Science me up, Gok!

As a scientist, one of my personal pet peeves is the amount of pseudo-science that is spewed at people, particularly in advertising. The health and beauty industries are the absolutely worst offenders. The Limey and I keep a folder of pictures of products that are given a "nano" name because it just sounds so cool and cutting edge, even though the product is nothing of the sort. I once saw a bottled water advertised as having "added oxygen". W. T. F?

So I was pleasantly surprised when I saw my first episode of Channel 4's "How to Look Good Naked". For those who haven't seen it, it's a show in which our fearless host takes a British woman who hates her body for one reason or another and convinces her that her self-image is what needs work, that her body itself is beautiful and then shows her how to dress and style herself to show that body off. I know, it sounds a little bit...reality-show. Which it is. But I love it.

The first and foremost reason to love it is the host, Gok Wan. I tell you, we need more flamingly gay Asians in the public eye. We do.

The second reason is that, even though this sounds hippy dippy, he always convinces the women that they are beautiful as is. There is no suggestion of dieting or plastic surgery. Nothing of the sort. It's nice.

Third, and getting back to the science bit, is the way the show does its product reviews. They do them really well, and in a manner that is satisfying to my scientist brain.

1. They have a panel of 100 women, which is a good, large enough number for the data to be believable. If there are a few outliers, it won't affect the result.
2. They have the women test the products over a period of time. So they use the products as they are meant to be used, and they get to note reactions along the way. This is much better than just a first impressions kind of product trial, obviously.
3. Most importantly, they decant all the products into plain, un-marked jars. So it doesn't matter how much money is spent on packaging and advertising, and the testers can't be mis-led by scientific-sounding claims from the manufacturer.
   

As you can imagine with this kind of product testing, the more expensive, "exclusive" products more often than not end up at the bottom of the league. The women are often really surprised that the product they thought was best (at, whatever, wrinkle-removing, tanning, moisturizing, etc.) is the cheapest brand, or the one available at your normal supermarket.

The other result that kinda makes me feel smug and "I told you so" is that, for many of the products, there's very little difference in the ratings. That is to say, the night cream serum for eyes (or whatever) that gets ranked highest had a score only several percentage points away from that which ranked lowest. There's hardly ever a product which was obviously better and preferred by a majority of the testers. Meaning, most of this shite? Yeah, it's the same. And probably doesn't really do much anyway.

Geekery

The Limey and I went to Oxford for the Easter weekend. It's only, maybe, an hour's drive away, but we got a hotel room and stayed for a couple of nights anyway, to make it seem like an actual vacation. (My passport is with the Home Office for immigration things, so I can't leave this frigging country, for months and months.)

Oxford is a great town to walk around in. Lots of little lanes and backstreets, and amazing buildings wherever you look. I'll spare you the tourist pictures, though.

Oh, except one:

(Click to biggerize.)

Squeeeeee! I only wish they would let us into the actual labs. How awesome would that have been?

Two-body problem

You get bonus job hunting stories! Courtesy of The Limey's life. May be boring to some people, but I know I appreciated hearing others' experiences while I was job-hunting and while I was in grad school and post-docing.

A while ago, The Limey applied for a job at a lab on the outskirts of London. It's a great lab, good reputation, and a really good job. A senior scientist position. He thought it was way out of his league- some of the other senior scientists there had been lecturers (lower ranked professors, for the 'Mericans). I convinced him to apply because, really, what did he have to lose? He didn't hear from them for weeks and assumed he hadn't made the cut. (Some places just don't let you know; it's so rude.)

Then he got a phone call asking if they could schedule some phone time to talk to him about the position. I guess the way they phrased it, he figured it would just be a quick chat, maybe to ask for his references and set up an in-person interview. He was happy, but didn't worry about it, so said Sure, I've got time tomorrow afternoon. It turned out to be a full-on formal phone interview. With a four person panel of scientists. They asked him all sorts of questions, ranging from "Where would you get funding for this type of work?" and "Which specific British industries and companies could benefit from this research?" to general physics questions. General physics questions! Like at your dissertation defense and qualifying exams! No one keeps general physics in their heads except for exams! That's what reference books are for!

Obviously, The Limey was in no way prepared. He was depressed for a week afterwards. I told him there was no way anyone could have done well at an interview like that without warning. If they hadn't made it clear that it was a formal interview, what do they expect?

