Employer Insight session: Environment Agency 

PR: Hi, uh, my name’s Pam Reynolds. I, um, I’m the water specific area of the wa of the Environment Agency Training Skills senior, um, advisor. And, um, I was just gonna say that within those the next 40 minutes, we’re gonna kind of myself and my colleague Emily, that I’ll pass over because it’s about her really. Uh, we’re gonna kind of cover three kind of areas, sort of managing the transition from academia to industry, uh, skills developed in research, supporting your role at the Environment Agency, and the practicalities of a career in the environment agency as well. So we’ll try and get through those, so see how the conversation goes, see where we get up to. Um, yeah. And then we’ll open it up to questions. So I will now hand over to Emily to introduce yourself.

EF: Perfect. Can you hear me okay? So coming? Yes. Brilliant. Um, yeah. Hi. Hi, everyone. Um, my name’s Emily Fallon. Um, so yeah, I, um, I, I work in the Environment Agency. Um, I guess there’s a bit of information about the EA we’ll refer to it as, because we, we have an acronym, um, in the, in the agency. Um, we’re a Kango, um, so I guess we’re kind of an arms length body, um, funded party by government, but not run by government. Um, so we’re the environmental regulator, so we’re responsible for flood management, waste management, regulating land and water pollution, um, and looking at conservation as well.

So, um, myself, um, uh, I sit in a, i I sit in a national water resource modelling team in the Environment Agency. Um, and so what, what that means is that I lead on and deliver work for a national project, um, which most, most people won’t know here, but it’s, it’s called the National Framework for Water Resources. And essentially what that does is assess our nation’s water needs in the future. Um, in reality, what that means is that I, I work and run lots of different consultancy projects. I, and we also develop and run, um, national water resource models in-house. Um, and those models provide a lot of data and evidence that underpin the project and, um, provide information for, for government and policy. Um, so what we’re essentially trying to do is quantitatively assess, um, our nation’s water needs in the future. So, um, what’s that deficit gonna look like in the s? Um, spoiler alert, there will be a deficit in the s. Um, uh, and yeah, and I guess how we start to address that, um, as, as a regulator, um, and working with water companies, how we face that in the future.

Um, so I guess to do my role, I, I lead a very small team of, of one, so myself and another water resources modeler. Um, and in reality, I guess my role in the EA involves a lot of technical leading of, of work. So outlining kind of high-level objectives of, of modelling, figuring out how to develop models or add new functionality and how, how we use our models to answer particular questions that government are interested in deciding what scenarios and things to run, kind of working out best approaches to solving kind of tech, tech technical problems. Working with experts to bring in the latest data evidence. Um, and we also provide a lot of expertise to other partners, um, and, and, um, people like the, the financial regulators, so, um, secretary of State, et cetera. Um, and in, in reality, a lot of, a lot of what I do is also project planning, managing resources, time, and I also line manage as well, um, I should say.

So I moved into the EA about five years ago now. My first week, I always remember it because my first week was, um, the first week of covid lockdown, so it was a little bit traumatizing. Um, but I’ve actually had four different roles in the ea um, in, in the five years that I’ve, I’ve been here all kind of related to water and water resources. Um, so, and I’ve moved up a couple of, I guess, grades or levels in, in that time. Um, yeah.

PR: Thank you. Well, you’ve been busy. Um, can you tell us about, um, your previous academic career and maybe what inspired you to transition from academia into your current role or the environment agency?

EF: Yeah, I can, yeah. So my, my previous academic, so I, I actually did a, i in geology at the University of Bristol. Um, and I, and that included a year abroad at the University of of Oregon. So, um, a lot of, a lot of rocks. Um, and I, my master’s project was actually looking, it was kind of more geochemistry and experimental petrology, so essentially making little volcanoes at high in high pressure, high temperature experiments. Um, and then my PhD, I moved on to a PhD straight after that. Again, linked looking at, um, geochemistry based, um, but looking at sea floor volcanoes, so sea floor, massive sulphides, um, so that are produced by underwater volcanoes and more focused on mining, so the economic viability, um, of mining sea floor deposits, and then the environmental impact of, of mining that as well. Um, so that was about three and a half, say three and a half, more like four years, to be honest.

