Is the organisation you are targeting a Trawler, a Spearfisher or an Angler?

The Council for Industry and Higher Education has produced a report entitled ‘Talent Fishing: What Businesses  Want from Postgraduates’, based on a recent survey in which HR Directors and other senior managers from 56 organisations were asked about their approach to the recruitment of  postgraduate talent, what qualities they value in postgraduates, and whether UK postgraduates deliver the right high level skills and personal qualities.

Recruiters were found to be of three types when it came to recruiting Postgraduates into their organisations, Trawlers, Spearfishers and Anglers.

These are fairly self-explanatory but for accuracy’s sake here are their definitions:

Trawlers

Postgraduates are simply caught up in the net of employers who recruit to meet more general requirements. They do not usually actively seek them out, and treat them little or no differently from first degree graduate applicants in the recruitment process.

Spearfishers

Employers who seek postgraduate recruits with specific capabilities to fill specific job roles, usually recruit in small numbers. This group of employers tends to have good links with a university department (or target several universities), which they utilise to ensure a flow of good postgraduate recruits to research or specialist functions.

Anglers

Employers may prefer postgraduates because they are expected to have a distinct advantage over a first degree graduate for a particular role or function and because they are more mature and can contribute more quickly to the business. However, in some instances, an applicant with a good first degree plus work experience may be equally suitable.

To meet some organisations to find out a little more about how they recruit you might want to register for the PhD Employers Forum (more details tomorrow on this blog).

The report also found that although the majority of organisations surveyed do seek out postgraduate recruits, but there is  a clear concern expressed that higher education institutions and businesses need to work together to make sure that postgraduates have the specific skills and knowledge that employers are looking for – in particular leadership skills and work experience – to complement other clearly identified benefits such as analytical thinking, problem-solving, and subject-specific knowledge.

To see the full range of things UCL does to address this keep an eye on this blog, The Graduate School training site, and The Careers Service pages.

To view the full report, go to: http://www.cihe.co.uk/talent-fishing-what-businesses-want-from-postgraduates/

Robert Donovan

UCL Careers Adviser

Career Stories On Film

Finding someone who has followed the exact career path as you is pretty much impossible, but if you hunt around enough you can find someone who has a similar direction, and may give you some pointers.

There are a range of video examples like the one above on the iCould website, but you’ll need to dig for research focused subjects, so here is a handy list of some of them to get you going

If you are a UCL Researcher and fancy documenting your experiences then get in touch.

New links and feeds.

We’ve added a few new feeds on the right hand side of the blog, including some feeds to vacancy websites JobOnline and Jobs.ac.uk, hope you find them useful!

I’m a big fan of twitter, and a lot of the stories on the blog are picked up from there.

So here are some interesting lists:

http://twitter.com/CareersGroup/careersservices

http://twitter.com/#/list/helenpownall/careers-people

http://twitter.com/ukrsavitae/jobs

http://twitter.com/ukrsavitae/networks

We’ve just started a new list at http://twitter.com/#/list/uclcareersblog/forpostgrads and will be adding to it as we go on. Let us know if you spot anything that would be useful to go on it.

PGR Tips email bulletin

We don’t want this to become the Vitae fan blog, but they do pretty good work I think we’d all agree.

Anyway here is something for your Wednesday afternoon lull….

PGR Tips is a monthly bulletin stretching all the way back to 2006, and is well worth a look. It isn’t all ‘careers based’ either with tips on how to design posters, public engagement, and how to prepare for a conference amongst others.

Some of it is pretty common sense, but it is probably a better use of an afternoon than spending it on the Viz Top-Tips Twitter Account (possibly Not Safe For Work)!

Here is the long link: http://www.vitae.ac.uk/researchers/4069/PGR-Tips-email-bulletin.html

How are you viewed by industry?

Press Release from Vitae

More than 70% of employers would welcome more applications from doctoral researchers, a new study finds

Employers are keen to recruit researchers both for their technical skills and for their ‘first class brains’, according to responses to a new study into the experiences and attitudes of employers towards doctoral graduates.

Vitae, an organisation championing personal, professional and career development of researchers, surveyed over 100 employers who represent a diverse mix of sectors, organisation size and orientation towards doctoral graduates. It found that three quarters of the respondents have some interest in recruiting doctoral graduates and would welcome more applications from them.