The time has come for me to find a job, but...

What I read was "I want to do a PhD" over and over and over:

It seems to me your last year shook your confidence a bit, that's all.

You are trying to choose between PhD and the unknown job market so that makes it hard to weigh the pros and cons: you know little about the job side.

Well, I'm pretty damn sure a PhD is going to make a hell of a positive contribution to your job applications in a bleeding edge field like robotics. When applying for jobs, you'll be up against people with a PhD - bear that in mind.

As for an internship - unpaid work? I thought slavery was abolished some time ago.

Anyway, have a perusal through this list for the current state of the job market for robotics + PhD: http://www.indeed.co.uk/jobs?q=Robotics+phd&l=

You have to apply for all of the above. The competition is tough in all those areas, and you don't really have a choice to make until you have more than one offer in your hand.

Feel free to post up a CV in the CV Help thread and I might be able to give some more specific advice.

Would you advise I look for something short-term to do while I'm applying for internships/jobs/PhDs?

I'm a big believer in taking any opportunity to see something new, you never know what further opportunities will lead from it. So first of all, if you are still in your University city, then email as many of your staff as you possible and use the Uni jobs website to see if there is anything you can do within the University, because that will keep you on hand for lab/research jobs that may come up - if you can keep your face in view a bit. Next best, if you are living in any University town, try and do the same. Keeping a Uni email address and access to their websites, public lectures, meeting and eating places etc is great for networking of you are trying to get into academia/post-grad studies.

If you have strong Excel skills, the Planning team might have work for you. Depending on their database etc the Development Office might have opportunities for geeky bits, or even just office admin, helping event management, envelope stuffing etc. Admissions is also often looking for people with data handling skills. The Uni won't care that you aren't using grad skills if you apply for a postgrad course and it will make you a better academic if you understand some of the University professional services processes!

A PhD in engineering isn't likely to be as competitive as PhDs in many other fields, because a lot of "top" students want to move into industry after completion of their degrees as opposed to continuing with their studies. So don't write yourself off for the PhD on account of having a somewhat bad year. If you performed well in the relevant modules, and are known to the staff who run the doctorate programme that you fancy, then give it a shot and apply.

After your PhD, you'll be eligible for specific, usually more technical positions, industry. I think most of the FE analysts at my work have PhDs, for example. You can also apply for the usual positions, even if your PhD won't confer an advantage. Having a PhD isn't career limiting... it's just that it's not the best option if what you know you want to do doesn't require it. But if you're interested in a field where much of the work seems to come from academia, then a PhD could turn out to be quite useful.

In terms of jobs, once you graduate you should be applying for graduate/entry level/junior positions. You certainly don't need an internship to get a job, although it does help with the more competitive ones. There are probably a lot more jobs than internships each year, so lots of people must therefore be able to get jobs without internships. You have nothing to lose by applying to jobs that interest you, so go for it.

Thanks, you've given me lots of ideas!


Brilliant! PRSOM

Did you end up doing the PHD?

How did you find this thread?!

But to answer your question, no

I applied for a few last year, got to interview for one but I was a complete mess

Recently (in the last month) my desire to even do a PhD has waned. I still think it would be perfect for me (that is, I think I'd function best in an academic environment, where I can devote myself to one thing for years ), but it seems the market doesn't value a PhD as much (cf. this article ), and I'd just hate to come out of a project after 3/4 years and be in essentially the same situation I'm in now!