Um, and then moved into, and I had a, first, I had a year postdoc, so I had a knowledge transfer postdoc, which is basically bringing a lot of my environmental impact of mining knowledge into German government for a year. So I worked in Germany for a year, and then after that I had, um, three years of a NERC, um, fellowship. Uh, but I actually only did two years of a bit, but that postdoc was a bit of a shift back to what my PhD, um, ma my master’s was on. So I was looking more at volcanoes and experimental lab work, essentially with some modelling of geochemistry.

But as I say, I left after the two years of the, the three year, um, funding. And you’re gonna ask, yeah, I think you asked me what, why the transition. Mm-hmm. Um, so yeah, so I think, oh, it’s a, it’s a loaded question. Um, why did I leave? Um, I think, I mean, I, I think it’s quite clear from a lot of my background, um, even my, from my PhD, I’ve always enjoyed application of research into real world problems. So I think a lot of people accumulate that academia can feel a bit abstract at times and a little bit niche. Um, and with only a few other few, a few other people, kind of like your little, couple of research teams around the world that really understand what you do. And I think as a result, it can sometimes feel a bit lonely if, if I’m honest, or I, I found it a little bit lonely.

And I think, honestly, after my first postdoc and going into the NERC postdoc, I was just really quite burnt out and feeling pretty low. I’m just gonna be honest. I think I’d lost a bit of love for it. Um, and I think I was kind of craving a bit more stability. So one of the downsides of academia, and you’re lucky if you don’t have this impacting you, but there’s kind of the endless short-term contracts of academia, the constant churning out of work, um, and moving around, but to different universities didn’t really appeal to me personally.

Um, and I think, if I’m honest, I always felt a bit like an imposter in academia. I think it’s quite natural in research you feel like an imposter ’cause you’re kind of in unknown territory where you’re the only one of a handful of people who really know what you’re doing. But it’s could be quite exhausting for honest, if I was honest. Um, I felt like I had to constantly work to keep up. Um, so I didn’t have the best work life balance, I would say I envy people who can get that balance. Um, so yeah, it’s a little bit of a lot of those compounding factors. Um, I think I was craving working as, as in a team, um, and having a bit more of an impact in, in my work. So, which is ultimately why, why I came into the EA it was the hardest decision I ever had to make. I think leaving academia, um, especially, I was very lucky though that I had, um, to get that three year NERC postdoc after, um, straight away because I actually, I, it was completely, completely my choice to leave, which I think is quite rare. Um, so often the funding kind of runs out.

Um, but yeah, there’s many, there was many pros and cons lists about leaving or staying. Um, but I, yeah, I think I’m, I’m very happy with it, the decision i, decision I made to, to leave. Um, but yeah, I was kind of worried that I’d spent a lot of years dedicated to this field, and I would, it was like, I was like throwing away a lot of that or feeling like I was gonna lose some freedom or flexibility or, um, and a lot of those things didn’t actually come in, come into fruition. I think a lot of the things I was worried about, um, yeah. And yeah, ended up applying for a job in the EA and as I say, I’ve worked up, I’ve moved up into different roles. But yeah, I love it and I, I don’t re I don’t regret it at all moving into the EA.

PR: Appreciate Your honesty there though, with, with everything. Do, did you need to upskill then or retrain for the, a role in the, in the environment agency?

EF: I, I did, yes. And I think realist probably more so than other, you, if you can get a role in your field going into industry, that’s probably easier to do. I mean, it was kind of semi-related. Obviously I’ve worked kind of in the world of environment and mapping and geology, which kind of translates to an extent, but yes, I did. Um, yeah, and I think it realistically, most people would need to, even, even if not a full retrain, there’ll be something that you need to learn or upskill in.

