Ellie Dolmor, Business and Management, Lancaster University (2025 Cohort) and Anna Drury, Economic and Social History, Lancaster University (2023 Cohort)

Ellie and I recently met for the first time (despite being at the same institution!) when we attended a Careers Event together organised by the NWSSDTP, Preparing for an Education-Focused Career in the Social Sciences, hosted by the wonderful Professor Lisa Anderson at Oddfellows Hall, University of Manchester. Here, we share our thoughts and reflections on the event, which included lots of laughs, a slap-up lunch, and both fabulous and suspect artwork!  

Anna: I’m in the process of writing up my thesis, meaning life post-PhD and career planning is increasingly on the brain. When I received the email from the DTP advertising this event, my initial response was: this sounds super interesting, but what on Earth is an “Education-Focused Career”? After consulting Google, I quickly signed up, eager to learn more about this particular academic career pathway. Whilst I had a sense that universities were increasingly hiring Early Career Researchers (ECRs) on contracts more weighted towards teaching than research, I had no clue on the professional, technical jargon used to describe and advertise these positions.

I shared this with Lisa at the start of the day, who assured I wasn’t inept (yay!), and that together we were going to breakdown the specifications, expectations, and realities of education-focused roles in Higher Education (HE). She did not disappoint. What I found most refreshing was how Lisa “lifted the veil” and revealed the inner workings of the Higher Education (HE) sector.

Not only did she provide us with invaluable insights and tips for how to go about applying for education-focused roles, but she also really got us to think about our personal set of skills, and how we can best market these to potential future employers. We were encouraged to sit back and reflect on what we have achieved holistically during our PhDs, and how our accomplishments will be valued in the world of university education.

A moment for our buffet lunch.

Together, we workshopped what makes for good pedagogical practice, drawing on our experiences as learners and/or educators. This is where the artwork comes in! We each created a mind map illustrating our “philosophies” of good teaching and learning, which featured a drawing of a camel that looked decidedly more like the Loch Ness monster (I won’t quit my day job). By presenting these to Lisa, we got to sample flavours of questions from an experienced interviewer, something I found especially helpful.

Some of our mind maps!

Overall, I found the day incredibly useful and rewarding. I came away feeling more optimistic about my abilities and prospects, and emboldened to strive and aim for a career in HE. Thank you Lisa!

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Ellie: As a current second year PhD student, I have had some thoughts about my career path from here but nothing too concrete. Yet, I have always had an interest in teaching. Which is why when this session arrived in my inbox as an opportunity, I signed up straight away. My aim in attending the day was to gain insight into education-focused academic careers. (A phrase which I had a very vague idea about.) Travelling to University of Manchester was a nice change, there we gathered in the Oddfellows Hall.

One of my biggest take aways from the session was confidence. In moments of discussion where we talked about our experiences to date, I realised that I might have more under my belt than I expected when I was walking into the session.

Lisa Anderson was a fantastic presenter; she was engaging and exciting and really made the whole thing more personable. She followed up the session with this post on LinkedIn, after she ensured we had all connected with her:

‘I spent a lovely Wednesday running a career planning workshop for PGRs on behalf of the #NWSSDTP with a focus on preparing for an #educationfocussed career. Plenty of interesting conversations about the state of HE and the changing nature of careers. What a fantastic group of clever, engaged and caring academics. The future of the profession is in great hands.’

A smiley group photo

As Anna has mentioned above, part of the day was engaging with our own education philosophy and how we would put it into practice. This was framed around our own experiences, and how we would like to engage with students in our future careers. This is where our artistic talents came into play!

More of our mind maps!

In addition to Lisa, we had the privilege of insight from Jenni Rose, a Principal Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, and Dr Samuel Boyce, a Lecturer at University of Liverpool. They discussed their journey into their education-focused career and shared the different routes they found themselves in their positions.

That was another major take away from the day, there are a multitude of ways to find ourselves in the position of a lecturer or researcher within a university, and it is days like these that allow us to realise that there is no fixed route into working in Higher Education. Overall, it was an inspiring, insightful and enjoyable day with peers and new friends. I can’t wait to see how we all progress in our careers!