Two weeks later, they called again asking for him to go over there to give a presentation and visit the labs.

Two days ago, they told him he's got the job.

I would like to state here that I take full credit for his getting this job. Every step of the way, he was convinced he wasn't qualified. Despite all evidence to the contrary, he refused to believe that he had the skills and experience they were looking for. You want to have been in this house while he was preparing his presentation. They had given him a few important points they wanted him to cover. These were things post-docs don't usually think about- they were things that concerned people who managed a research group, not the lowly bench workers in the research group. Every day I had to convince him that they obviously felt he had the background to do this. Every day I had to remind him that if they didn't think he could do it, they wouldn't have invited him over for the interview. Every day, he wanted to call them and withdraw his application. Aaargh. Eventually I told him to think of it as practice for other interviews.

Anyway, of course he got the job. He's a genius. I looked over his talk before he went over there- it was really good. It was easily at a senior scientist / lecturer level.

Now, of course, we're all very happy and everything. But we have to find a place to live between London and Southampton. Urrgh. It's looking like...Woking. I know. I know! But there's a direct train to S'hampton and The Limey can drive or train/bike to work. It'll be close to an hour's commute for him and a bit more than an hour for me.

Anyone have advice on how to find a place over there? Also, will the cat be an issue with renting? Freakin' cat. If she weren't so cute, I tell you...

Either way

Well, I thought the interview went well. But I've also thought other interviews went well, so I think we've learned that I'm fairly useless at judging them. They were well impressed with my PhD supervisor, and so was impressed that I'd done my work with him. (He is very well known and respected in his field. It's a small field, mind. I'm lucky that the Chief Scientific Officer at this company also happens to do some work in this small field.)

Honestly, though, I have all the technical and scientific skills they're asking for. I don't have any programming and technical software design skills, which, although not a requirement for the job, is something they'd like. They would be lucky indeed to find all that in one person, though. I know of only one such person: The Limey. During general conversation at lunch, they asked what my husband did, so I told them. And they said, Huh, you know, we're looking for more than one person...They told me to encourage him to apply if he felt like it, but then the conversation went around to having a husband and wife working at the same small place, and how that may or may not be a good idea.

At any rate, there has been another development. During my PhD, I did a one-term exchange and went to work with a professor in Manchester. He has since moved to London. I guess he was impressed enough with me during the short time I was there, because he'd heard that I've been looking for a job, and has offered me a post-doc in his lab. Now, although a post-doc isn't my first choice during this job hunt, I have begun to look at them. This one would be good because it's at a well-known and well-respected university (always useful to keep in mind for future job hunts), and I already know, like, and know I can work with the people in the group.

The Southampton job is a better career step for me, and if I'm offered it, I'll definitely take it. If not, however, The Limey and I decided it would be best that I take the London post-doc.

So. Either way, we'll be moving to England in the next month to month and a half.

Huh! What'd you know?!

I have an interview in Southampton on Wednesday, so, as I always do before I travel, I googled "yarn shop Southampton".

And this is what I get!

It's a knitting resource page on the official University of Southampton website! Take a look at that list under 'Collections' on the left: data resources, European Documentation Centre, health circulars, knitting, official publications...

Totally, yet delightfully, bizarre.

Apparently they have a large knitting collection there. I was totally excited about visiting the exhibitions (there's a Montse Stanley collection!) and- get this- a knitting pattern collection! Unfortunately, the collection's only open on Thursdays. Damn.

Some job hunting statistics

Introduction
For my own amusement/disappointment, I've crunched some interesting numbers from my job search so far. May also be of use to other job-hunters, especially if you're in a similar situation as me.

Experimental
I write a separate CV, geared specifically towards the job description, for each job application. So the numbers here come solely from the files I can count from my computer. For jobs through recruiters, I have to rely more on my memory. But those were so few that I don't think I missed any.
For all interviews, I either had a formal phone interview OR a formal in-person interview, so no company/group/outfit/what-have-you was counted twice for interviews.