And when you’re moving into a role in industry, whether that be a particular sort of process or piece of software jargon, for example. Um, but yeah, I had to, I had to learn, and I’m still learning entirely new field, so I’m kind of learning water now. I often joke that it’s because I used to do a lot of vol, um, lava, volcano modelling. It’s like, oh, oh, now I’m, I’m modelling just a different fluid. I’m, I’m modelling water instead of, um, instead of lava. Um, but, uh, yeah, my, my background is obviously in geochemistry and bulk volcanology, so quite a shift.

Um, but I had a lot of the, the underlying skills already, so I could program, I was, I could, um, a lot of the stats, big data analysis, figure making, mapping, report writing, publication writing, communicating, pre presenting, like I had a lot of the skill sets, the underlying skillset to get into water and learn the field. And actually a lot of the people in our, um, in our water resources modelling team, not all of them have a water background. We, we often argue that it’s actually, in some ways, it’s sometimes easier to, to learn the water knowledge as, and if you have that already underlying skill set of, um, yeah, as I say, stats, programming, et cetera, those, those skills are actually harder to find in the industry, I would say. Um, Yeah. Yeah.

PR: Well linking with that then, so have your analytical and problem solving skills developed during that you developed during your research translated into your day-to-day role?

EF: Oh, yeah, definitely. I mean, yeah, so obviously, so in my current role, um, we run a range of different models, um, water resource models, um, similar kind of a series of models upon models with, and we have a huge range of data sets coming from a variety of different sources. Um, and this is all quite similar to, to related, relatable to the work I was doing in academia. I mean, I was working with huge geochemical databases or, um, big data sets that I was analysing. So it’s kind of similar in that, in that way. Um, and yeah, so I guess, uh, yeah, we’re a, a lot, a lot of the, a lot of the problems that I faced in my academic career were quite similar to the ones I face in my day-to-day role, just kind of in a different field or subject matter. Um, and they, yeah, they’ve, they’ve developed in a lot of other ways in that I now, I now work as part of a, a team, I guess. So it’s, it’s actually, um, more solving problems, not just solely on your own. It’s actually a kind of a difficult, different, a different skill to solving a problem, kind of as, as a team, I would say.

PR: And do they have similar backgrounds in your team?

EF: Um, a range. Yeah. So I think I’d say over, over half have a PhD or have had postdoc experience. Um, but we also have, um, a couple who, who don’t come, um, from consultancy. So they kind of, they, they did like an environmental degree and they went into consultancy. So there’s, there’s a, there’s a big range and which actually is, I personally find brilliant to work with different people who all have a different kind of perspective. ’cause you actually, you, the end results, you are generally far superior to what you would’ve achieved on your own. Um, Yeah.

PR: So do you, do you think, have you noticed a particular mindset or approach amongst the researchers or the people with the PhDs and the postdocs that gives them an edge maybe against the non-academic make people?

EF: Yeah. Yeah. Definitely. I mean, it’s, I guess that’s, you can kind of see that in our team that we, um, majority, most majority do have a PhD, um, or a master’s. Um, and I think it comes on, it boils down to a lot of different factors. I mean, one of them is being most PhD students with postdoctoral students, they’re generally self-starters. So they, they’re able to find a problem, solves have confidence to solve that problem independently. They don’t necessarily need their hand being held, which is really a really rare skill.

Um, but it’s not just that, it’s also still having the wherewithal and con confidence to kind of touch base with like a supervisor when they get stuck. So that, that kind of process, i i, that kinda skill set and that process is a mindset, um, I guess of the perseverance and thinking for yourself, that’s quite like, difficult to find and it’s quite hard to teach. So I that I think it’s like a gem of a skillset that, that we love in our, in our team. I guess there’s a few of the things, I guess communication skills, um, are quite, being able to, which isn’t, it is not as common, I guess, in academia. But I guess the ability, if you’re able to communicate to anyone from all walks of life, not just technical people, that’s gonna give you a huge edge against, um, a lot, a lot of other people.

Um, time management, which is quite co quite common with obviously for PhDs and postdocs, because you often have only a short-term short term funding, trying to get a bit of work done, trying to get it published, ready for the next, trying to find the next funding. Um, so that, that time management skill is crucial. Um, uh, in, in, we, we, we kind of love that, that skill set in, in the EA because it’s, it’s actually quite, it’s, it’s fairly similar, I guess, in, in government in that we quite often have short term funding projects. You might have a permanent role in government, but we’re, we’re often working on different projects. Um, so it’s kind of that similar, um, Yeah, that kind of similar skillset. Um, yeah, I think About project management.

