CAL PG Careers Conference 2021

5th Annual CAL Postgraduate Careers Conference: Life Beyond Postgraduate Study 2021

Tuesday 15 June, 2021

Online via Zoom

The CAL Postgraduate Careers Conference ‘Life Beyond Postgraduate Study’ is back for its fifth consecutive year!

Hear from a range of guest speakers and CAL postgraduate alumni about the career management skills needed to transition into sectors beyond academia, and how to think creatively about your options.

About this Event

After a humanities postgraduate degree, it can be difficult to think about career options beyond your academic subject. How can you understand your skills and strengths better, and how do these map across to jobs beyond academia? How can you actually make the transition into other sectors?

Based on feedback from last year’s conference, this year’s event will focus on these ‘big questions.’ The keynote and workshops are designed to help you understand more about your ‘best bits,’ your interests and your priorities, and how to apply these to exploring your career options more widely.

We’ll also hear from a panel of CAL postgraduate alumni on how they thought ‘outside the box’ about their career options and made the transition into a range of sectors.

n.b.: The conference focuses on career routes beyond academia. If you are interested in pursuing an academic career, we have some separate events happening the week after the conference focusing on supporting you towards applying for your first academic job.

Schedule for the event

9:45Welcome to the Conference

10:00 – 10:20 Key Note Talk : ‘Roadmap to work; unlock your talent, confirm your direction’ Dr Danielle White: independent educator with a specialism in postgraduate career transition

This keynote provides a roadmap to transition out of your postgraduate studies in Arts and Law. It will guide you through a three-part process that will enable you to explore, understand and plan for your next role. Common challenges, employer expectations and the diversity of options available will be discussed. 

10:20 – 10:40 Q&A

10:40 – 10:45Session transition break

10:45 – 12:00Alumni panel plus Q&A: Making career transitions with, after, and beyond your humanities postgraduate degree

Alumni speakers:

Atif Ali (LLM): Public Health Officer – Inequalities At Birmingham City Council; Finalist for the Greater Birmingham Chamber of Commerce ‘Future Face of Public Sector’ and Education Award (2019 & 2020)

Connie Wan (PhD Art History): Researcher, Art Historian and Senior Manager (Network Development and Researcher Engagement) at Universitas 21

Vasiliki Kaisidou (PhD Byzantine, Ottoman and Modern Greek Studies): Manager at Alma Economics

Chloe Hancox (MA Musicology): Change Manager, University of Birmingham

12:00 – 12:30Lunch break

12:30 – 13:15Workshop 1: Applying your expertise beyond academia: you DO have skills!’ – Hasan Patel, Communications Manager and former BBC Broadcast Journalist, academic media coach

13:20 – 14:05 Workshop 2: Knowing and applying your strengths – Sarah Robinson, Careers Consultant and Qualified Strengths Coach

14:05 – 14:15 Sum up and close