I was asked to give a workshop on how to put yourself in the market after your PhD. Enjoy!

1. WORKSHOP: BEYOND YOUR PHD, HOW TO PLACE
YOURSELF IN THE MARKET.
Dr. Amber Walraven
PhD day Graduate School Open University
June 16, 2012

2. ABOUT ME!
 Dr. Amber Walraven
 Got the title in December, 2008
 Dissertation: Becoming a critical websearcher: Effects of instruction to
foster transfer
 Open University: CELSTEC
 Currently assistant professor at University of Twente
 Blog: amberwalraven.edublogs.org
 Twitter: @amberwalraven
 Linkedin:http://nl.linkedin.com/in/amberwalraven
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3. Beyond your PhD., how to place yourself in the market 16-6-2012 3

4. ABOUT ME!
 When my defense was coming up:
 Nu.nl
 Radioshows
 RTL 4 News
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5. ABOUT YOU!
 Please introduce yourself:
 Name
 Date of defense (or probable date of defense)
 Subject of thesis in 1 word!
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6. CENTRAL IN THIS WORKSHOP:
 How will your last PhD. months go?
 How can you make your work insightful and visible for society?
 How can you optimally place yourself in the market?
 What do you want to do with your PhD-degree? How can you use
your degree?
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7. YOU WILL BE GOING HOME WITH:
 A list of people/ organizations to send your thesis
 A press release for your thesis (or a press release that you want to
avoid at all costs…..)
 An idea of what or what not to say to journalists
 A social media summary of your thesis
 An idea of what you want to do after your PhD.
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8. HOW WILL YOUR LAST PHD MONTHS GO?:
 Writing writing writing
 Sending out the manuscript to the reading committee
 Thinking of statements
 Working on the ‘I could not have done this without these people’ part
of the thesis (the only part everyone reads!!)
 Hint: use groups, and mention the ones that were really special personally
 Lay out
 Who will publish your thesis? Glue or stitch binding? Preprints!
 Thesis cover: who will design it and are there any uni-specific
rules?
 Paperwork!!!
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9. HOW WILL YOUR LAST PHD MONTHS GO?
 Who are you going to send
your thesis?
 Think about organizations
that might be interested in
your work
 They will probably not read
it, but need to know it exists.
 In my case, this led to a
guest blog on a popular
website.
 Announcements of thesis on
LinkedIn groups, so people
can sign up for a hard-copy
or the PDF.
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10. HOW WILL YOUR LAST PHD MONTHS GO?
 Exercise
 Write down some of these organizations and why they should receive a copy
and what you want them to do with it. This should be in the accompanying
letter.
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11. PRESS RELEASE
 The university will send out a press release, but you need to control the
content!
 Exercise:
 First: everyone writes down questions.
 Own perspective: what do you like talking about the most? And: which question do I not
want people to ask!
 Interview round 1 in pairs, A = journalist, B = PhD. Candidate (we will
switch roles) (only 5 min!)
 Interviewer writes (very) short press release, interviewee writes down
best en worst question and why he/she chose these questions. (about 10
min) KEEP THE PRESS RELEASE TO YOURSELF, DON’T SHOW IT
TO THE INTERVIEWEE!
 After that: switch roles!
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12. PRESS RELEASE: RESULTS
 We have 8 press releases and 8 lists of interesting and annoying
questions
 Who want to share questions?
 The press release…
 Without reading it, think about the title you would want to put above the
press release about your own dissertation.
 You only have 1 minute!
 Give the press release you wrote, to someone else (not the interviewee!)
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13. PRESS RELEASE: RESULTS
 Come up with a title for a press release you were given just now.
 Give the title and the press release to the person’s who research was in
topic of the press release 
 You will now receive the press release about your own research + the title
a peer gave it.
 Volunteers to read their preferred title and the title that was given to the
press release by a peer.
 What do you think about the press release on your research?
 How do the titles differ, and why?
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14. WHAT TO DO WITH THIS EXERCISE?
 Use it when you go home to think about what happened.
 Are you satisfied with your answers to the questions?
 Were you forced to discuss points you would rather avoid?
 How can you improve the story you tell about your thesis?
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15.  You can control the content of a press release…..
 You can’t control the media….
 Or can you?
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16. HOW YOU PUT YOURSELF IN THE MARKET…
 How to make the things you want people to know insightful and
visible….
Social media!
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17. SOCIAL MEDIA
 Sociale mediasites/ platforms
 Hyves, Twitter, YouTube, Wikipedia, Facebook, blogs
 User generated content
 Interactive
 Sharing
 Up to date
 Objective?
 Wisdom of the crowd or foolishness of the group?
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18. SOCIAL MEDIA EXAMPLES
 Marketing: KLM
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19. SOCIAL MEDIA EXAMPLES
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20. SOCIAL MEDIA: THE CASE OF TWITTER
 Only 140 characters per tweet
 What can you do with it?
 Summarize your work in 5-7 tweets
 Use the right #
 Have a clear Twitterbio…
 that describes who you are, what you do, what interests you
 Follow the right persons and interact!
 Check if researchers in your field are active on Twitter!
 Tweets to send:
 only positive tweets (doesn’t mean you can’t be critical!), regular updates, share links
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21. SOCIAL MEDIA: LET’S TRY IT!
 Choose something to do now:
 Write 2 Twitter bio’s
 current
 placing you in the job you see yourself in after your promotion. (To check for nr. Of
characters: count, or actually type it on Twitter (if you don’t want to make an account just
yet, use the laptop…)
 Summarize your thesis in 5-7 tweets
 (To check for nr. Of characters: count, or actually type it on Twitter (if you don’t want to
make an account just yet, use the laptop…)
 Which # would interest you the most? Think about them, and check if
they exists and are active.
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22. SUMMARY
 How will your last PhD. months go?
 Coverd that! Check with the university for the rules and regulations!
 How can you make your work insightful and visible for society?
 Coverd that! Content of press release and social media presence
 How can you optimally place yourself in the market?
 Covered that! Be aware of the story you want to tell, and the online image you want
to have! Let people know about your thesis!
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23. SUMMARY
 What do you want to do with your PhD-degree? How can you use
your degree?
 Homework!
 Read the press release
 Read the questions you came up with yourself (they tell you what you
like to talk about!)
 Take a look at your Twitterbio’s
 Ask yourself: is this the topic I want to continue working on?
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24. AND IF YOU GO TOTALLY BLANK….
 Don’t worry! There is something you can ALWAYS do with your
degree…….
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25.  Use the title to impress companies when writing a letter of complaint!
 (It got me a huge discount on a house!)
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26. THANKS!
 Dr. Amber Walraven
 Mail: a.walraven@utwente.nl
 Blog: amberwalraven.edublogs.org
 Twitter: @amberwalraven
 Linkedin: http://nl.linkedin.com/in/amberwalraven
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