Category: Training (Page 3 of 5)

7 top tips when applying for a job (and the guidance for a grant isn’t too much different!)

22/01/2021 /

Blog post by Dr Nigel Eady, Director of Research Talent, Centre for Doctoral Studies.

 

I’ve been reading quite a few job applications recently. In some instances, there were people who might perhaps have been a good fit for the role, but really didn’t justify being selected for interview, so I decided to write these quick tips.

 

  1. Evidence the competencies required – don’t just repeat the job description back to the employer! Make every word count – show how your prior experiences and education have prepared you for this role.
  2. Keep your covering letter to a sensible length – 1 side is too short and 4 is def too long! For most roles, 2-3 sides is about right, depending slightly on the level of seniority of the role.
  3. Use your network – if you’ve got colleagues, former colleagues and friends who know people in the sector you want to move to, then let them know you’re looking for interesting roles.  You’ll probably find out about roles much more quickly this way. You might even get recommended to people who are employing.
  4. Ask for more info – if there’s a contact name on the job ad, then drop them a line before the deadline and ask for a chat. A short conversation will ensure you’re clear on what the role really involves, and therefore whether you’re a good fit or not (though the person you speak to is unlikely to tell you whether to apply – that’s your choice, based on your interests & skills and their match with the role, or not). Who knows what you might find out that’s not 100% clear in the job ad. There might be a particular emphasis that the employer is looking for, perhaps there are even other roles on the horizon that you wouldn’t have known before you picked up the phone.
  5. Make use of any help available – King’s has a wealth of careers resources, whether you need help with CVs and covering letters or are still trying to work out what you want to do next. Make sure you get some advice so that your application doesn’t miss the mark because you didn’t present yourself in the best possible light. King’s Careers & Employability provide resources for applications and interviews for researchers, available through KEATS here, and you will find online workshops to support you as a researcher through King’s CareerConnect.
  6. Help your assessors – make it really easy for the people assessing your application to put you forward for interview. Consider what they’re looking for. Evidence is a given (see 1), but also make your letter easy to read (normal size, readable font, well formatted letter) and not so long that you’ve set your assessor against you before they’ve started reading (see 2). If you’re aiming for a significant change in field, explain why and what you’re already doing to ensure that gap doesn’t mean you’re a poor fit for the role.  The assessors will need to see your motivation for this change – what have you done that you can write about, to understand the new field, organisation or role?
  7. Avoid jargon – most sectors have their own jargon, and there may be some words and phrases you need to include, as they show you know the area. However, an application needs to be easy to read. Avoid acronyms if you possibly can. Your assessor probably doesn’t know, or need to know, the structures and hierarchies where you work now.

 

If you bear all these in mind, you’re giving yourself a good chance of getting over the first hurdle, and being invited to interview. All the very best for your job applications.

 

Photo by Markus Winkler on Unsplash

Unfolding Research – PhD Problem Solving Skills

02/11/2020 /

Post by King’s PGR students Onna Malou van den Broek and Fabian Bohnenberger.

 

Fed up with your research? Losing focus? Hitting roadblocks?

Doing a PhD is a learning experience. But it is not necessary to reinvent the wheel when you face everyday research challenges. Why not follow the examples of experienced researchers?

The Project: Unfolding Research

Over the past two years, we tried to “unfold” the research process. More precisely, the many challenges that researchers at all career stages and across disciplines face in their daily work. As such, we have collected strategies that established researchers rely on in their daily work and tested them with PhD students. This set of easily accessible problem-solving strategies is tailored to the needs of PhD students and early-career researchers. Our aim is to share these proven and reliable working habits with new generations of scholars across universities and disciplines.

 

The Categories

In total, we collected over 80 problem-solving strategies, divided into four main categories: wellbeing, progress, flow and connection:

  • Wellbeing
    This category helps you stay positive and healthy. It provides advice on how to better balance work and life, deal constructively with criticism, build resilience for future challenges, bolster your inner drive, and put support structures in place.
  • Progress
    This category helps you to get started with your work and overcome roadblocks. It encourages you to be creative and think more innovatively. It also offers strategies to identify key arguments, discover new perspectives through alternative framing, and better structure your writing.
  • Flow
    This category helps you maintain an effective working process. It enables you to boost focus, effectively prioritize tasks, set meaningful targets, manage your work schedule, and get the most out of your supervisor relationship.
  • Connection
    This category helps you create new bonds with both people and ideas. It pushes you to make your work relevant to others, to engage with new professional groups, to expand and cultivate your network, and to leverage interdisciplinary methods and theories.

The App

Unfolding Research is designed to be as relevant to the everyday research practice as possible. Faced with the current pandemic, we have decided to make all strategies publicly available (for free). Everyone deserves some additional PhD support to get through these challenging times! To do so, we developed a web-app, which you can access from all devices here.