PR: Is that a big one?

EF: Yeah, definitely. Um, yeah, the people who, those, those who those who succeed in industry are generally have, have to very, very organized with their time. So are able to calendar, block, hit internal and external deadlines and struggle, multiple expectations that are on them. So constantly reprioritizing deprioritizing work project, yeah. Project management, budget management is, is, yeah, really important skill set, especially depending on what grade you come in, in, out of the aea. Um, that would be, um, yeah, very, very valuable. Yeah.

And I guess it, working on projects, um, multi-stakeholder projects are we, um, always very interested in people who, who have that, um, have had that experience in that. So, um, yeah, and kind of working with others to deliver something. Um, and again, it’s that juggling of priorities, managing different workloads, different priorities, and different needs from different partners. Um, so that kind of situation is very directly applicable to, to industry and towards the EA specifically. Um, so we really recognize that as a, as a really important skill set. Um, yeah. Yeah.

Having that self-starter kind of take the initiative, get things done. Exactly. ’cause there is a lot of that in, in the EA especially if you’re working in a kinda national team from home. Mm-hmm. You’ve got to, it really, really gives you the edge when you’re coming in and working, doesn’t it?

Yeah. It’s just not having the fear, basically. Yeah, no, You can do this. You’ve done it for, yeah. You’ve already been doing it.

PR: I just wonder if there’s any like, misconceptions, if you notice any misconceptions about working for the EA when you’ve come from Academia, when you came from academia. Is there anything you thought?

EF: Yeah, no, there’s, there’s quite a few actually that comp I was completely wrong about. So I think one of them was my, was my misconception. I guess, it’s probably fairly common amongst academics. I would say that industry is easier than academia. Um, it’s a bit boring, a bit easy. Um, I would, I was very naive coming into working in the EA thinking that I think in reality there’s a, there’s a lot of very technical problems that need solving that aren’t reality, higher pressure projects, um, and the problems that require a lot of compromise in terms of time and resource. And they’re generally higher-pressure projects, so they involve like very difficult decisions and policy. They impact, they impact millions of people, billions of pounds of taxpayer money.

So in reality, I’d say that my job now is much more stressful than my academic job because it’s the stake so much higher ultimately. Um, so that’s one of them. There’s a bit a misconception that I had that, um, by leaving academia, like, you’re closing that door and that you’re, you can’t publish or be involved in research in industry. So I think, I mean, since being in the EA my team has published two papers. Um, we’ve, we work alongside academics daily. Um, so that was completely, I think it, obviously it’s very dependent on what role you get in your organization that won’t be the same forever for, for every role in the EA, but they do exist. That’s what I’m, I’m trying to say. Mm. Um, I had a couple of other ones.

I guess like one, I think the, the idea that industry would just be like a nine till five kind of job, and it obviously can be, but it can also be quite flexible. I mean, um, I think it’s a lot of it’s to do with after covid as well. Um, so I actually work majority from home. Um, so I work in a national team, which I kind of allows that, but I have a lot of flexibility in how I work my hours. So I didn’t actually, and I was my, one of my fears moving from academia to industries, I would lose that flexibility. And I, and I haven’t at all.

Um, and I guess like this kind of related to like the, um, industry being easy that the misconception that industry is kind of be boring or less cutting edge or less innovative. Um, and I would, I would say that mean obviously you’re never gonna be, it’s never gonna be as cutting edge or innovative as, as research, but we do still work with academics very closely, and we’re constantly trying to bring in new ideas, data sets, models into our work in particular, like in particular. So for example, we, we work very closely with University of Bristol, Newcastle, East Anglia on things like hydrology, water resources, modelling, climate change. Um, so we do, it’s, I wouldn’t say we’re less cutting edge or less innovative, if anything we’re, we’re trying to actively bring all those pieces in into government to actually, um, make, make sure that those great innovations are actually having an impact on people’s daily lives. So Yeah.

