Rhona McTeague is an intern for the Careers and Research & Innovation (R&I) services here at UofG. In this post, she tells you about PhD Transitions, a project she’s working on to improve the experience of about-to-graduate and recently-graduated PhDs. She also invites you to participate in the PhD Transitions survey, out now!

The transition from a PhD to the next step in your career can often be daunting and filled with unknowns. Insights from recent PhD Graduates who have been through that experience can help to make it a much smoother transition.

We often invite PhD graduates back to events to give talks and share their experiences. This can help current researchers to:

• consider the variety of options open to them and what might suit their own interests and aspirations.

• think about how they can make the most of their PhD experience, such as which opportunities to take up or how to build their professional networks.

• feel more confident about the skills they have to offer and their chances of success in the current labour market.

At our Spring 2019 PGR Townhall meeting (which was attended by over 60 researchers, supervisors and student services staff), one of the key recommendations was to gather more data on post-PhD destinations. The participants emphasised that this shouldn’t be solely quantitative data but that it was important to capture stories and individual insights.

In response to this feedback, we are now launching a project on PhD Transitions. Our survey is running in late 2019, to capture views from PhD Graduates from UofG over the past 3 years. We plan to use the findings in a variety of ways, to support career planning for current and future researchers.

So if you know of someone who graduated with a PhD from UofG in the last three years, please pass on the survey and encourage them to take part.

Find out more about the Transitions Survey.