills.

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Take Part in Activities Outside Your Group

Taking an active role in student life, such as organising events and conferences, involving yourself in institute/university events, and attending courses and lectures all make you look like a more rounded person and show enthusiasm for research.

They can be especially useful if you do not plan to follow a straight academic career by providing transferable skills that are relevant to other jobs.

Get Practical Tips
 

  1. Building a network of friends and colleagues through attending events can help you find jobs simply by knowing more people who know about jobs, but it can also be a good introduction to the people offering them.
  2. Being involved in committees and organising events shows managerial skills, which are important to many jobs on the non-academic side of research.
  3. If you keep to your own lab, work hard, obtain lots of lab skills, and publish high then you will probably be fine. However, if things don’t work out as you intended then you may have very little to show for your time. A few extracurricular activities, if nothing else, can be a failsafe against disaster.
 
Read Personal Perspective
 

I got involved in several activities during my degree, including an educational game and student welfare committee, and went to several of the university talks and events meeting many interesting people. Not only did I enjoy all these things, but it made my CV more impressive, and provided me with experiences to discuss in answer to some of the questions I got asked in interviews.

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Present Your Work at Conferences

It is important to show your research to others throughout your degree, but it reaches maximal importance as you are about to apply for jobs.

Being selected to present at conferences is an award you can put on your CV, and demonstrates that your research is of good quality. Attending conferences will in itself allow you to speak to a few people if you approach them, but presenting will allow you to address everybody at once, and may result in people coming up to you to discuss your work.

Get Practical Tips
 

  1. If you have the guts, you could state at the end of your talk that you will shortly be looking for a new lab.
  2. After you have done your talk, seek out the people you would especially like to work with and talk to them about their work (and yours), asking if they might have any open positions.
  3. This guideline doesn’t only apply to people about to publish in Science or some other top journal. Your work may not be of such high calibre, but showcasing it at conference gives it credibility and is not without power to impress.
  4. At earlier time points when you may have very little data, don’t lie and submit to do a talk on data you don’t have. This is dishonest and can result in a lot of stress coming up to the talk if you haven’t progressed as far as you thought. It is much safer to submit to do a poster under these circumstances.
 
Read Personal Perspective
 

I got my post doc from presenting my work at a conference. After my talk, I started talking to a lady about the food, and she told me she had a position opening up that I should apply for. Job done.

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