Results
Months spent on job hunt: 4

Number of jobs applied for:

Ireland
through recruiters: 3
directly: 1
Ireland total: 4

Interviews: 0

UK
through recruiters: 0
directly: 9
UK total: 9

Interviews:
phone: 2
in-person: 3
UK interview total: 5
interviews from applications: 56%

Total
applications: 13
interviews: 5
interviews from applications: 38%
# (among all applications) who had the manners to personally reject me: 7
# of applications pending: 4
# from whom I just never heard back (bastards): 2


Discussion and Conclusions
Well, now, this turned out to be a very interesting exercise for me. The biggest surprise is that I applied to so few jobs! Honestly, it seemed like I was writing CVs and applications every other day. I'm shocked it was just 13 applications. I don't think I could have mis-counted, because all the CVs I remember writing are there. Maybe there were jobs where I sent in a general CV, but I can't recall any.

The other interesting thing is the low number of interviews I got from the Irish applications. Given the interview success rate of my UK applications, I should have gotten two interviews from my 4 Irish applications. I think the low number reflects two things: 1) the small number of jobs going in this country for my particular set of skills and experience and 2) I applied to most through agencies and, basically, they can't do as good a job of representing me as I can. This effect is compounded by the fact that almost all jobs I find on Irish job sites are presented by agencies, rather than by the hiring company itself.

In future, it seems what I really need to do is step up the number of applications. However, my high interview success rate would indicate that I'm choosing well- the positions I'm applying for suit my background/skills/education very well. Increasing the number of applications would mean expanding my search criteria for jobs, which would probably mean I'd apply to more jobs that aren't so well-suited for me.

Given the bind The Limey and I find ourselves in at the moment, I've started to look for post-doc jobs, as well. So the search criteria is expanded on one front, anyway. And there are still applications out that I'm expecting to hear from in the next couple of weeks. However, time is getting tight. Also, I will seek out some advice on interviewing. Maybe I'm sending out "don't hire me" vibrations or something. I've never had to do such formal interviews for a job before, so I probably have a lot to learn about them. (In academia, they just want you to present your work and they judge you -supposedly- solely on that, not on whether you can "tell me about a time when you had a conflict with a co-worker".)

Back to trawling the web, then.

Getting used to it

I heard I was rejected for the Swindon job today. They sent the rejection by post, which is new. The letter included a name of one of the interviewers and a phone number in case I wanted feedback on my performance during the round of interviews. Of course I called- as I've said before, yeses and nos are useless without reasons- only to be told that the woman was out of the office until after the first week of August. Ha! Cowards.

Anyway, I am disappointed, of course, but not as devastatingly so as for the journal job. There are several reasons for this, the foremost one probably being that I'm simply getting used to rejection. The other reasons: it's in Swindon, and it paid shit. Don't get me wrong, neither of those would have stopped me taking the job had I been offered it. It would have been a great career move, and the job itself would have been interesting.

At any rate, the situation is now getting somewhat desperate. The Limey's contract ends in September, and he's already told his boss that he won't be able to renew it, because what with the immigration issues, we probably won't be staying in Dublin. And, I mean, at least one of us has to be bringing in some income. I'd promised him at the beginning of the year that it was his turn next to sit at home and wander about the internet all day. Hmm...may be time to think "outside the box".

Bah!

My hunch was right...no journal editor job for me. They went with someone with more editorial experience. And here I was worrying about my lack of bio background!

This is too bad. Aside from the fact that I wanted the job and think I would have been good at it, I was also looking forward to not having to apply for any more jobs! I hate the whole application process.

Well, back to revising my CV.

Well.

So. The interview. I think it went quite well. But what do I know? I've never had to do these sorts of interviews before. This one had two parts: the first is your normal "Why do you want to work here?" "What are your strengths?" "Where do you see yourself in two years?" sort of thing; the second was another "editorial exercise" bit, kinda like what I'd been asked to do before.

I think I did okay on the first part. I mean, I tried not to make a fool of myself, I tried to answer their questions in complete sentences and tried to sell myself to them, basically. I got to learn more about the job, and it sounds really good. I wouldn't just be reviewing papers the whole time. They encourage you to do interviews, ask for commissioned pieces from the science world, and set up special issues if you have any specific interests and such.

The second part I kicked ass on. They gave me a couple of "typical" papers that get submitted to the journal. I had half an hour to read them and give my opinion on their suitability for publication, comments on the science, other info that may be needed to make a decision, whether I would send them out for review, etc. Stuff that I would be spending most of my time doing on the actual job, basically. Both papers were in the biology area, which is not my specialty (more about that later). I read them and told the interviewers that I'd decided that neither were suitable for publication, and gave my reasons. Then they said, Well, we have sent these papers out for review. And I thought, Oh crap, messed that one up.

