Also – a very happy women’s day to everybody from both Ritu and I.

Priyali: I know you’ve been travelling internationally to complete work contracts. How do you go about finding openings? Do you use an agency or is it down to your own research, and how do you decide who is a good employer?

Ritu: I maintain an extensive professional network through writing, reading and research. I make prospective employers aware of my work and establish a continuing dialogue to contribute significantly towards health, social research and policy. This also helps me to find and select the kinds of projects I am keen to work on.

Priyali: You are someone who grew up in India but now lives in the UK, and has spent some of her most formative years within it. Do you feel you have access to more than one culture, and does this make you attractive to prospective employers?

Ritu: When people ask I often say I was brought up in England. I have certainly established “belongingness” here in Britain. I feel very much part of its society and environment. I think the experience of working in two different nations and understanding how things get done, certainly benefits in maintaining contacts and sustaining networks. I have access to wide networks here and in India. We live in a globalized world and also an extremely competitive one. With people now having access to specific geographical locations they didn’t have before, they are presented with new challenges and dynamics. These present difficulties but can be dealt with successfully.

Priyali: This is your free space – go ahead and send a message out to other researchers, practitioners and readers of this blog as to what most engages you at this point in your life and career.

Ritu: I feel that universities should prepare PhD students, who often live an isolated life, for the outside world. They should encourage them to publish and provide continued support even after they graduate. Most PhD students feel misplaced and choose different career paths, due to little or no guidance or support from their universities. It’s even more difficult for migrants who would like to establish their careers outside their home country.

Also, I would like to add that Britain needs to rethink its position on international development. I feel that Britain’s capacity to make a difference in the developing world is huge. This needs to be planned carefully by considering intersections of race, gender and social inclusion.

People belonging to diverse backgrounds should be given opportunities to contribute to the international development sector through an equitable manner and process. This will help deal with issues of social exclusion within the UK that give rise to inequalities in the work environment.

She is an academic, researcher and activist with substantial experience in gender and human rights issues. She has country knowledge and experience of working in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, South Africa, Serbia, Denmark, Mexico and the United Kingdom. Ritu is a founder and moderator of the South Asian Sexual Health (SASH) Forum and an Editor of the AIDS-ASIA eForum.

She is also the Director of Spatial and Social Development Perspectives – UK.

http://ritumahendru.wordpress.com/about/

http://mishtimli.blogspot.com/

Priyali: Hi Ritu, welcome to the “Let’s Talk” blog which is a platform for people within higher education and those simply interested in it, to talk about the things that concern us.

First off, many congratulations on completing your doctorate in Sociology. Would you like to comment on your early career experiences now that you’ve got it under your belt? What are your career plans, and what do you think of the present job market in the UK and outside it?

Ritu: Thanks Priyali. As you are aware, opportunities for PhD graduates are sporadic. I have not had much success in securing a full time academic position in the UK, something that I was looking forward to after finishing my PhD. However, I have specific engagements with various UK universities. Elsewhere, I am in negotiation with universities to establish international programmes – this is a lengthy and time consuming process.

Preferably, I would like to teach Gender and Public Health from sociological perspectives, and engage myself in social research simultaneously. I do have a company and would like to keep that as a tool to continue my engagement with countries like India, Afghanistan, South Africa etc. It may appear that I am adhering to the doctrine of utilitarianism. However, the job market in the UK is bleak so I have created a job for myself and carved my own path. I am hoping that one day the situation within UK universities will change, and I will have a full-time position at a University here.

Priyali: What or whom do you hope to influence with your work as a social science researcher?

Ritu: I wouldn’t necessarily like to influence anyone. Instead, I would like to facilitate and/or provide space for discussions on the issues of migration, gender and health. This would create knowledge of social marginalization through theoretical and methodological understanding. I am interested in the conceptualisation of diasporas and health and how the two are deeply interlinked. I made initiatives to enable this dialogue and founded SASH – an online forum that attempts to address the sexual health needs of migrants  and diasporic communities in the UK.

Next post: 7 March. Dr. Mahendru comments on being able to work across cultures, and on career planning for doctoral researchers.

Advice to writers always stresses that you will receive many, many rejections  and that you must learn to deal with them. Rejection is never nice, and it has knocked me about a bit, but I want to have a look at the positives, and how I’m going to deal with the negatives.

My letter was positive in many ways; the editor had taken the time to read and consider my initial chapters carefully and offer some suggestions. She made some lovely comments which in the main mirror what my supervisor has been saying, that my descriptive writing is good and language is evocative. Landscape, seascape and the natural world are all really important to the novel so I am cheered no end by this!

However, I need to look again at the plot and really decide what the central themes are. I am trying to fit a lot in and it’s not quite working. I think that, once I’ve finished my initial draft, I will go back and cut out one aspect of the novel which is detracting from the main coming-of-age and finding-her-place themes. This will resolve the feeling that the editor (and my supervisor) have that the reader is not sure what’s going to be important, what the tensions are and the direction of development.

She also said that the language could be a little more adventurous — with all the work I’ve done recently on trying to nail the voice, I hope this is now better.

What I sent in really, really wasn’t ready, but I was flattered to be given the chance to send something in, so I did. However, I won’t send any other work out until I’m happy with it. (Not to say it needs to be perfect, as editors are ace at spotting unpolished gems.) I’ve lost my chance with a publisher I really admire and who are perfect for my kind of lit fic, which is a shame.

