If you were advising someone who was coming towards the end of their PhD and who wanted to apply for a postdoc, what kind of advice would you give them? What kind of things do you think they should think about or take into account? What should they make sure that they do?

I think they should try and do things like – if you can get something published even if it is just, I mean an article in a journal is ideal, but it can also be things like a book review. A lot of journals you can contact or they will advertise books that they want people to review, and you can volunteer to do that. I mean, that is just a way of – I suppose – showing that you are doing things other than your PhD. Or you might know somebody in your department who is putting together an edited book or something like that that is another opportunity that is sometimes less rigorous and less admin heavy than getting a journal article published. Do presentations at conferences and seminars, that is sort of thing you can do – without really doing much extra work you can just give a presentation on the work that you are doing for your PhD and all it takes is maybe a day of putting what you already know into a presentation format. And so you can do these things without an awful lot of extra work. I mean they can sort of work in tandem with your PhD. You know, any publication that you make you can sort of do that on something it can be part of your thesis. And so those sorts of things are really useful.

I guess one useful thing to do might be to look up web pages of people who have already got a research fellowship and look at what their CVs are like and that is the CV of a successful applicant and so, you know, look at what sort of things that they are doing. Just sort of shows that you are a well-rounded academic.

Oh, one thing that might be less obvious – academic departments although they are quite keen for their staff to do boring admin, and that is things like marking, you probably don't get the opportunity to do that as a graduate. But also things like being on committees and so on, it just sort of shows a commitment to the life of the department in general. This is actually something I was told the other week by somebody on the panel of a job that I wasn't successful in applying for here and so that is something worth bearing in mind. I would never have thought of that sort of thing being useful; I would have thought that maybe it is a waste of time but apparently it's not. 

And if you were advising somebody who had finished their PhD and gone into a non-academic profession and then had a change of heart and really wanted to get back into academia what would you say to them?

Oh well I guess there is a temptation when you are away from academia to think that you completely missed the boat. I mean I certainly did. But that is not the case. Keep in touch with people you knew while you were at university, especially academics. I mean academics are quite pleased to keep in touch with their students and hear how they are doing. Keep in touch with anyone that you want to write you a reference. But you know, even in a sort of less Machiavellian sense, it is just quite nice to be in touch with those sorts of people and you know to have them tell you that it is still worth hanging on. That sort of thing really does make a difference. If there is a university near where you are, go along to any philosophy seminars that they have, maybe give a paper. But even if you just go along just to sort of keep abreast of what's being discussed it is worthwhile.