You can explore all of the resources we’ve created and curated to aid researcher developers to use the resources on the Prosper portal with postdocs at their own institution. The majority of these can be found in the ‘boosting the career development of postdocs with Prosper’ section.

You may be facing postdocs, PIs, other researcher developers and other teams within your organisation.

Find out if your institution has any postdoc associations society, research staff grouping, research staff forum or research staff representatives. Look for any formal annual events for postdocs, such as a research staff conference: could you speak at any of these?

Talk to some PIs/managers of researchers about your role and their role. How could you work together effectively? Can you attend any PI or MoR meetings or events to hear directly from them? Is there an induction or leadership session you could be part of to hear from them directly? Could you set up a focus group?

Find out which other institutional teams such as your careers service, careers advisors, career coaches, organisational and academic developers you overlap with or may have common interests. Typically, this may be around skills development such as leadership. Consider organising meetings to facilitate your working together, rather than in silos.

Other colleagues which may also be worth considering connecting with at your institution are those working in human resources, research partnerships and innovation, research commercialisation and alumni relations.

In your role you may need to speak to a number of different audiences: your senior leadership team to get approval or funding; academic heads of department or managers of researchers to get buy-in or aid their own career development; and the postdoc (or other researcher) audience to deliver career development.

You may want to inform the sector/your peers about what you’ve been doing, or an innovative way you’ve approached career development. You may wish to do this through a conference talk, blog or thought piece.

The type of session or level of interaction is likely to vary, sometimes you’ll be delivering in a lecture format, other times more interactive workshop-style. Effective presentation skills are useful, seek out development opportunities to improve your practice and get feedback. Also see the Prosper resources on communication in explore and learning and development.

You may be writing staff news articles, monthly staff newsletters or social media posts. Explore what guidance and training you can access to enhance your communication skills and tailor your style for each medium and audience. This type of training is maybe offered within your institution, alternatively check LinkedIn Learning.

Many sessions require facilitation rather than presentation, bringing together speakers and interacting with audience. Consider attending a course on effective facilitation for in-person, online and hybrid session types.

Stakeholder engagement is key to your role. Becoming comfortable with networking (see the Prosper resources https://prosper.liverpool.ac.uk/learning-development-clusters/networking/ and https://prosper.liverpool.ac.uk/postdoc-resources/explore/the-power-of-networking/) will help you to form alliances and publicise what you do. It may also lead to new opportunities in your own career.

It’s also beneficial to network with your peers at other institutions. Consider attending conferences in order to meet others in similar roles. Some examples include Vitae’s annual ‘Connections: Getting to Grips’ event, Vitae’s International Researcher Development Conference and the Mentoring for Researcher Developers (M4RD) scheme (search LinkedIn for details).

It’s likely many of your sessions and workshops will be delivered online. Familiarise yourself with online meeting platforms such as Zoom and Teams (your institution may have a preference for which one you use). Make sure you and your version of the software are up to date in advance of any session.

Understand the settings (how to mute people, set up waiting rooms, how to record, how to ask questions in the chat, how to post a notice, change or obscure your background, computer audio settings and playing videos, launching in-built polls, recording attendance, organise breakout or discussion rooms).

Familiarise yourself with other digital tools including virtual whiteboards (such as Mural or Jamboard), virtual pin-boards/content organising space (such as Wakelet, Trello or Padlet), online networking spaces (such as Kumospace or Gather) and polling platforms (such as Slido, Mentimeter or PollEverywhere).

You may wish to enhance your e-learning or instructional design skills if you create your own e-learning career development modules. See if your institution offers any specific training or check out LinkedIn Learning for suitable modules.

Plan sessions and follow progress using tools such as an excel spreadsheet or Microsoft planner. If you want (and have access or resources to access) you could use dedicated project or task management software such as Smartsheet. Send out surveys/evaluation/feedback using tools such as Jisc online surveys. Manage events using tools such as Eventbrite.

See our pages on evaluation and how to run a focus group for more details.

Depending on the complexity and scope of your career development offering you may wish to gain some project management skills. See if your institution offers any suitable courses. You may lead or manage others, so you may wish to access any leadership or management course offered at your institution. For women Advance HE’s Aurora programme may be of interest. Even if you manage no other staff you might wish to explore developing your self-management or self-leadership.

Find out how to book rooms, any audio-visual equipment and refreshments at your institution. Hybrid sessions are also common these days. Find out how to run a hybrid session and which locations in your institution has the capability/technology to do this.

Make sure when you’re booking rooms (especially if they are external to your institution) that they are accessible to all. Ensure you ask attendees at registration if they’ve any special requirements and how (or who) you can talk to at your institution to accommodate reasonable adjustment requests.

Consider career coaching and incorporating a coaching approach when speaking with postdocs. Your institution may offer coaching accreditation (such as an ILM coaching level 5 or 7 qualification). Find out and apply if it’s something you’re interested in.

Use frameworks such as Vitae’s researcher development framework. Use self-assessment tools (see Prosper resources) including paid for ones (such as StrengthsProfile, Skillscan, Spotlight profile, Belbin team roles and so on) to help you identify your strengths and areas in which you may wish to grow.

Find a researcher developer mentor. Keep up to date with current news and best practice within the sector (For example, Bromley, T. and Warnock L, (2021). The practice of the development of researchers: the “state-of-the-art”. Studies in Graduate and Postdoctoral Education, 12, 283-299). Don’t forget to use your institution’s library to find relevant papers, books and literature on researcher development.

If your institution is part of a wider group of universities, can you link up with researcher developer colleagues within your group? Is your institution part of Researchers 14? Have you joined RD&tea (search LinkedIn for Dr Sophie Morris RD&Tea)?

Check out and share best practice. Practice is shared on blogs, LinkedIn, on Vitae’s concordat platform of practice and here on Prosper’s site.

Join a sector wide network such as the Research Culture Enablers Network and/or The Staff Development Forum .