The knowledge and skills you acquire from your studies, lab and work experience placements open the door to a huge range of jobs and training opportunities.
The hard bit is narrowing down the options in order to single out the perfect career that’s right for you. A good start is to use computer programmes and websites, such as careerpath.com ‘s career tests and Prospects Planner, which are specifically designed for this task. Further links to advice on choosing a career can be found on our job seeker's Links and further information page.
In addition, in order to get a bit of a feel for the jobs around, you could:
Go to a job fair.
If you have no idea of which direction you would like to take with your degree, employment fairs can be used to get a feel for all the different opportunities that are out there. Often held in university career centres, particularly in the Autumn period known as “the Milk Round”, job fairs allow you to speak directly with representatives of many job sectors, helping you narrow down what sort of job is right for you. Remember, a job fair will not show you everything that’s available, but are a good way to narrow down your choices to a particular sector or area of employment. Some job fairs are very general, whilst others may be tailored to just the sciences or the biosciences. Check our Events pages for more information.
Research the sector.
Put a bit of time into looking at the background literature describing the job sector you might be interested in from careers websites and your university careers office. Relevant publications will be filled with detailed job ads showing just what you can expect from a career in the sector. Speaking to a careers advisor is a great way to get information on the job sector as a whole, and to find out whether a career in that sort of work is truly right for you. Our career profiles give a great idea of what sort of jobs are available with a molecular biosciences degree.
Get some work experience.
Whether you’ve firmly decided on your career path, or simply want to test the water before committing, work experience is incredibly useful when deciding and applying for a job. It gives you hands-on experience in the role that you’re interested in, and allows you to talk to those already working in the field first-hand. When applying for a job, prior relevant work experience is a massive bonus on your CV, and places you head and shoulders above other applicants if you do apply for a job related to the field. If you're looking for work experience, visit our Work experience and Internships pages for more information.
Remember, as a biosciences graduate, you don’t need to leave study at all. Postgraduate courses allow you to specialise further into a field that you enjoy, and many highly specialised, technical jobs require these postgraduate qualifications as a prerequisite to even apply for the job. Find out more about postgraduate study options on our Postgraduate studies page.