But then they gave me the reviewers' comments, and here's the kick-ass part: the reviewers totally agreed with me! In fact, for one paper, the reviews could have been written by me- they basically said exactly the same things as I'd said a few minutes before. They raised the same issues and had the same problems with the paper I did, and didn't recommend publication either. In the second paper, I'd missed a couple of experimental problems, but the consensus from the reviewers was the same: they didn't recommend publication. So my decisions and reasoning were totally vindicated.

Now, about that biology bit. I specialized in chemistry and physical chemistry. Other than a couple of classes in college, I did no biology at all. This journal specializes in materials science, in which I have a vast and broad background.

Except for the bio bits.

But...the journal is looking to replace their bio person.

So you can see we have a bit of a problem. In their job ad, they did say they were particularly interested in those with a biomaterials background, but that they would consider other well-qualified people. During the interview, they kept asking if I was comfortable taking charge of an area outside of my field of expertise, and what new talent or experience I could bring to their team, and how I felt about having to learn about a whole new field. Basically, they really want a bio person. It's fair enough, the rest of their team leans heavily towards the physics and chemistry side already, so I wouldn't be adding anything new for them.

Mind you, I think I did well on the exercises with the bio papers, especially considering I had no background in the papers' subject matter. But it is very hard to judge if a paper is new and interesting, and it's even harder when you don't know what the state of the art in that particular research area is.

So I think there's a good chance they won't hire me. But if they don't, it wouldn't be through any fault of mine. It would solely be because they need to build a well-rounded team. That's what I'm telling myself, anyway. I'm supposed to hear in a week or so.

Deep breaths...

The science journal people want me to go over to London for an interview! Wheee!

It took a long time to get to this point. The initial application asked for a writing sample. Then they got back to me saying I'd been short-listed for the position and would I be able to do an "editorial task" for them as the next step. This basically involved judging several "typical" papers that get submitted to the journal, and I was to read them and say whether they were suitable for publication in this particular journal; why or why not...that sort of thing. I had a week to do it. It was like having homework! And the sad thing is...I quite enjoyed it. An assignment, like in school!

Today they wrote back asking if I was available for an interview next week. I've looked up flights already. As usual, they say that part of the interview is a chance for me to ask any questions I may have. I already know what I'm going to ask: Feedback on my assignments, please! At each step, they don't mention at all how I did on the last step. And I want to know. I mean, what's the point if I don't get any useful feedback? Criticism or otherwise. A plain "yes" is just as unhelpful as a plain "no" if you don't tell me why. Or maybe I've been in school too long?

I'm so excited! Hey, I'll get a chance to use those Rowan yarn vouchers!

Two things

1. I had a phone interview today with a director at the researchy-analysty-consultancy company I applied to a while ago. I'd already talked to their HR person a couple of weeks ago, and I thought that went well. Today, my brain refused to work. I knew what I wanted to say, but I kept not saying it. I had to "ummm...." a lot, and there were many pauses while I ran through my brain like a headless chicken, searching for the correct words and trying to put them together into proper sentences. Aaargh. So frustrating. Especially bad because this position would require meeting with clients and presenting work to people. He said I'd hear from their HR people. No clue whether it was good or bad or anything.

2. I got an e-mail from the European "Task Force" looking at the Strategy for Science, Technology and Innovation 2006-2013 plan for Ireland. They'd sent out a survey last year to researchers asking about their careers and jobs and such. In this e-mail, they asked if I was available for a phone interview to talk about, among other things, my "personal opinion on the barriers and opportunities of a researcher career in Ireland." Note that the SSTI 2006-2013 people are the ones who want to double the number of science PhDs produced in Ireland. I think I may have talked about it some before? And I think my feelings on this are quite clear? I told them I'd be more than happy to talk to them. The only question I have now is: should I set a time limit on my rant?

The saga continues...

This week was a bit different on the job application front. A recruitment person called on Monday and wanted to send in my CV for a science policy-ish type job here in Dublin. It would be absolutely awesome if I got it, but I get the feeling they're really looking for someone with more experience. I told her to go ahead and do it, but I have no high hopes for it. On Tuesday, I sent my CV to a specialist science recruitment company in the UK. Haven't heard back from them yet, so we'll see about that.

