Academia or Industry? Career options for Computer Science Postgrads Carolyn Parry

1. Academia or Industry? Career options forComputer Science Postgrads Carolyn Parry Computer Science Department Link Careers Adviser & Enterprise Champion cep@aber.ac.uk 01970 622378

2. About me – your Link Adviser • Languages graduate (London) • Employed in property, international publishing & software industries • Communications Manager in large Stock Exchange listed plc • Small business owner (magazine publishing) • Sales and Marketing specialisthttp://uk.linkedin.com/in/carolynparry • At Aber since 2001: (http://users.aber.ac.uk/cep) - Also Link Adviser to English, European Languages & SMB • - ACE (Aber Champion of Enterprise) • - Disability Co-ordinator - Master practitioner of NLP and careers coach • - Belbin Accredited Assessor

3. This session will help you to... • Understand what you want from your career • Understand whether you are better suited to business or academia • Understand market conditions & opportunities • Understand what employers want • Find opportunities, advertised and other • Understand the support on offer • Know about useful resources to help your search • Identify your next career steps

4. Know what you want! • Options • Get a job • Create your own job • Further training • Gap year • Gaining more experience • Give yourself (regular) career time !!!

5. How do you choose? • Know yourself • Investigate carefully(www.prospects.ac.uk; www.connexions-direct.com/jobs4u/) • Test somehow if appropriate eg through work experience(www.aber.ac.uk/careers/workexp)

6. SODiT model of career development • Transition Learning • Find out what you have to do to take the next step in your career • Take advantage of careers education provision to develop career management knowhow

7. Looking for clues • What makes you tick?www.aber.ac.uk/careers/whoami • What are you passionate about? • What really matters to you?www.aber.ac.uk/careers/whatiwant

8. Knowing yourself • Your best skills, talents, qualities? • Your worst? www.aber.ac.uk/careers/whoami www.aber.ac.uk/careers/howworkbest www.aber.ac.uk/careers/learningstyles

9. Take a closer look • Exercise

10. Questions to consider • Do you want to use your subject or just the skills you gained from it? www.aber.ac.uk/careers/compsci • What do you want your career to stand for? • What do you want to achieve through your career? • What contribution do you want to make? To whom/what? How?

11. Academia or Business • What’s the difference? • Definitions • How does this relate to your values?

12. Useful links – career choice • www.aber.ac.uk/careers/whoami • www.aber.ac.uk/careers/whatiwant • www.bbc.co.uk/science/humanbody/mind/surveys/whatamilike/ (personality tests) • www.prospects.ac.uk/links/Pplanner/ (career planning tool) • www.jobhuntersbible.com (personality & aptitude tests) • www.businessballs.com (see brainstorming and reflection) • www.aber.ac.uk/careers/whatempswant www.aber.ac.uk/careers/events And for good information on sectors and rolesuse www.prospects.ac.uk

13. Understand market conditions and opportunities • We live in interesting times! • Focus on being employable rather than just being employed!!

14. eSkills – the sector skills councilfor ICT and Business “The demand for technical skills remains high, but graduates are increasingly required to be customer facing. Importantly, there is a need to enhance graduate abilities to deploy skills in a business context and to further develop their interpersonal skills for communicating with teams, clients and sub-contractors. The trends and implications of off-shoring means that skills required by employers are shifting, further emphasising the need for graduates to be rounded in terms of their technical, business and interpersonal abilities.” Source: Researching Graduate Employment in IT eSkills 2009

15. 2009 Graduate Destinations Source: DLHE via Higher Education Statistics Agency

16. Employment of graduates from 2008/9 at the start of 2010 Data from HESA Destinations of Leavers from Higher Education Survey 2008/9

17. Opportunities up (and down?) • Graduate recruitment in Britain’s top employers in 2010 up by 17.9% • Expansion for talent in almost every major industry and employment area in 2010. • Unprecedented number of applications for this year’s vacancies(up by 7%) • Fierce competition from previous cohorts? Source: High Fliers Class of 2010 • c.500,000 job losses in the public sector

18. Who do Aber Computer Science Grads work for? • Technology companies eg IBM, BAE Systems, Thales and Sun Microsystems • Software and web design companies eg Cognito and Planet Media • Businesses eg Tascona Tax and Audit specialists, Globassure and Halfords • Distribution organisations eg Connect Distribution • Digital Publishers/media companies eg Pixel Mags and Can Media • Public Sector eg Aberystwyth University, Ceredigion County Council, and National Library of Wales • Themselves ie business start ups www.aber.ac.uk/careers/selfemp

