Some weeks ago my article “Create Your Future” appeared in Pandora, a magazine for the women network of Utrecht University. On their biennial network day I provided a workshop on how to balance professional and personal images while profiling yourself as a professional scientist using social media that require a more personal perspective. The main challenge that we tackled that day is to find an overall fitting answer to the question: what are you about?
The workshop that I organized yesterday with Platform Hooft was a huge success. Over 30 PhD candidates in the humanities got a hands-on training in writing opinion articles from well known Dutch newspaper editors Chris Rutenfrans, Jaffe Vink, Derk Walters and Anouk van Kampen. They learned how to grab their readers’ fleeting attention and get their well-informed point of view across. If you understand Dutch and would like to know what feedback, tips and tricks they received, I invite you to read my piece on the workshop over at Platform Hooft. If you don’t read Dutch and still want to know the tricks: ask away and I might find time to translate it.
A successful transition from education to the labour market affects careers later in life, but what role do personality characteristics play in making this transition? In the recruitment process of highly educated professionals personality features are an increasingly dominant factor, besides the more obvious requirements of specific competences, specialist knowledge, and cognitive abilities.
Networking is a very effective strategy if you want to find new job opportunities, especially if you want to change direction after your current research project or job. However, this can be hard if you are from abroad and your local network is limited, as is often the case with internationally oriented PhD candidates. Some understanding of traditional vacancy advertising and the Dutch job-application process can be helpful. Read on if the above applies to you!
Stuff like this gets me thinking.LNVH grafiek m:v academici
Can we just ascribe this divergence to the basic biology of motherhood? I’m certain there is more to it. Especially at UD/UHD levels universities are getting more active in supporting women advance their careers, e.g. through various mentoring programs and personal skills coaching.