Sub sections:

Looking for jobs

Learning objectives

By the end of this module, you will be able to locate

information on career planning
potential employers
job opportunities
sources of project grant funding.

Career planning

Career planning will assist you to find the right job after completion of your studies. Future employment opportunities include:

a postgraduate or postdoctoral fellowship
part-time, casual or contract positions in higher education
a full-time academic position
a public service career
work in the non-profit or private sectors
self-employment.

Finding information at UNE

Talking with your supervisor and other UNE academic staff is often a useful first step in career planning. However, this is only the beginning. Your next step should be to contact Student Assist at UNE. Student Assist runs a range of career programs to assist graduates in finding appropriate employment.

Career services at UNE

Visit the Student Assist careers page. Look through the range of programs that are available to assist you in preparing for a future career.

Keep an eye on the Job Blog to ensure that receive advance notice of job opportunities. Even if the end of your studies is months or even years away, it doesn't hurt to get an idea of the job market.

Finding information from other sources

There are a number of online sources of career-planning information. These include:

Graduate Careers Australia. This site provides links to graduate employment opportunities in Australia and New Zealand.
GradsOnline. This site gives the findings of the annual Graduate Destination Survey (GDS). The GDS will allow you to compare starting salaries for different occupations and determine hiring patterns.
Job Outlook. The Job Outlook site provides information on hours of work, areas of employment, job turnover, employment growth and job prospects for a range of occupations.
JobSearch. The JobSearch site includes job advertisements and tools such as an online resume creator that you can use to promote yourself to prospective employers.
Unigrad. The Unigrad site contains information on the latest graduate job opportunities.

Some useful publications are Unigrad, the Graduate Jobs Guide and Graduate Opportunities . Copies of these publications are available from Student Assist.

Some advice

Airlie Bell, the Careers Officer at UNE, has some advice for postgraduate job seekers. This is not to limit your search by looking for a specific position. Don't expect to find a job which dovetails exactly with your thesis topic.

If you have just completed a thesis, say, on the population genetics of Litoria caerulea (the Common Green Tree Frog), you probably won't find an advertisement for Green Tree Frog Conservation Officer. Think more broadly. For example, look at positions relating to faunal conservation, genetics or even medical research (the Green Tree Frog being the original source of the drug Caerulein).

Airlie encourages postgraduates to follow these steps:

Decide what skills you have to offer. These are not limited to your knowledge of a specialised topic, but may include analytical skills, database management, writing skills, experience in teamwork, or knowledge of lab techniques.
Determine which fields interest you.
Identify organisations or agencies which are potential employers.

If an organisation is working in a field that interests you, it is very likely that they will employ people with your type of skills. It is much easier to target employers than search for specific job titles.

Finding potential academic employers

For information on obtaining postdoctoral fellowships, see the module on grants and scholarships.

Part-time, casual and contract employment opportunities in the university sector are usually advertised on the Web sites of individual universities. Links to Australian university sites are available from the Universities Australia site.

Another approach is to scan the weekend classified sections of the major Australian dailies, including the Australian, the Sydney Morning Herald, Canberra Times and the Courier Mail.

The Higher Education Supplement in each Wednesday's Australian is a particularly useful source of employment prospects in the tertiary sector.

Other public sector employers

The range of potential employers in the public sector is staggering. Major commonwealth agencies include:

Graduate recruitment

Most government departments have graduate recruitment programs. These programs typically aim to attract specialists from a wide range of disciplines.

The Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (DAFF) is a good example. The Department is not just looking for science graduates. Rather, it is also seeking graduates in the humanities, social sciences, business and law.

Find information on graduate recruitment programs for any State or Commonwealth departments that interest you. Ask yourself if any of these programs will suit your needs.

Vacancies in the Commonwealth Public Service are advertised widely in the newspapers and on the APSjobs site. The APSjobs site allows you to search for job opportunities across the Commonwealth Sector, including jobs within the Australian Public Service (APS), the Australian Parliamentary Service and different statutory authorities. You can create your own account and set up alerts, so that you receive an email when suitable jobs arise. In addition, the site contains helpful advice on making applications for positions within the APS.

Information on current job opportunities in the State public sectors is available from these sites:

Become familiar with the Web sites of government and semi-government research institutes in your area of expertise.

There are more than 70 Cooperative Research Centres (CRCs) at Australian universities offering employment opportunities in a wide range of areas, including manufacturing, medical research, information technology, environmental management, mining and agricultural technologies.

There are also many research institutes outside the CRC scheme. Some major employers in this area include:

Private sector employers

Private sector employers of graduates are too numerous to list. The Graduate Opportunities site provides detailed profiles for over 180 major companies. Each profile includes the company's vision, its national and multinational activities, specific career choices and further contact details.

Many peak industry bodies provide portal sites which link graduates to employment opportunities in their sector. An example is the careers site MiningCareers.com.

Making your own opportunities

One aspect of successful networking is becoming familiar with key researchers in your discipline. These people are sometimes in a position to provide employment after your studies have ended. Established researchers often require qualified personnel for ongoing work or research projects.

Another option is to work with other researchers to generate new employment opportunities in the form of grant-funded positions.

Consider if the results of your research might lend itself to further developments, either in the form of commercialisation or a specific project. A number of government and private bodies provide funding for promising research.

Potential sources of employment include projects sponsored by national bodies such as the:

There are also a range of funding arrangements possible under schemes administered by State government agencies.

There is generally a delay of several months between the submission of a successful funding application and the start of the project, so plan well ahead.

Further reading

Barbara Graham (2000) Moving on in your career: A guide for academics and postgraduates, Abingdon, RoutledgeFalmer. Click here to view the book

D. Royce Sadler (2000) Managing your academic career: Strategies for Success, St Leonards, Allen & Unwin. Click here to view the book

Summary

This module dealt with the following:

finding information on career planning
locating potential employers
finding job advertisements
making your own employment opportunities.

Self-test

Try these quick self-test questions to assess what you have learnt from this module.

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