How I found this job:
I was contacted by the School directly after having previously gone through an interview process for a similar position which ended up being awarded to another candidate.
Influencing factors in accepting this job:
Before hearing about my job I had internships and short contracts within the arena of health research, so I was pretty certain that this position would compliment my interests and abilities. I also really needed the work as competition for any sort of job is fierce at the moment.
What my role involves:
Conducting literature reviews, writing-up reports for publication, and carrying out academic and administrative duties in order to support a number of qualitative and quantitative studies within the School.
Most important skills and knowledge I use in my job:
Being well organized and having a systematic approach to unwieldy projects are important skills for a career in social research. Technical knowledge – such as conducting interviews and using SPSS comfortably – is almost assumed for any research position in academia. From personal experience, I would say that being self-directed, self-motivated and happy to work for long periods of time on my own are skills that have helped to keep me on track when I'm slogging through particularly tough patches of data analysis and report writing.
Most interesting and challenging part of my work:
Prioritizing tasks and juggling different roles and responsibilities. At the moment I'm doing work which contributes to a handful of different studies, so having to shift my focus from one thing to the next can be a challenge. On the other hand I love the solitary, focused nature of my job, and one of my favorite aspects is the fact that it allows me to spend a lot of time studying and writing about different educational and health-related topics that I'm interested in.
Advice for current TCD students entering the employment market:
Have a clear idea of what you want and draw up an action plan – attend career development workshops, get in touch with your contacts and create work for yourself rather than waiting around for a vacancy to open up. After I graduated in 2009 I took on voluntary work, internships and short-term contracts in order to stay connected and engage my skillset. There was a good deal of job engineering going on as well: I would ring up my contacts and propose work that I could do for them or their organisation in order to gain experience and put myself out there. A lot of researchers become burnt out or lose interest in what the job actually entails on a day-to-day basis, so if you truly love what you do then don't beat yourself up over periods of unemployment. Potential employers take note of sincere passion and are more likely to take someone on board because of it.
February 2011 |
