Question: what was it like finding a job once outside of uni?

I found it difficult to start with. Took me about 9 months, but I was using the time to write my thesis, so didn’t notice too much. I ended up having 14 interviews and assessment centres around the country before I received an offer. The support offered from the University Careers Service was excellent – CV writing, mock interviews and assessment tests, access to job sites. I suspect part of the delay was a lack of focus to my search, I had a scattergun approach. If I’d known what I wanted to do I could have researched better, learnt more about the companies and activities in the space and been better prepared for the interviews. There’s far more information available now and sites like LinkedIn allow you to research jobs much more effectively. In my own profession, the RSC also offers a lot of help and support in job hunting, so there are a lot more tools available than there were when I left Uni.

And one lesson learnt – when asked an ambiguous question, next time I know to stop and ask for clarity before I guess which of several meanings the interviewer might have in mind. When I got the feed back from the company that one slip had cost me the job.