How to use the app

Step 1: Generate a Deck

Click on the categories to select what you are struggling with. Then press “Generate Deck” to create a personalized set of strategies. Not sure what to pick or feeling adventurous? Click on “Random Card”

Step 2: Put the Strategy into Action

The app shows you one strategy at a time. Trust the card even if you struggle to understand its immediate relevance or feel you already know this. The key is to put your knowledge into action!

Step 3: Continue Experimenting

Once you’re done, swipe to get the next strategy. You can access all used cards by selecting “Discarded” at the bottom of your screen. You can empty the discarded pile and draw a new deck at any time.

 

 

Writing Tips for Postgraduate Research Students from Royal Literary Fund Fellows

08/10/2020 /

Writing clearly and persuasively about your research is a vital skill to master but it does not always come easily. To help you develop your writing skills, King’s hosts two Royal Literary Fund Fellows each year. The Fellows are professional writers who can provide support to postgraduate research students across all disciplines and at all stages of their degrees (see our webpage to book an appointment).

One concern that our Fellows frequently encounter when working with students is a lack of confidence and the belief that writing comes easily to everyone but them. This is a common misconception; RLF Fellow Ros Schwartz confirms that writing is hard – even for professional writers. Fortunately, there are numerous techniques and practices that can help you refocus your writing and self-correct errors.

Here are 10 key tips from our 19/20 Fellows Ros Schwartz and Mirza Waheed, based on their many appointments with PGR students last year:

  1. Try printing out your work instead of always looking at it on a screen. You’d be surprised how much easier it is to pick up errors when you see your work on paper.
  2. Take your work to a new setting (outside your usual research/writing/work space) and give it a read for a fresh perspective.
  3. Leave yourself plenty of time for writing up and refining your work – don’t underestimate how long editing will take.
  4. Read your work aloud as this can help highlight punctuation problems or wordy sentences.
  5. If you can speak fluidly about your research but find it difficult to translate that into text, try dictating and then transcribing your work. There are even apps that can record your voice and transcribe for you.
  6. If you’re over-using words, pick them out and build a glossary of synonyms to help you diversify your language.
  7. Try separate readings of your work to focus on different issues, e.g. one for overall flow, one for punctuation, one for over-use of certain words and phrases using the ‘search’ function.
  8. Don’t be afraid to let your voice shine through, particularly in your early drafts. You can always refine the language as you edit, but your opinions and evaluations are critical in forming a strong thesis.
  9. Read proactively to develop a broader vocabulary; when you come across a word you don’t know, look it up in the dictionary and write a few sentences using it. Doing this regularly will increase your vocabulary and improve your writing style.
  10. Let your work sit for a day or two before reading it so you can revisit your writing with fresh eyes.

“Language isn’t just about words and meaning, it’s also about music. Punctuation is there to create pace and breathing spaces to allow the reader to digest the information.” Ros Schwartz

Useful sites for grammar, referencing, style, proofreading:

Manchester Phrasebank: http://www.phrasebank.manchester.ac.uk/

RLF Dissertation Guide: https://www.rlf.org.uk/resources-home/

Use King’s LibGuide for help with referencing (discuss your department’s preferred referencing style with your supervisor if unsure): https://libguides.kcl.ac.uk/reference

The Chartered Institute of Editors and Proofreaders is a UK-based organisation that maintains a directory of professional editorial services that may be of use: https://www.ciep.uk/

We advise research students seeking support with English as an additional language to explore the King’s Foundations courses and support: https://www.kcl.ac.uk/study/foundations.

 “Many students felt pressured to write like an academic, to sound authoritative and scholarly. I told them they already are scholars and academics, so they need not force their hand and make a piece of writing impenetrable. Write in your own voice.” Mirza Waheed

November is Academic Writing Month!

King’s College London has joined WriteFest 2020 (#AcWriFest20), to support researchers contributing to Academic Writing Month (#AcWriMo).

Inspired by the amazing NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), this month-long celebration of academic writing caters to the specific needs of researchers. It’s hosted by PhD2Published and throughout the month they share dedicated blog posts about academic writing and literally thousands of tips via Twitter and Facebook. The month will consist of a selection of virtual workshops that will offer tools and strategies to help you reach your writing goals.

How can you get involved?

  • Get writing in November with inspiration from all the contributions to #AcWriMo on Twitter
  • Use the #AcWriFest20 hashtag to share your progress with other researchers at King’s College London and across the other Universities.
  • Join the weekly, virtual Writing Retreats that are run by the Centre for Research Staff Development

Check out the full programme of workshops and WriteFest 2020 activities here.

Additional writing support

The Centre for Doctoral Studies offers several fantastic workshops and webinars to develop your writing skills, such as  Clear & Concise Academic Writing, Fundamentals of Good Writing, a Virtual Writing Retreat, Writing for Publication in the Arts & Humanities, Publishing a Scientific Research Paper and more. These are open to all students, check out the Doctoral Training Brochure for more information.

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