Welcome to the Beyond Your Research Degree podcast from the University of Exeter Doctoral College! The podcast about non-academic careers and all the opportunities available to you... beyond your research degree!  In this episode Kelly Preece, Researcher Development Manager talks to Timur Jack-Kadıoğlu, who secured a job as Technical Officer - Conservation, Livelihoods & Governance at Fauna & Flora International during COVID-19. Timur had started his role at Fauna & Flora International whilst finishing writing up his PhD.

Music from https://filmmusic.io ’Cheery Monday’ by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.com) License: CC BY (https://creativecommons.org/licenses

Podcast transcript

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Hello and welcome to the Beyond Your Research Degree podcast by the University of Exeter, Doctoral College

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Hello and welcome to the latest episode of the Beyond Your Research Degree podcast.

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Now, we know that there's a lot of anxiety at the moment about what it means to secure

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a job and specifically a non-academic job during the COVID 19 pandemic.

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Everything has been turned upside down. The experiences we get, how we do our research and how we apply for jobs.

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So to answer that, we are talking to some of our researchers who have got new jobs during the

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COVID 19 pandemic and talk to them about how they found those roles.

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The process of applying and in some cases, what it's like to start a new job during a global pandemic.

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So without further ado, here's the first in our series of podcasts on Moving Beyond Your Research Degree and a global pandemic.

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Timur are you happy to introduce yourself? I sure am.

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My name's Timur Jack-Kadioglu I started my PhD with University of Exeter would have been February 2018

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I'm based with the European Centre for Environment and Human Health.

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Down in Cornwall.

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My PhD is working on a project called Blue Communities and it's a interdisciplinary programme that involves various departments.

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at Exeter While also working with other academic institutions in the UK,

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some NGOs and also academic partners in Southeast Asia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines and Vietnam.

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I guess so I would identify as a Marine. Social scientists.

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My work is about the marine environment. But focussing on the social science aspects.

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And for my PhD. I spent time in the Philippines on the island of Palawan.

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My research was kind of looking at the relationships between livelihoods and governance.

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And especially looking at power relations and power dynamics and looking at trade offs and equity.

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Who the winners and losers are, so to speak, in terms of coastal development and conservation processes.

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Wow. Yeah. So what we're going to talk about today is actually securing a non-academic job,

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but particularly securing a non-academic job during the time of COVID 19.

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And the additional challenges that bring say. Could you tell us a little bit about the job you're going on to?

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Sure. So I started a job in November of twenty twenty.

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So I originally I still have have time in my PhD and I'm still writing up my PhD,

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but my new employer's allowed me to originally start part time for November and December.

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So I still had two days a week working on the PhD

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And I joined the Conservation, Livelihood's and Governance team of the UK based NGO, Fauna and Flora International.

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So they work with they have various regional teams in around the world.

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But their main model is working with small local partner organisations.

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And yeah,

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my my role with them is providing technical inputs on livelihoods and governance related aspects of conservation and natural resource management.

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And as I said, my my PhD is very much on that on that topic.

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And I happen to see the job ad posted on LinkedIn.

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I think it was in September. Yes.

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September time. And it is one of those things where ideally, if this job came up six months later, that would have been perfect.

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But it was almost it was too good an opportunity to miss, given the relevance to the relevance to what I did in my PhD

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So actually, the application process is quite I got invited to an interview when I was on the way up to Scotland for a camping trip.

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And they offered the interview on a day when I was supposed to be in the back end of nowhere.

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So there was some last minute rearranging of plans to be able to accommodate it.

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But, yeah, I'm really glad I did end up doing that because I ended up getting the job.

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I think I was interested to hear you say that you found the job on linked in.

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So was it an advert that the company had posted.

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Were you following the company because you were interested in? Like, how. How did you get to see it?

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Basically, yes. As I said, it's an organisation I've really quite admired for it for a while.

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So I was following them on LinkedIn. And I saw that the job, that they posted the job on there and.

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It. Yeah, it was kind of advertised. I mean, I almost scrolled right past it.

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I mean, it just it's kind of just it was the livelihood's in governance,

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but it kind of caught my eyes when I looked at it and I kind of ummed and ahhed about whether or not to apply for it.

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And like I said, the timing could have been a bit better as I'm still in I am still in the process of writing up my PhD

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But I think what really. Yeah.

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I think that what really went through my mind was needing to be just needing to be pragmatic with the difficult times that we're in.

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And especially on the I was coming towards the end of my PhD,

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this was starting to get a little bit concerned about the economic fallout of of the of the pandemic.

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And this this is a permanent contract. So.

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Well, I would probably let's be honest, I probably would have applied for anyway if it if it wasn't for the pandemic.

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But that just really. Yeah.

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It just really gave that that just happened, realising that I really needed to be pragmatic and make the most of what opportunities are available.

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Yeah. And I think that, you know, there's simple things of actually following organisations that you admire and that you have connections to.

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And it's a really simple thing that can actually kind of bring those opportunities into your awareness when,

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like you say, you might not be thinking about it. Timing wise, but actually the the role and the organisation is it's just the right fit.

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Did you have any conversation with them in advance of applying for the role?

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About the fact that you were still finishing up the PhD

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Yes. So we spoke a little bit about it in the interview, and then afterwards,

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basically I went when they identified