No Job Search Is the Same
In 2025, I found myself out of work and I was fortunate enough to receive a Professional Development Fund from the Institute of Research Software (formerly the Software Sustainability Institute) which I put towards coaching to help me through the transition of finding a new job and settling myself in once I’d found a role. This encouraged me to reflect on my previous experiences job searching so far and this blog post is a distillation of my experiences and the advice I would give myself if I were to do it all again.
This blog post is not intended to be prescriptive, i.e. “you should go through these phases and in this order otherwise you’re doing it wrong!” Everybody has different career paths. But maybe something I’ve written here resonates with you, and if it does, I hope you realise that what you’re feeling/you’ve felt in the past was normal and you’re not alone.
First Search, Worst Search
Jumping out of academia into the world of work is the most awful job search experience you can have, in my opinion. This is because it happens at a time when you have a scarcity mindset. Maybe your funding is running out, there’s like a deadline bearing down on you, the end of your degree, your PhD, or whatever it is. It is the end of this safe space. Your graduation day is approaching, and the money’s going to run out.
You are also untested outside of the academic setting. You don’t have a track record yet, so there’s a feeling of having to prove yourself. Demonstrating that you’re going to be a good fit for a role can be really difficult, because you’ve never been in that experience before. But also everybody in that position is in the same boat.
It’s about reframing all of those projects you did in academia into the “buzzwordy” business vernacular. Spinning those experiences you have into something that demonstrates skills beyond the answer to your research question, because a lot of stuff goes into answering a research question. There’s a lot of guidance out there on how to structure sentences on your CV that demonstrate what action you took and the impact it had. It’s about teasing those things out of your project and it will feel super cheesy! Phrases like “Delivering an automated data analysis pipeline that increased development velocity 50%”. In the age of automated CV scans, these kinds of phrases can help your application at least land in front of a human.
That being said, it can become really easy to get caught up in perfecting the words on your CV. Especially in the current age of AI as your ever-present pocket editor. Remember, the best CV is one that has been written and submitted; not the CV that is still sat on your computer being constantly edited.
I also didn’t really “network” or anything like that during my first application phase. We can feel pressured into thinking we need to have a shiny social media presence in order to land gigs nowadays, because that’s what these platforms prioritise showing us, but I don’t believe it is the case. Unless you are going for a communications role of course!
Second Search with Safety
Once you’re into your career transitioning between jobs can feel a lot more secure, which is where I found myself going into my second job. In this scenario, I had a job I was happy in and probably would’ve stayed there longer. But then the unicorn job came along, the job description that read like they’d had me in mind when writing it. Part of the reason your first job search feels awful is because you’re not in control of the transition, the decision of whether to move one isn’t fully in your power. But the power shifts back to you once you’re in a job.
In this scenario, you’ve just got to listen to yourself. If this second opportunity hadn’t come along, I would have likely stayed where I was and been happy. So I had to be brave enough to take the opportunity when it came knocking. But maybe if I had stayed I would have stagnated a bit, and the new opportunity kick-started a period of growth.
In this situation, there’s always the question of do you tell your line-manager when you’re looking for or have secured another job. That is a highly individualistic and personal decision to make that takes a lot of factors into account, including but not limited to your relationship with your line-manager and the culture of business more broadly. I did tell my line-manager at the point that I found the opportunity and that I was considering applying for it. I was lucky enough that in doing so, I got a great piece of advice that I still carry with me today.
You don’t actually owe your job anything.
Yes, you may enjoy it, like the people you work with, feel like you’re making some kind of impact in a way. And these are all important factors in job searching, especially in research/academia where we want to make a change. But they can also be what keeps you in a safe space. Jobs are also contractual and transactionary in their nature. You agree to provide a certain number of hours of your labour in return for a salary and probably a benefits package too. If a new opportunity comes along that excites you and feels like a good next step, then you’ve fulfilled your duty to your current role and you should feel empowered to move on from it.
You are just as responsible for making your own little world a happy one as you may be to improve our shared world.
Third Search You Didn’t See Coming
It is a volatile job market out there at time of writing with many factors, such as funding and AI technologies, disrupting hiring procedures and the kinds of roles available. Searching for a new position in this landscape unexpectedly, after lay-offs or for any other reason, can be a daunting thought. It brings back the scarcity mindset from the first section, but with one crucial difference. This time you have a track record.
First off, writing CVs is a little easier. Yes there’s still all the cringey business words you need to include, but this time you have stats and hopefully publicly available links to demonstrate your experience and competence. You have a lot more to talk about in interviews, such as experiences, achievements and projects you’ve done. Compared to your first job interview, you’ll have so much more to work with than extrapolations from theoretical academic data. Make sure to give examples: “I was in a business and this is what I did”.
Now that you have experience, other people may be observing your web presence. Make note of what prompts recruiters to reach out and the things that they highlight; these are the sexy phrases that are good to leverage elsewhere!
Finally, paradoxically, enjoy doing nothing! You are likely to have more savings now, so if you can take the time, and a little financial padding, to think about what really matters to you and your career path, any future decisions you make will be more targeted and fulfilling.
Some Tips I’ve Picked Up
Here is a list of things I’ve learned about job searching over my career.
- Keep a large CV of all your achievements and pare it down for each application, then you won’t need to write from scratch every time.
- While you’re working, keep a brag document as it will help you remember everything you’ve achieved to write that CV in the first place. It can also help you self-advocate for things like promotions and raises while you’re working, or just remind you that you have achieved something when work feels like it’s dragging on a bit. It’s a very valuable document to get in the habit of keeping.
- Get some sort of tracking system for all your applications. You need to be able to see at a glance what applications have gone in, the stage of the process it’s in, and whether you’re waiting on someone for something or someone is waiting for you. Collating details such as salary, location, flexible working policy, etc can also help you compare roles when you get to the offers stage. (Yes I said when. It will happen!) Pick whichever tool you will actually use for this: a spreadsheet, Notion, Trello boards - there’s no right answer and there’s plenty of free templates on the internet.
- Don’t search alone!
If you’ve been part of lay-offs, a good idea might be to group together with some colleagues and search together.
You can keep each other accountable, hype each other up, proof-read each other’s CVs, and mock-interview one another.
It can also help provide some structure around your search that can help you detach and take the rest you need as well without feeling guilty and without the search itself taking over everything.
- If you don’t have a group of colleagues, see if there are any job search communities in your local area or online. I joined the free tier of Tech Talk UK who have a database of templates available to structure your CV and cover letter, sending messages to hiring managers on various platforms, and even interview-style questions to prep with.
I hope you found this blog post helpful!