I would also say one of the misconceptions with the EA is that you might have heard of one part of the ea. So if I ever mentioned to someone, oh, where can the ea they’ll go, well, flooding in my area. Sure. I don’t, there’s like ,, , people. We work across England. We have area teams, we have national teams, we have very scientific research teams. We have the chief scientist group, we have modelling like we have so much variation, um, agriculture, you name it, we have it. And it’s only even with us. We don’t know will somebody will pop it up and start talking to us. We like, I’ve never heard of that team. You do what? So honestly, we don’t even know the extent of the work, some of the work that we do. So it’s very, it’s so very varied. Um, so yeah, I just wanted to put that out there.

PR: No, completely agree. It’s a really good one. Um, but just thinking of the practicalities of a career in the, in the environment agency, um, what does your typical day or a project look like in your current role?

EF: Hmm. I mean, it, yeah, it can, it can vary. It’ll vary a lot. I think, to be honest, it’s quite nice at the moment because it’s after the Easter break, it’s all very quiet because most people are on half term or, um, on holiday. So it’s nice. Um, but not, that isn’t, that’s not normal. Um, most of the time. Uh, I guess typical day, multiple meetings a day. So I have, I’m, I line manage. So I have meetings with my linee, often have meetings with a project team, project partners, consultants, obviously I said we’re running consultancy projects and meeting with consultants and getting updates and solving problems kind of as, as we go.

Um, see a lot of time those kinds of meetings are discussing kind of best ways to solve data problems or technical problems. Um, or I mean, and a, a chunk of that is project management. Um, so communicating priorities, deadlines, delays, what a deliverables gonna look like, those kind of things. But when I’m not in meetings, which is lovely, um, I’m writing, so things like technical reports, currently writing a technical report, creating slide packs of, I guess the work that we’re doing, providing results to different project partners, um, developing and updating models.

So I do, I don’t get to do it as much in my current role, but in my previous role, I was actually, I was actively programming most of the day, so it was coding, um, and working, doing data analysis and interpreting lots of results from our models. So yeah, we do a lot of the developing updating models, bringing in data, creating a lot of different data products that are shared with partners, that’s data sets, dashboards to share things, creating maps. Um, and then a lot, a lot of it is presenting, so presenting results to different audiences. So I, I present to government technical experts, academics, water companies. We work with a lot consultants. So I mean, also, it’s actually quite similar to what I was doing in my academic day to day, like as in analysis of data, running models, running lab, I was running lab experiments. It’s a bit slightly different, but running, running scenarios. Um, interpreting results. Presenting results. Again, it’s all, yeah, it’s all very similar to I was doing in my postdoc. Yeah.

PR: Fantastic. Just thinking about, um, the postdocs on the call and if they were looking at, um, a career in the environment agency, what might, um, help ’em stand out in the hiring process or any common mistakes that postdocs might make when applying for academic roles?

EF: So, two sides to that, really. Yeah. Um, yeah, I’ll do the, how could they stand out first, I guess? Um, first, okay. In the EA we have kinda an application interview process, which is very much competency and capability based, style based, um, which can be, it’s, it’s fairly common in industry, but ultimately you’re gonna have to, it is a little bit tedious sometimes, but I think do you have to kind of get on board with it if you wanna come into industry and if you want to get, to get a role in the EA specifically. Um, so I, I would say do put time and effort into that, into that. Um, ’cause it does it by the time you get to interview, it’s really obvious if you haven’t prepped. Um, and it, it does, it does, it does, um, count for a lot, um, ways to stand out. I think as, I mean, postdocs are always, I want postdocs I’ve interviewed and PhD students I’ve interviewed. The technical is never the problem. We know that you’re brilliant at the technical, it’s interpersonal softer skills that are often sometimes go a bit missing. So I think don’t, don’t underestimate or undervalue those skills. We care equally about your ability to communicate, um, or your approaches to working as a team or how your project and time manage as we care about your technical skills. So don’t just focus too much on the technical.

