On January 25, we gathered to learn more about portfolio careers in STEMM with Dr Emma Williams. This friendly workshop started with a bunch of brightly coloured threads for each of us to plait, knot or tease out as we wished. Emma outlined her interesting and varied career while we did so and then we had a quick round of introductions from everyone and a look at their thread designs…
Emma studied in the Cavendish Lab at Cambridge University and did a very practical and interdisciplinary PhD and some post-doc years carrying out a wide range of extra activities such as teaching. She described ‘missing the possible exits’ that might have led to other types of careers at this point. Then she had a break for children and in 2009 decided to look for a job in the Cambridge Evening News. She looked at all the options and decided she needed to be her own boss. She has set up two stream of activities: EJW Solutions providing professional development mainly for university researchers and The Nerd Coach, working with postdocs to help them take their next career step. Emma emphasised the need to be opportunistic! Her varied work currently includes training, events, women-centred events; enterprise related workshops; writing both a book and for The Times Higher; speaking; and generally curating her portfolio of activities.
Her definition of a portfolio career is: a flexible and autonomous working style whereby an individual has several/multiple steams of income, often created with a mix of employment, freelancing, interim or consultancy work and volunteering/unpaid work. No need to wait until you retire to have a portfolio career she says!
The different strands of your career should make you happy – good to look at the careers of other people with many strands to give you ideas, not all strands need to be STEMM. Portfolio careers allow you to edge into new areas and try them out while keeping a stable base, stitching together a series of things that balance with who you are.
Some key questions to ask ourselves when considering a portfolio career:
Don’t be shy to ask people – HOW do you manage your portfolio career? Different days, chunks of time, the mechanics of it, while looking for opportunities to develop/pivot to new things?
As a challenge, ask yourself: In 10 years time what will your career look like?
I wonder if… (be open to what surprising things you think of, given some time)
Emma also suggested checking out The Squiggly Career by Helen Tupper & Sarah Ellis, and The Genius Zone by Gay Hendricks to learn more and gather inspiration about portfolio careers.
We then split into four groups and considered all possible roles that fall under STEMM Education, STEMM Business, STEMM Policy Influence, and Not directly STEMM area. There are many!!
Tips on how to make it all happen and how to manage a portfolio career are:
Have realistic expectations: it takes time, be resourceful, be proactive, research your target market, need a financial safety net while getting set up.
Utilise your contacts and network: build relationships and spread the word about your offering, which can both lead to important contacts and work opportunities.
Be organised: balancing multiple roles needs strong time management and organization skills, so allocate specific amounts of time for each strand and schedule your time and activities to ensure you are productive. Favour important over urgent! Have themes such as a ‘Thinking Day’.
Finally, after sharing some of our own experiences, we agreed that Cambridge is a very connected place, so we should make the most of it, dust off our LinkedIn profiles and make connections!
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