Also on Tuesday I had a phone interview with an HR person for the big UK company I applied to last week. I thought I did quite well, despite babbling on the HR-y questions like "Tell me about a time when you had a conflict with a co-worker." I hate those questions. Just ask me if I think I can do the damn job! Anyway, I thought I did well, and the interviewer said she'd send the transcript to the hiring manager and they'd let me know. So the next day they e-mailed and said they wouldn't be "progressing [my] application". At least they were quick. I wrote back to ask why, and was really impressed when the interviewer actually rang me back to talk to me about it. Apparently, she'd had more details from the hiring manager, and they were really looking for someone with more food industry experience. Once again, a better written job ad could have avoided all this. However, she also said that I presented myself well and that the interview was good. Big whoop.

On Wednesday I had a phone conversation (she kept saying "This is not an interview") for an American-based research and consultancy firm. They're looking to hire some people in Europe for their Europe-based clients. It sounds very business-y and out of my league, but at the end, she said she would set up an interview for me with their research director dude. At one point in the interview, she told me she'd just Googled my name, and, despite being entirely a-religious, I started praying that nothing incriminating came up. Luckily, she only found professional things about me. Whew.

Yesterday I worked on an application for an associate editor position with one of the big academic science journals. It requires a writing sample in the style of one of their articles. It's the most work I've had to do for an application yet, and I don't know how successful I'll be with it.

The weird thing is, since I've put my CV up on-line, I've had a few calls from recruiters, and after some talking about what my background and experience are (do they even read the CVs?), they've all admitted to me, baldly, that there are really no jobs here for me in Ireland. Ain't life great?

Blogging

Jackie left some interesting thoughts on a comment a while ago on my post about knitting blogs. I figure I'd answer here.

I wonder if it's that scientists are overrepresented in the knitting world (and vice versa) or that scientists are more likely to blog about it, as Jackie suggests. Huh. I wonder how I could figure out which it is. Could be both.

As for knitters/scientists not being bloggers. The numbers for online forums go like this: 90% of people are lurkers, and only read but never contribute; 9% contribute every once in while; 1% are regular contributers and basically write the majority of the content. If blogs are like forums, and we already know that the vast majority of blogs that get started are neglected pretty early on and hardly ever get regularly posted to (this would be the 9%), then multiplying regularly updated knitting blogs by 100 would get you the number of knitters around. I think this is a very conservative estimate, though. I think starting a blog has a higher activation energy threshold than commenting on a forum, i.e, it's more work to start a blog than to simply type up a comment on a forum. So probably the number of people who start blogs is much, much less than 10% of people who read them. So the number of knitters around is much higher than 100 times the number of regular bloggers.

Of course, then you have to add in the number of people who don't even read knitting blogs.

At least I'm trying

So the computery company with the consultancy job said no. At least they got back to me with the "no" pretty quickly. I asked why, and their HR person (by the way, their recruitment offices for Irish positions is in Hungary; bizarre) replied with a description of what the hiring manager was looking for. Which is completely different from what the ad asked for. So different that I double-checked to make sure I'd applied for the correct job. I had, so my guess is they really need someone else to write their job ads. Unless I'm totally and completely mis-reading ads? Self-delusion is pretty powerful, I guess.

My goal this week was to apply for one job a day. Which I was totally able to do. The whole process is just so tedious and demoralizing that I'm quite proud of myself for being able to do it.

I'd applied to a big company in the UK on Wednesday, and they called me yesterday to ask if I had permission to work in the UK. They called while I was on the DART (coming back from meeting Jackie at This Is Knit and chatting with the lovely proprietors there), so it was rumbly and loud. I kept having to ask her to repeat herself. I must have sounded like a right eejit. Not the best impression.

Gainful employment

So the two research jobs I'd found and applied for (yes, there were only two in the Dublin area) have told me they're not interested. (It's like dating!) It turns out that when they say "materials scientist" or "polymer scientist" or simply "research chemist" they really mean "organic chemist". I guess they must like wasting their time, and mine, because they could have, oh, put that important requirement in their ad! But, no.

