These are slides from a talk given at the Higher Education Academy Science Technology Engineering and Maths conference at Manchester (UK) in February 2017. The talk was a lightly revised version of a presentation given previously in summer 2016. It describes some recommendations derived from ten years of running the CABS careers seminars.

1. A Decade of CABS: Reflections on
the first 10 years of the Careers After
Biological Sciences programme
Chris Willmott
Dept of Molecular
and Cell Biology
cjrw2@le.ac.uk
HEA STEM (February 2017)

2. Careers Awareness
• Biological Science
= excellent platform for diverse careers
• Unlike some courses (e.g. Medicine, Pharmacy, Law)
Bioscience is not “vocational”
- students may not know some careers exist
- they may need help in seeing beyond the
“known” pathways e.g. PhD, post-grad Medicine

3. Institution-specific events
• Careers Awareness
Careers After Biological Sciences (CABS)
• Careers Planning
Employability programme

4. Birth of CABS
• Careers After Biological Sciences @ Leicester
• Programme started 2007 with support of grant from
institutions Fund for New Teaching Initiatives
• Ten Years  Ten Tips

5. 1. Organise careers talks as core
of careers awareness resources
• Invited presentations = cornerstone of activities
• Efficient way to introduce variety of careers

6. 2. Include Careers from Science
as well as Careers in Science*
• Aim to raise awareness of diverse roles after
studying Bioscience
• Not all of our students will go on to be Nobel prize
winning scientists
Skills learned completing
Bioscience degree
transferable to broad
range of jobs
* Osborne & Dillon, 2008

7. ~70 careers considered
2. Include Careers from Science
as well as Careers in Science

8. 3. Alumni are ideal careers speakers
• Natural resonance between current students and
alumni
“they studied here too, so it must be possible
to get a similar job after my degree”
• Alumni likely to be willing
to come back and visit
• Time since graduation
important consideration
- established
- but not decrepit !

9. 4. Include several talks on same day
• Two different models
5 x 2 4 or 5 “twilight” sessions with 2 speakers
2 x 5 2 afternoons with 4 or 5 speakers
• Advantages of 2 x 5 model
- better for broadening vision
- can “bait” session with one
obvious career and 3-4 others
- some speakers will cry off at last
minute (junior employees, young
family, etc)

10. 5. Collate resources about different
careers
• Any one year of talks can only consider limited range
of careers
• Over time broad spectrum of jobs can be covered

11. 6. Make resources available beyond
the institution
• Resources could sit within institutional VLE but better
open access, e.g. on blogging platform
• Benefits - graduates (without access to VLE)
- bioscience students elsewhere
- the institution (marketing potential)
• Use combination of social media & web tools
• biosciencecareers.wordpress.com

12. 6. Make resources available beyond
the institution
Wordpress blog
PowerPoint slides on Slideshare.net

13. 6. Make resources available beyond
the institution
• Photo of speaker = real life stories

14. 7. Record lectures (but think what
you are going to do with recording)
• Recording talks (audio and/or video) captures the
content
• Video can be shared (e.g. using YouTube or Vimeo)
Audio can be shared (e.g. via Soundcloud)
• Not necessarily appropriate to make this available
• Crude recording likely to require some tidying up
- Time consuming?
- Jump cuts?

15. 8. Transcripts add valuable content
to pages (but take time to produce)
Several attractions of transcript
• allows for light editing - tidying up “erms” & “ers”
- verbal gaffes
- embarrassing anecdotes
- reorder slightly
• contains more detail than slides alone, but can be
read faster than listening to talk
• But… even if assistance available transcribing (and/or
checking written version) takes time

16. 9. Cultivate genuine relationships
with graduates on social media
• Graduates invested 3+ years with us
• Ongoing relationship mutually beneficial
• LinkedIn?
• Facebook? May not feel “friends” appropriate
Set up Alumni group
• Two-way communication
• ~800 members

17. 9. Cultivate genuine relationships
with graduates on social media

18. 9. Cultivate genuine relationships
with graduates on social media

19. 9. Cultivate genuine relationships
with graduates on social media

20. 9. Cultivate genuine relationships
with graduates on social media

21. 10. Brief speakers carefully
• Content of talk: 20-25 minutes
- what their current job involves
- how they got there from here
- top tips for someone considering same role
• Expectation re materials you would like to generate
- slides
- recording lecture
- photo
• Expenses
- amount
- mechanism for reclaim

22. Conclusions
• Careers education > careers awareness
• “Opportunity awareness” integral to effective
careers education, especially in non-vocational
disciplines such as bioscience
• CABS approach offers a way to develop a body of
discipline- and context-specific material for use by
present, past and future undergraduates

23. Feedback
“I’m grateful for you putting together the CABS talks during
my first and second years – they led me to appreciate that
there are a huge number of avenues open to Biological
Sciences graduates after the degree. The talks also hammered
home how important it is to get organised and start looking
early, as I have done with my year in industry and getting my
PhD organised. Without the talks I’m not sure I’d have gotten
both of these places, because I might not have been looking!
The other good thing about these talks, aside from hearing the
obvious passion that was motivating the speakers, was being
able to talk to each of the professionals one-to-one after the
speeches.”
2014 Medical Biochemistry graduate, now doing PhD at Crick

24. Any Questions?
E-mail: cjrw2@le.ac.uk
Twitter: cjrw
Slideshare: cjrw2
Delicious: chriswillmott
Blogs: www.bioethicsbytes.wordpress.com
www.biologyonthebox.wordpress.com
www.biosciencecareers.wordpress.com
www.lefthandedbiochemist.wordpress.com

25. 11. Better the resources you capture
the fewer may attend in person
• Our events are optional para-curricula sessions
• Attendance often only ~50 students
• Compulsory? Would change dynamic
• Website is most valuable asset