Um, I think one big thing, unless you’re applying for a role that’s basically the exact same as your postdoc role or project, don’t assume that the, the app, the interview panel, know what you’re talking about. Um, make it really app applicable and relevant to the role that you’re applying for. Because a lot of, and, and tailor your communication according accordingly. Um, I think, oh yeah. One of the things I’d say is also, I mean, although all, a lot of the candidates have done really well in our recent round, um, I think, uh, make your, make your application just make be be more human personable.

We want to know about you as a person, so why you’re interested in the role that you’re applying for. Are you passionate about it? Even if it’s different to your past career. We, we, we might be, we probably don’t care, but why the change? What interests you about it? Um, so I think, yeah, do a lot, do a bit of reading around the role, the sector, the industry that you’re applying for and have some kind of questions prepared. Um, and mostly just to kind of show your, your knowledge or interest in the kind of landscape of the, the role you’re applying for.

Um, I mean, one thing that really stood out to me recently was people who reach out as well. Um, so ask questions, ring, ring up the recruitment manager, ask questions about the job and the role. Quite often, EA job apps are a little bit vague, a little bit minimal. Um, so there’s quite often quite a lot of industry jargon. So don’t, don’t worry, call up, ask for info. We, I know I personally love it. So actually get to know people a bit more before they apply our interview. Um, and that kind of mean, kind of relates to common mistakes.

So yeah, if I think not reaching out, it’s probably a bit of a common mistake. So that often in, in the ad, uh, like the, the name and the phone number will be there, why not use it? Um, and I think, yeah, I kind of, I kind of mentioned that in terms of mistakes of that in, in terms of, um, assuming that we will understand what your research is or does, um, we, like, I I we need to kind of, I think you need to quite clear on like the objectives of the project, the role, why does your research matter? What did you achieve? And try and, I guess get, get to the point a little bit. Yeah. Demonstrate that skill that they’re asking for, whether it’s communication or achieve results, like how have you done it? Not just what you actually did, because we see so much of that I did this then this then, and you’re not actually explaining yourself as to how and, and why you’ve done it. It’s, it’s so true.

Like I quite often in, in, in interviews like you get, you can get into the minutia of detail around someone’s research topic and, and, and quite often it is interesting, but your time limited in interviews. So you really need to make, get, get to the point about what, what, what skillset are you demonstrating by presenting this experience? Or what knowledge are you presenting when you’re talking about it? Kind of, um, really show how, and I think even, even, even if it’s not directly applicable to that sector, how could it be relevant to the role? Mm-hmm. Try that’s key. Yeah. Right. Bring it out The end. Yeah, bring it back. Bring it Back round. And this Is how I’d use the skills in this role. Exactly. Or I’d take it forward in this role. Yeah, definitely. Mm-hmm.

PR: So how, what, before we move on to the, um, questions, what grade level should a PhD student or postdocs be applying for, do you think?

EF: Oh, yeah. Um, that’s a, it’s a tricky one. Maybe if I just quickly cover the grade structure in the EA actually, because it’s a, a bit of a minefield in itself. Mm. Um, so generally have standard grades, kind of one to seven. We also have, but we also have things like graduate trainee grades and exec manager grades amongst other things. But standard grades are the most common in the environment agency. And if I kind of cover off probably realistically grade three to seven, which is the most relevant here, grade three maybe. We’ll see. So I guess grade three is kind of not really a, um, I’d say quite, quite young and probably would be more like undergraduate, masters, maybe level. Yeah. Um, grade four office, that’s kind of like an officer analyst. So they kind of support on technical specialist work. They contribute to projects. Grade five is more of a specialist or like a, a, a team leader for a small team. Um, grade six is a senior specialist or a senior team leader. So they generally kind of manage specialist teams or they contribute as a technical expert to the business. And then you have grade sevens, those are lead experts and they generally, um, or a manager, they’re kind of accountable for delivery in a specific area. So they typically lead like a lead or manage a large team or department. Hmm.