19. What do Aber Computer Science Grads do? • Software Engineering and Development • Web development eg iPhone apps • Computer Programming • Hardware roles eg network engineer and technical support • Business intelligence analysis • Security consultancy • Teacher

20. The Post Grad Picture • What do PhDs dowww.vitae.ac.uk/researchers/1272-290131/What-do-researchers-do-Doctoral-graduate-destinations-and-impact-three-years-on.html • What do IT Masters graduates do http://ww2.prospects.ac.uk/cms/ShowPage/Home_page/What_do_postgraduates_do_/What_do_Masters_graduates_do__2007/What_do_Masters_graduates_do__2007___Physical_science__mathematics_and_IT/p!eigdLpp

21. Future opportunities in IT • www.youtube.com/user/eskillsuk#p/u/5/uFgqfvMrQh0

22. Things to be aware of... • Employers welcome PG applications for grad schemes! • You can apply for these up to 2-3 years after graduation • The notion of ‘a graduate job’ does not just mean a grad training programme. • Mixed picture – cuts + new schemes • Most recent media attention has been focused on grad training schemes, which may have given a skewed picture.

23. Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) • Around 99 percent of all businesses in the UK are SMEs • Only 6,000 UK companies are not SMEs. • SMEs are found in all sectors and all UK regions • Around two thirds of all employees work for SMEs and so they are very important to the graduate recruitment market.

24. Create your own job • Full of Ideas? Risk taker? Spot opportunities?Think outside the box? Tend to lead rather than follow? • Entrepreneur or Intrapreneur? Consider business start up • Is self employment for you? Take the testwww.get2test.net/test/index.htm • www.vitae.ac.uk/researchers/1272-290121/What-do-researchers-do-Career-profiles-of-doctoral-entrepreneurs.html • Interested? Talk to our Careers ACE (aka me!) - Explore the help available via CCS (Tony Orme) www.aber.ac.uk//careers/selfemp

25. What employers want • Right person (personality) • Right knowledge (training and experience) • Right attributes (skills/competencies including attitude) • Right potential www.aber.ac.uk/careers/whatempswant www.aber.ac.uk/careers/skills

26. Useful Links - Competencies • www.aber.ac.uk/careers/whatempswant • www.aber.ac.uk/careers/subjectdo • www.aber.ac.uk/careers/skills • www.aber.ac.uk/careers/applyjobs • www.prospects.ac.uk • www.heacademy.ac.uk/ourwork/learning/employability/disciplines

27. Understand what employers really want • What can you offer that matches their need? • How can you prove it? • Competencies matter

28. Market and sell yourself effectively • By matching yourself closely to the role with proof • Develop CV and application writing skills • Target shoot not machine gun approach • Develop interview skills

29. Useful Links - CVs • www.aber.ac.uk/careers/cvs • www.aber.ac.uk/careers/covlet • www.kent.ac.uk/careers/applicn.htm

30. Additional selection methods • Psychometric tests (before or after interview) • Presentations • Assessment centres www.aber.ac.uk/careers/applyjobs

31. Whichever sector you choose… • The answers you need to put together a good application are in the question! • Study the job ad or person specification and the company website for clues • Use www.prospects.ac.uk and www.connexions-direct.com/jobs4u/ role profiles to check your understanding • Read competitor websites and key industry press

32. Finding opportunities • Advertisements and job boards • Agencies • The power of networking – access to the hidden job market • Take care with your digital footprint!

33. Using agencies • Use different agencies for different roles/sector • Create tailored CV for each role/sector • Keep notes of what you submit to whom! • Build relationship effectively • Stand out for the right reasons www.rec.uk.com/member-directory/details-rec-members

34. Resources • Prospects Sector Briefing- www.prospects.ac.uk/industries_it_overview.htm - • Inside Careers online directories and vacancies (BCS endorsed) - www.insidecareers.co.uk/ • Google • - www.google.com/Top/Computers/

35. Industry Press • www.computing.co.uk/ • www.computerweekly.com • www.ncc.co.uk/publications/ITAdviser-Issues/ • www.themanufacturer.com/uk/ • www.engineeringmagazine.co.uk/ • www.logisticsit.com/ • www.aero-mag.com/ • www.caduser.com/ • www.processindustryinformer.com/ • www.newscientistjobs.com • Association of online publishers www.ukaop.org.uk/aboutus/aopmembers.html

36. Directories • Kompass Directory - http://directory.kompass.com/en/dir.php • Kelly’s Directory- www.kellysearch.co.uk/ • www.applegate.co.uk/ • www.itprofessionals.co.uk • www.freeindex.co.uk/categories/industry/