A friend had also given me a heads-up on a consultancy job, based in Dublin, for a big computery firm. This has nothing to do with science or research as I know it, but it sounds really interesting. It sort of combines economics with a bunch of market and other research. It's for a new office of the company that is supposed to be their "publishing" arm- with publishing in the academic sense. They research and study different economic and business problems, advise on them, and write up the results. This is interesting to me because it combines problem-solving with an area of economics I've always been interested in: human behaviour-y stuff. What incentives and rewards make a person choose to do A instead of B? What could you change in your business/shop/marketing strategy that would change people's behaviour in the direction you want? More importantly, the job ad hinted that they would look favourably upon someone with an academic background.

I'd gone to the career open house for this company, talked to a few people, and was told to leave my CV with the HR person there, which I did. After a week of hearing nothing, I e-mail them, because maybe there's a more formal application process or something. Another week, nothing, not even a response to my e-mail. I e-mail them again and finally get an e-mail back saying I should apply on-line and that they don't accept CVs and applications any other way. I'm very tempted to write back a snarky e-mail about why the hell they asked me to give my CV to their HR person in the first place then, but I will refrain. Because I need a job.

With nothing new coming up in Dublin, I've started looking in the UK. I really would prefer to stay in Ireland for at least another year or two, but the job market seems to be conspiring against this. Plus, if we move, I can finally tell the Department of Justice to kiss my little yellow ass. Honestly, one big advantage of moving out of the country is that I can finally stop being jerked around by the DoJ.

I have too much time on my hands

Since I'm not working, I can afford to spend a lot of time on the interweb (and today I learned that I'm not being considered for yet another job, so I have spare time to spare (ha!)). I probably read more than my fair share of knitting blogs. I notice some patterns, and some themes. Other than knitting, obviously.

1. Cats. That knitters and cats should go together is not surprising. I mean: knitters --> balls of yarn --> cats. It seems that no matter how hard people try to keep away from the stereotype of knitting as something your grandmother did (as if that was an insult!), some element of the "little old lady with her cats and her knitting" survives into the new generation.

2. Scientists. A good number of the knitting blogs floating around are written by scientists. Maybe they just stick in my mind more, but scientists do seem over-represented in the knitting blogosphere. I know that the things that drew me into science also informs my knitting to some degree. Like, I basically think of knitting as problem-solving. I have this one-dimensional piece of yarn, and I want to turn it into a three-dimensional object. I have my tools, and my arsenal of techniques. I just have to figure out how to apply them to the problem. Also, it involves lots of experimentation, and some math. It also involves loads of learning- if I can't get the result I want with my existing tools and techniques, is there another way to do it? Has someone done it before? (As we used to say: two weeks in lab can easily save you two hours in the library.)

3. Food. You expect yarn porn in a knitting blog, but there is a surprising amount of food porn, as well. Lots of close-up, macro pictures of food. It seems like a lot of knitters are also foodies. I'm not sure where the overlap is: a retro embracing of all things "homey"? A reclaiming of the formerly un-prestigious domestic sphere?

Why was this happy news, again?

I've spent the day going through all the job advertising and recruitment sites on the web, and it is depressing. Out of the dozens of jobs that come up during a search for science jobs, only a handful require a PhD, and only two aren't in the pharmaceutical industry. That's right: two. 2. Dos. Deux. Two, out of nearly a hundred. Just as well, the pharma companies seem only to want "quality assurance" and "process validation" people. I don't even know what those terms mean. From the vague job descriptions attached, it doesn't seem like the recruiters know, either.

That's another gripe I have. I'm used to academic job descriptions, where they basically tell you in the ad what you'll be doing: SEM, AFM, synthesis of specific compounds, this project or that project, which can be looked up. But these recruiters seem to write job descriptions to be as vague as possible. Sure, everyone wants "a team player" and someone with "excellent organisational, communication and interpersonal skills" but what the hell would I actually be *doing* with my day if I worked there? No clue.

I can't really complain about the job search to friends, because they usually just look at all those years of schooling, and assume that I would be able to find a job quickly and without any problems. I mean, just look at all that education and those degrees! They don't understand that all those years and those degrees mean I've educated and specialized myself out of all hope of gainful employment.

I'm thinking seriously of leaving the PhD off of my CV, but then how would I explain the huge hole in the first half the decade? And then, the pay would be pitiful. Even the jobs that require a PhD pay barely more than I was getting as a post-doc. I'm incensed! For years, I've been told that academia pays shit, but that industry would make up for its less flexible schedule/less overall research and experimental freedom with higher pay. Well, that's crap, apparently. Or maybe the fact that academia pay scales actually look good says a lot about my job options right now.

