As I progress through the Aurora programme and work with my mentor, I’m going to use this page to record career development ideas that I’ve come across. If I have tried them I’ll also link to any posts I’ve made about it so you can see what I learned in executing the ideas.
Conference Talks
This came from my Aurora mentor in our very first mentor meeting. As well as attending conferences to make contacts at other institutions and see examples of good practice and case studies, there is a career benefit to speaking at these. However as I didn’t have a topic on which I felt I could present, she suggested reverse engineering the process and using it as a career progression tool. Whilst it might take a couple of years to do, it could help with both raising your profile, and offering more
Here’s how (before having done this!) I think I would plan out the process.
- Pick a conference that is a recognised one in your field
- Look at previous conference abstracts, presentations and reviews.
- Identify qualities that make for a good presentation
- Think about what in your work might fit in the conference
- Speak to line managers/colleagues about the activity and decide on a project
- Work with the presentation in mind, rather than as afterthought
- Think about how you can document progress
- Take feedback on the situation before you begin, as well as after
- Note challenges and reflect on them
- Apply for the conference!
[Disclaimer – I haven’t actually done this one yet! Please let me know in the comments if you’ve tried this “reverse engineering” approach to speaking at a conference]
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