37. Professional Associations • National Computing Centre - www.ncc.co.uk/ • British Computer Society- www.bcs.org • BARA (British Automation and Robot Association)- www.bara.org.uk • Robotics and Automation Society- www.ieee-ras.org/ram • Manufacturing Technologies Association - www.mta.org.uk/members-directory • The Telecommunications Industry Association (US based) - www.tiaonline.org/ • IEEE (Global, useful video content, events/conferences etc) - www.ieee.org/index.html • Association of Exhibition Organisers- www.aeo.org.uk/

38. Computational Biology Resources • www.newscientistjobs.com/jobs/browse/computational_biology-all.htm • www.paramountrecruitment.co.uk/scientific-maths-and-it/computational-biology-jobs/ • Cambridge Computational Biology Institute(includes CCBI members on its website) www.ccbi.cam.ac.uk/Industry/industry.php

39. Crime/Security Resources • Serious Organised Crime Agency - www.soca.gov.uk/careers • De la rue (identity systems inc money) - www.delarue.com/ • GCHQ- www.gchq.gov.uk/careers/ • BAE Systems - www.baesystems.com/Careers/ • Disklabs - www.disklabsforensics.co.uk • CY4OR - www.cy4or.co.uk • Dataclinic - www.dataclinic.co.uk/computer-data-forensics.htm See Role description for Digital Forensic Analyst : www.connexions-direct.com/jobs4u/index.cfm?pid=62&catalogueContentID=718

40. Medical ImagingResources • Centre for Medical Imaging at UCL - http://cmic.cs.ucl.ac.uk/home/msc/career_prospects/ • Opthalmic Imaging Association (see Trade Members section) - www.oia.org.uk • Vision Medical has a section on partner companies at www.visionmedical.co.uk/partners/ • Visbion (medical imaging software company)– www.visbion.com • Tactiq– www.tactiq.co.uk/healthcare.html • Alliance Medical– www.alliancemedical.co.uk • Medical and pharmaceutical publications and events- www.ubmcanon.com/products/publications

41. Vision Systems Resources • Cortex Controllers Ltd, Cambridge www.cortexcontrollers.com • Cognex UK (part of Cognex Corporation – provider of vision systems, vision software, vision sensors etc) - www.cognex.com • Technifor Ltd – www.technifor.com/uk/ • Scorpion Vision Software – http://scorpionvision.co.uk/ • Stemmer Imaging – www.stemmer-imaging.co.uk • Image Metrics – www.image-metrics.com • Toshiba Research Europe Ltd, Cambridge Research Laboratory, Computer Vision Group - www.toshiba-europe.com/research/crl/cvg/jobs/index.html

42. Job Search Resources • www.aber.ac.uk/careers/casjobs • www.aber.ac.uk/careers/smb • www.aber.ac.uk/careers/findjobs • Online Careers Library • http://www.strath.ac.uk/careers/graduatejobsearch/ • Job hunting tips: Finding vacancies • Job vacancies search • Graduate Jobs, Graduate Career, Graduate Recruitment, Graduate, Graduate Schemes - Just4Graduates.net • Hobsons • Graduate jobs: targetjobs.co.uk • Job search UK at Monster.co.uk • Graduate jobs, Graduate careers & recruitment at reed.co.uk

43. So what have we covered? • fundamentals of career choice • the importance of networking to create specific opportunities • starting points and sources for careers in - computational biology- crime and security- robotics- medical imaging - vision related organisations.

44. It’s all up to you ‘There is no such thing as a career path. It is crazy paving and you have to lay it yourself.’ (Sir Dominic Cadbury)

45. Next session • CV writing for Business and Academia, November 9th, 2 – 4pm, same place! • Bring an example (or real) job advertisement you’d like to apply for • Bring your CV

46. Particularly relevant? Keep an eye on future events and workshops www.aber.ac.uk/careers/eventscal

47. How the Careers Service can help • One to one guidance • Career Development programme (CDP) • Wide range of free leaflets and handouts • Comprehensive library and website • On-line lectures and interactive e learning • Employability events programme and Employer visits www.aber.ac.uk/careers/eventscal • Job Link for casual jobs and work tasters • Go Wales grad. work placements and internships • Vacancy database www.aber.ac.uk/careers/casjobs

48. Where to find us! Your Careers Service’s sites Job Link Reception & Careers Library Placement Centre

49. To be a great champion, you must believe that you are the best. If you’re not, pretend you are! Mohammad Ali Boxer

50. The Careers Service Floor E Llandinam Building PenglaisAberystwythSY23 3DB 01970 622378careers@aber.ac.ukwww.aber.ac.uk/careers