I’ve always kept my writing close to my chest, to avoid being downcast when people don’t like or understand it, and so that I can just write without thinking about the audience reaction, the “What would your mother say?” issue. I find having a mentor amazing for my motivation, but I don’t want more than one right now.

So, onwards and upwards. I’m super keen to keep my momentum going; I’ve upped my work-rate dramatically in the last month so despite the problems with plot I want to keep going and complete a first draft without endlessly circling back on the start. I am not sure I can fix the problems with the beginning when I’m not even sure how the ending is going to play out! (I have a chapter plan but I don’t know what’ll change and where emphasis is going to fall as I write; things always develop as my character develops.)

I’m having my monthly meeting with my supervisor on Friday. When I said I wanted to discuss the points raised in the letter he laughed and said, we can moan about our letters together then (from the same editor)! So at least I am in good company!

Karen Kelsky runs an ‘academic-career consulting business’ to help students, basically, get jobs (writing grants, letters, CVs, publish etc.). She lambasts ‘absent’ professors for not providing this career advice. Maybe it’s different in the US, but I’ve never expected to get career advice from teachers at any level. It’s something I need, of course, but I don’t think of my supervisor as the perfect person to provide it. When I meet with him, we’re far too busy knocking my creative work and my thesis into shape — and that’s how I like it.

If and when I want more, like some help with getting the travel bursary I have my eye on, I will ask and I know I’ll get what I need. But the hour or so that we spend working on my project every month is precious, and I want to use it to focus on my writing, which is what he’s really good at.

Also, I want him to carry on being enthusiastic about my work, but also about his own. Not just so he publishes more and is therefore good to be associated with, but so that he is creatively fulfilled and satisfied, and therefore in a good place to be advising me, inspiring me, and making me feel that publication is possible. (As a creative writing student I’m talking about general publication as well as academic publishing.)

At my institution there is a Postgraduate Skills Training Programme as well as Continuing Professional Development courses, training and careers advisors. There’s a whole army of them. The system isn’t perfect, as there are so many students needing different things at different times, but it’s developing and has an essential role to play.

I feel that it’s up to me to look at my strengths and weaknesses and decide what to do about them and where to get advice. It’s also up to me to get off my backside and publish, network, write a great CV, blog, apply for grants and so on, all while I’m getting on with the main body of work. Postgrad skills training and my supervisor are both pretty clear that these are good things to do. Surely it’s obvious to any ambitious PhD student that you have to work hard and develop in all areas in order to succeed, whether you are aiming for an academic post or a corporate one.

The article is interesting, but I don’t like its hectoring tone, and it’s obviously an advert for her services. The comments section is even more telling; I am sad for the students who really do feel poorly advised. There are also quite a lot of profs pointing out just how much they have to do already without being academic career advisors as well (something which they aren’t trained for and may not know much about, not having been on the job market for a while)…and that the quality of their own research is very important to the success of the institution and their students.

Of course I want my PhD to result in a better job, I just don’t think the job-seeking part is up to my supervisors. In the main, it’s up to me.

The first interview was for editor in a medical organisation. This was the first interview I’d had in 8 years. I went very naively to this interview, believing that if I was truthful it would stand me in good stead. I have since learned that though you should tell the truth at an interview, it is better if it’s the truth the employer wants to hear.

Don’t look ‘different’; dress to suit the work environment
I also had bright red hair at this interview – which having had for so long, I had forgotten all about, but which I think probably was not suitable for that particular company. Though this was not for a public facing role and hair colour shouldn’t really matter, I still have a feeling looking ‘wacky’ counted against me in the ultra conservative environment I found myself in. Now if it was a media job – my hair would have fit right in!

If there are two equally good candidates and one of them has something that makes them different – a visible tattoo or wacky hair – I think it’s likely (and unfair) that the candidate who doesn’t show any quirkiness will win over the one who could be considered a bit alternative.

Put yourself in the employer’s shoes; give them what they want
When they asked what my reasons for wanting the job were I honestly said, ‘it’s a job I could do standing on my head and I want to move back to the area, this seems like a good way to do it’ (or words to the effect).

I now realise this was a big mistake, you have to think from the employer’s side, and give them the answers they want to hear. They didn’t want to hear I could do the job. They wanted to hear how passionate I was about the role and the company and the opportunity it offered me to develop.

Your real reasons – that you want a job, any job; how well paid the job is; how near it is to home; that you could tell them how to do the job – will not impress.

Research the company; read the papers
I recently went for an interview at an organisation with a very outspoken Chief Exec. That morning there was also a front page article about something he’d said on one of the broadsheets, I had been lucky enough to see it when I went for a coffee before the interview. I didn’t get the job, but I felt prepared when asked what I thought of his comments. I agreed of course. Also make sure you check out the company website – in all publishing jobs they will ask you how they could improve their website!

A personal story can work wonders
Another job I went for was editing publications for a charity that focuses on lung health. I was able to give them a personal story (all true). I got that job. In charity roles particularly think of any way you might have a link to their organisation – has anyone in your family experienced whatever the charity supports or campaigns on? They will like that.

Stand out, but don’t stand out
It seems like a catch-22, how can you stand out but not stand out? Take time to give your answers. If you really are stumped, ask them what they would do in that situation. You are going to be working in the team, after all.

For graduates, try to build up a portfolio of additional skills which could make you stand out from the competition. Voluntary work, especially in the arts, is a good way to look like you mean it. Learn about social media. And learn from your interview mistakes. Or mine.