The start and the middle: beginning your PhD

Whether you’re starting a PhD fresh out of undergrad or after many years of employment, the decision to begin a doctorate is a significant career move. When I started, 18 months ago, I figured I had a pretty good idea of what I was getting into: I’d previously worked in industry, completed a Master’s degree, and worked as a research assistant in another lab. Read more
From start-ups to big pharma – how to get into industry

Naturejobs journalism competition winner Rachel Harris reports. Read more
Top paid jobs: Where are the scientists?

The Office of National Statistics (ONS) issued its annual survey of hours and earnings last month. Scientists are conspicuously absent from The Guardian‘s subsequent trawl of the data to highlight the UK’s top 10 best paid jobs. These include brokers (1), CEOs (2), pilots (4) air traffic controllers (7), and doctors (8). Read more
Mobilise your creativity

…That is, media and publishing, not publishing your manuscript. It isn’t the easiest path ever, but there is a breadth of opportunities and creativity, as celebrated this week by the UK Department of Culture, Media & Sport and the Creative Industry Council. And ‘break’ is not the key word – you don’t need a break. You just need to get creative – and get started. Read more
We look back at the Naturejobs career expo London, 2014
You can check out our upcoming expos, in San Francisco, Boston, London and Düsseldorf, here. Read more
Best UK internships: Shortlist announced
According to Vicky Miles, the Event Manager for NCWE, nominated employers are judged on three main criteria – what skills the intern will take away from the placement and how much impact they can make on the organisation, the level of support and assessment the person on the placement will get, and what makes that particular placement exceptional compared to the competition. They also take note of the level of payment the employee will receive. Read more
Was your degree worth it?

A study tracking university students over 6 years from the moment they applied for university until well after they graduated has been published this week. Read more
Learn how to become a bio-entrepreneur
The word entrepreneur is thrown around so much, it can begin to lose its meaning. The term sounds vaguely swashbuckling, as if every person it applies to is flippantly quitting a secure academic job to roll the dice on a sexy, but probably doomed, start-up. … Read more
Achieving gender equality in academic careers: Queen’s case study
Does your university make provision for maternity leave in its PhD studentships? Does it insist on female representation on all committees, or run a buddy system linking female postdocs to female PhD students? These are just some of the initiatives in place at Queen’s University Belfast, which was recently named as the lead university in the United Kingdom for tackling the unequal representation of women in science. Read more
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