5 Key Questions you Should Ask Yourself when Considering a New Career…(06/03/18)

Here’s a question for you – What do you do if you find you’re ready to leave academic research, but you don’t know what you want to do next?

Answer- Research the opportunities!

Whilst this answer is clearly intuitive, it’s also daunting when you don’t know where to start. So how do you start exploring all the possible opportunities out there?

Whether you’re looking for a new career or just looking to reinvigorate yourself in your current role, a great starting point is to weigh up your own personal priorities. This will enable you to establish which roles fulfil these priorities to give you a starting point at which to begin further investigation into particular careers.

Here I outline five key questions that will help you identify potential career paths. Providing honest answers to these will enable you to identify opportunities that meet your own personal requirements for a fulfilling career.

Question 1 – Which aspects of your current role in research do you most enjoy?

 The flip side of this question is of course which aspects currently frustrate you too? Try to answer both of these questions as fully as you can. They also work retrospectively – think about previous positions you’ve held too.

As a research scientist I knew I enjoyed data interpretation, analysis and scientific presentation (particularly oral presentations and writing). However, I far less enjoyed the day-to-day administrative tasks (e.g. marking, lab budgeting etc.). This is largely because hyper-organisation is not necessarily my strong point. Therefore, I was interested in careers that allowed me to do more data interpretation and presentation of complex material, but that also allowed for restricted administrative duties.

Another aspect of this is not just what you like to do, but also what aspects of the workplace are in line with your personal values.

For example, could you see yourself conducting activities in-line with profit generation and marketplace competition, or do you feel more comfortable in the non-for-profit sector, (where the drivers are still productivity, but not necessarily commercially-based ones)?

Likewise, are there certain sectors that would conflict with your own personal and ethical values? If so these need to be avoided.

Ultimately it is important to identify institutions/organisations that are in tune with your personal likes, tastes and values.

 Question 2 – What key skills do you possess that will enable you to leverage work in other sectors?

 As a research scientist your transferable skill set will be broad (see my recent guest post on the jobs.ac.uk site about this – guest blog post). Briefly these include (but are not limited to):

• Time management
• Written communication
• Interpreting information
• Decision making/problem solving
• Oral communication
• Learning quickly
• Project management
• Teamwork
• External collaboration
• Data analysis
• Goal setting
• Creativity
• Managing others

Be sure to leverage these skills in your applications and at interviews. It’s crucial to strongly emphasise how they will enable you to perform in the advertised post.

Consider your strongest skills and those that you’d be keen to use on a regular basis in your future career. For example, I knew my data interpretation and communication skills were strong. I also like teamwork, so day-to-day use of these three skills heavily influenced the type of roles I was interested in.

Question 3 – How many hours are you prepared to work?

This comes down to personal choice, do you want the classic 9-5 or do you want more flexibility in the times you choose to work?

Lab work can be demanding in that it often rarely falls within traditional office hours. So you need to make a decision if this is something you’re prepared to keep going with, or if you would prefer a more traditional work schedule.

Personal circumstances (family commitments, commuting time etc.) play a huge role in the hours you can commit to work. So be sure to factor in any future plans about where you plan to live or family planning etc. into your decision-making.

Also what about travel? Is frequent traveling with work something you’re okay with and if so, how much time will you be prepared to work away from home? Again this will heavily depend on personal circumstances.

Question 4 – What type of work environments do you find the most motivating?

 Do you love lab work too much to give it up? Would you thrive in a highly creative or entrepreneurial organisation? Do you prefer a highly structured working environment or more flexibility to set your own hours? Or maybe you would like your day-to-day work to be more physical rather than traditional office work. All these are important considerations.

The variations on potential working environments are immense. So whatever your criteria are, for sure there will be an ideal career that fulfils your requirements.

The two key things to think about when answering this question is what type of organisation would you thrive in and crucially, what type of people would you like to work with (scientists, a mix, it doesn’t matter – clients, patients, young people, sales teams, etc). Again the demographics are broad, so get specific on the details.

Question 5 – What is your desired earning potential?

Not to forget of course the ‘M-word.’ How much do you want to earn doing this job? Be realistic about your financial aspirations because again this will influence the careers you should plan to go for.

However, it’s important not to fixate on the starting salary for any given career path. In the long run, what ultimately matters is future earning potential.

Depending on your circumstances however, there may be a minimum salary you’re prepared to take and your current situation will also dictate your flexibility to retrain, so all this needs consideration.

Remember some careers allow you to train on the job, so you will receive payment whilst redirecting your career (training to be a patent attorney for example), but starting salaries will of course be lower than a fully trained employee.

Once you’ve selected the right career, it’s important to stay open minded about starting salaries because if they’re low it may only represent short-term pain for long-term gain.

It is also important to negotiate a starting salary particularly in the commercial sector, as this will influence your future earning potential going forward. Not only will negotiation affect your long-term earning potential, but it demonstrates to a prospective employer that you know your value. Be realistic though, ensure you’ve done your research before hand and you know what a similarly qualified individual is earning in that industry and use this as a benchmark.

Once offered a position, set yourself a realistic minimum you would like to secure and aim to achieve that during the negotiating process. Employee benefits can also make a difference, so factor those in too when you’re considering any offer.

So these are my top five considerations, but are there any others that you think are important to add to the list? If so drop me a comment below. ‘Til next time, remember to stay focussed on your goals and keep learning how to be a badass in your biomed career.

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