So I think in terms of where you’d come in at h or postdoc, it really depends on the experience and how you are of how you fit for the specific role that you are applying for. I can only really speak to the experience in our modelling team, which is fairly technical, but across our department we’ve had PhD students come in at grade three, four, and five. It all kind of related, it kind of depends on the role. So those who’ve come in at a grade five, they generally have a very specific skillset. Um, or they’ve worked in kind of the same field that, um, and the skillset that, and the skillset required by the business, they have direct kinda experience in that role already. Um, so whereas postdocs so generally come in at a grade four or five, but again, it just dependent on the role. Um, so personally I came in at a grade four, but I think real realistically, I probably should have come in at grade five. I think I undersold myself a little bit. Um, and I, I was only really in that role for six months before I moved up to a grade five, which is that, um, kinda specialist role. Um, but there’s, I would say that in the EA there’s a lot of, just as a kind of tangent, there’s a lot of, um, opportunities to move around and move up. Um, although they might always be in the same kind of part of the part of business, you can, you can move around. Um, yeah.

And then, yes, I’d say grades postdoc coming in at grade six is probably, could be done, but it, it does require a lot more experience. Maybe if you’ve had a lot more postdoctoral experience and perhaps running like a, a running a small research team for example, or, um, yeah, kind of running multiple projects for a re for a research team. You could probably come in at grade six then. But I’d say it really, it’s really, really dependent on the role that you’re applying for and how much experience you have have in, in that I’d Say. And that’s when it’s worth reaching out.

PR: Exactly. And speaking to the recruiting manager and see really, like, like Emily said, we are very restricted on our word count when we put in job adverts. So sometimes you read them and they’re a bit ambiguous, less so when they’re kind of scientific, but it’s always worth finding out ’cause you’ve got that edge and you can tailor your competency answers and your job application to that role. And then if you get through what we call the blind shift, ’cause we can’t see who’s coming through, then you can tailor your interview to that role as well, more so. But, um, it is really key ’cause they’re all so completely different. Um, you just don’t know from one, one team to the next. So they might be looking for completely different skills and, and everything. So yeah, I couldn’t agree more. Um, I’ll just check in with Kerry. Um, are you, do you want, is it time, do you want us to go to questions or,

KM: I think we’re ready for questions. And if I can suggest, just because it’s one that was also pre-submitted quite frequently that we start with Rory’s question, which is how common is it for art and humanities researchers to work in the ea and what sorts of roles do they tend to have?

EF: Yeah, I can, I can speak on this a little bit. I can’t speak on it fully as, obviously I come from quite a science-y background, but, um, I’ve, I’ve, I’ve heard of I postdocs and PhDs who come from that more arts humanities background coming into the ea. Um, like I think again, obviously with the EA we have a strong focus on science, so geography, geology, environment. Um, so it’s, it’s probably more common. Um, but I guess this between the skillset that you’re acquired by doing any PhD or postdoc is still valuable to the EA. So I think they’re probably even more relevant to roles as perhaps more team leaders or project management roles and obviously technical specialist roles that we can offer.

Um, again, I, as I I should say as well, I mean we’ve mentioned it before, the EA recruit based on competencies and capabilities. So that’s kind of based on your potential and ability to learn or adapt or transfer your skill, um, to a different topic. So if you can show that you can apply all the skills that you’ve learned to that role and you can make it relevant to the role you’re applying for, you’ll, you’ll stand a chance. I think you will struggle with achieving a, a, like a technical spec, a tech spec role at a grade five or six. So probably more realistically coming in it a good grade four perhaps. Yeah. Um, but um, but there, there’ll be parts of the business that to be more suitable for Yeah. Things like project management roles, um, maybe more kind of people, people roles. You have HR roles, So a lot of people, uh, there’s a, a big team of, uh, the people program mm-hmm. That look after recruitment.

Even my team, my background is science, but we’ve got a, his, uh, person that studied his history and they’ve, and we are looking at a grade four at the moment, training skills. And I’ve seen people with PhDs come through.

PR: Um, and yeah, we, we look at them, they probably wouldn’t be looking at the grade five ’cause then, ’cause you need a certain level of experience, two or three years training and stuff. But it just, it depends on the role. But it definitely, we have quite a lot of those kind of roles in the EA as well. Obviously not as many as the, the scientific ones, but we do definitely have quite a, a large proportion.