A little experiment

So I've been looking at job websites. It turns out there's not much call for science PhDs in Ireland. Even the Big Pharma companies who have manufacturing sites over here don't need PhDs; they just need someone to sit in front of their gas chromatographs and press the "On" and "Off" buttons when beeped at to do so by the machine. This is interesting, because apparently the Irish government has a goal to double the number of science PhDs produced in the country by 2013. Hmmm...great way to guarantee a steady export of your brightest young people: over-educate them, then have no available jobs to offer them.

But that is another rant. Today I'm going to talk about my little experiment, which will hopefully find me a job, and keep me entertained for a little while.

My name (full name, as well as its individual components) is unpronounceable for most English speakers. Not only that, it just looks really...foreign. When confronted with its full 3-syllable glory, I think most people just blank it out, or go "Wha?" and their eyes just sort of slide past it to something safe and recognizable. It doesn't help that it's really short, and so seems like it should be simple, but the strange combination of letters gets 'em every time. I've always quite liked my name, and it's been relatively simple to learn to spell it every time someone asks for it. However, I get the feeling that, in a very competitive job market, it may make it awkward or difficult for someone reading through a stack of CVs. ("Let's call Mr Smith first, and if he's not there, we can call this...uh...this...person from the second CV here.")

However, now I have another name at my disposal: The Limey's. The Limey has a nice, safe, recognizable, common, easily-pronounced surname. What I'm going to do is write one CV using his surname, and one using my name. Then I distribute them on different websites and with different agencies, and monitor the difference, if any, among the responses to them.

I'm totally excited to see what happens. On the one hand, of course, I kind of hope they don't treat the two CVs any differently. On the other hand, if it gets me a job, or even job interviews, hey, I won't be overly upset.

Oh, happy day!

Just as I was getting bored with sitting around all day as a "lucky jobless bastard", I hear a rumour that the DETE (Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment) will grant work permits to spouses of EU citizens living in Ireland while they wait for the Department of Justice to process EU1 applications! I don't have to wait for over six months while the DoJ s....l....o.....w....l....y processes their backlog of EU1's. They've already entered into illegal EU territory by taking longer than the EU-mandated six months.

I called the DETE this morning, just to see if this was too good to be true, and apparently, all the rumours are right. The DETE will fast track applications from spouses of EU citizens. You still have to apply for a work permit, but there will be no fee, and the normal rules for non-EU work permits will be waived (i.e., the employer will no longer have to prove that they've advertised for x number of months, and no EU citizen can fill the vacancy). Also, the "fast track" means that the permit should be granted in 1-2 weeks. I will still have to get a job first, though, and have the potential employer fill out the work permit form.

Ooooh, now I can actually look for jobs!

Oh, wait. That's no fun at all. Now I'm not sure why I was so excited.

Two things

1: Although digital cameras are certainly handy, I have to say that I don't like having to go to my computer to look at the pictures. I want actual, physical pictures, which I can keep in a box, sort through on a rainy afternoon, leave fingerprints on, actually frame and display (Shocking thing to do with photographs, I know). I know that digital cameras make it easier to share your photos with other people, but then what? Great for other people, but what about me?!

And, yes, I know I can get them printed, but given that I can just barely remember to bring my camera when I travel, what're the chances that I'll actually go and get them printed up?

2: I told my boss that I will not be renewing my contract after it ends this year. I thought I had 'til August, but it turns out that my actual work permit ends in mid-July, so I'll be unemployed by August. I'm not sure what I'm going to do. Find another job, obviously. But if I don't manage to get one by mid-July, can I still stay in Ireland for the 60 or 90 days that normal tourists are allowed? I don't know. Also, I found out that I very likely qualify for a highly-skilled migrant visa to the UK. It'll allow me to live and work in the UK without needing a work permit and job offer from any specific employer. The UK wants to attract skilled migrants (the unskilled ones they can get from the new, poorer EU states) and the visa program works on a points system: x number of points for college degrees, y number of points for age (the younger, the better). If your points add up to above a certain number, you're in. I'm not sure how long it takes to get one, and I'm not sure if I can apply from outside my home country. It's an idea, though.