Gaps & transitions

In this section we discover more about the depth and breadth of an academic career by considering gaps & transitions through academic career conversations. We create space to honestly reflect on where your focus and achievements are serving you well against expectations, and where you may need to focus your attention next to fill in any gaps. Whilst there are similarities between the five exercises below, they approach the question of achievements and potential career gaps differently. We suggest you read through each of them before deciding where you prefer to start your conversations and reflections.

Views on academic careers ranged from those with ‘no ambition’ because ‘I am happy as I am’, or ‘planning to retire’; to those who want to ‘enjoy work’; to those with aspiration and ‘fire in their belly’, ‘someone who isn’t going to be happy with the status quo’, determined to create a career where they can ‘do good work’, ‘be recognised’, or ‘make a difference’. Nevertheless, participants largely aspired to enjoy work, do good work, to be recognised, and to make a difference.

Regardless of how participants viewed their careers at this moment in time, they were able to describe career transition points that had launched them from one role, position, or attitude to another. Self-awareness was a key ingredient and helped some people to proactively consider where to focus their energy, how to spread their own wings, and the conscious choices that they wanted to make. However, for the majority of participants transitional points were only recognisable in hindsight and few had been the result of conscious career preparation; rather than they had happened by accident or luck, and rarely through judgement or planning. Transition points included moving between grades; changing institution or geographical area; taking or relinquishing responsibility; generating academic outputs or achievements; responding to expectations of others; and due to motivation, agility and hard work.

The aim of these Academic Career Conversations are to prompt your thinking about the transitions that have been helpful to you so far and to nudge you into thinking more proactively about potential transitions ahead, with the intention that this could provide insights and motivation into making a plan for your career moving forward.

Once you have engaged with these resources, you will be able to describe your career transitions to date – when you have had momentum, when you have stalled; this can then provide insights into the types of transitions you will want to proactively create or enhance going forward, and which you would like to avoid, or will need to manage and seek support. The intention is that this could provide insights and motivation into planning for your career moving forward.

Harding (2012) discovered that regardless how academics come to be in academia, or how they have arrived at this point, their career support needs were the same, particularly with respect to being able to respond to external demands, or internal motivation. For example, it is sometimes the case that a professor’s current career is well developed in terms of research, but nascent around the latest education methods and practices. Similarly, someone who has achieved teaching fellow status, may have limited experience of research. Those who joined academia straight from the doctorate may not have experience of working with industry and professional practice. Those who join from industry have well developed experience and networks, but their experience of research and learning and teaching is nascent.

Thus, some of the tools in this particular section can be a helpful conversation starter for academics at many different stages of their career journey, particularly in relation to building academic identity and academic outputs that lead to recognition.