EF: Mm-hmm. I think that’s where, probably where it comes to as well, if you, if you see something pop up on our website, again, reach out to the recruitment manager, talk to ’em about your experience and, and your skillset and, and go from there really and see, see what they think and if you’d be a suitable candidate to, to apply.

PR: Yeah. I think that’s one of the big things about the EA and everyone I speak to is that they’re, we’re incredibly friendly and open. They, it’s not like, oh God, can I speak to that hiring manager? They’re gonna be so busy. They, it doesn’t matter who you speak to, if you’re talking to a de deputy director or someone at a grade three or four level, they, it’s very transparent and open and easy. So do reach out, um, because we want the best people in our teams and yeah, that’s just our culture, isn’t it? I think.

EF: Yeah, completely. It’s one of the reasons why I’ve stayed as well. I I, I, I’m constantly surprised by how everyone is so bloody lovely in the ea. Yes. Like too nice.

PR: So Helpful. So helpful. Helpful. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Kerry, we’ll come back to you now. Yeah, sorry.

KM: No, no, that’s good. We’re clearly a nice place to work. Um, so just a very quick question. And by the way, if anybody wants to submit any final couple of questions, please put them in now. Um, but this will be a quick one, Emily. Um, what softwares are you using for modelling?

EF: Ooh, that’s a very good question. Um, we use a lot of different software. So, um, Python first, first and foremost, um, uh, we do a bit of r occasionally, uh, with some of the software. Most of the software we run in we run is PY, Python based. So we use, we use a piece so called PI ppy, it’s like an open source water source model software. Um, we also use some o other software that’s actually for based in the, in the background. So a bit of a mix, but, um, quite often anyone on our team, anyone who has kind of any program experience. So I, I came in with a lot of R and matlab, um, and a little bit of Python, but I feel like in my opinion, if you’ve already learn one language, it’s very transferable to, to other languages. You can generally pick other ones up. Um, yeah.

KM: Okay. Um, one thing which I guess we, we started to talk about, um, but there’s any top tips for just translating those skills from academia to industry or the, I guess the top skills that you look for, um, within the environment agency from academia, which translate into industry? That was a question that came up a lot was pre.

EF: Yeah, I think I touched on, touched on it a little bit before. I would say, yeah, that’s, that independent self-learning Yeah. Is key, which all postdocs do. It’s so solving, solving problems independently. So scouring literature and talking to everyone under the sun to inform yourself and, um, and, and with that kind of comes a confidence, um, which is so transferrable into industry, I think. Yeah, I just mentioned programming skills really, um, sought after, not just programming because also mapping skills or dealing with big data sets. Um, but yeah, then project project management. So the ability to have a huge project, then break it down into manageable tasks with deliverables, with deadlines, um, which all postdocs do. Um, just, they might not realize that they’re doing it, but it’s really important that you communicate that, um, in application interview. Um, I think experience that like mentoring undergraduates and master’s students is really, really helpful. Really good to see. Um, uh, because I guess it just shows that you can perhaps delegate responsibility or you can communicate with different people with different experience levels. Um, other things, again, yeah, it’s a lot of it’s communication as well. So evidence that you’ve, you can obviously publish scientific papers, but, um, perhaps report writing. Can you communicate that to different types of audience? Um, can you present, um, you don’t really present upstanding up these days or mostly presenting of teams, but can you present a slide pack? Um, that, those, those kind of things. Those are all, all very transferable skills from academia that will definitely help you succeed in industry.

KM: I love that point around supervision and the alignment to line management experience. That’s really, really good. Mm-hmm. Um, okay. We are at 12:45, um, so we are due to wrap up now, but I just wanna thank you both for the amazing insights and for showing clearly what a friendly organization the EA is. Um, and yes, thanks for everyone for attending. We will be, um, uploading a recording, um, or a version of this to the portal. Um, but yeah, thanks so much for your time everyone. Thank you. Thanks.