[Astronomy] New job!

Time for another job update, and as you might guess from the title of this post it's good news - I've got myself a new job. Or rather, a first job. I'm not sure a PhD counts!

In the last update I posted about my job hunt I talked about the jobs I'd applied to. I also mentioned in my Le Mans retrospective that I'd missed out on a couple of things I wanted to do, and had to trek into the town. Well here's the story behind it all.

On the Friday at Le Mans I got a phone call from HR department at the Royal Observatory Greenwich, asking if I was coming to my interview on Monday. Obviously I hadn't been checking my email, but it turned out that they wanted to interview me at 2pm on the 24th. If you're keeping track, that's the same day as my interview in Belfast, and there was no way I'd make it to Greenwich for 2pm! Fortunately the lady from HR was very understanding when I explained, and asked if 4pm would be better. At which point I borrowed my housemate's smartphone to work out flight and train times. It turned out that I could just about do it, so I booked a flight then and there and said yes to the Greenwich interview. (I've made it all sound very calm and sensible. In reality I did not handle it well, and had a mini breakdown, which I'm not sure my housemate knew how to deal with!)

The less than ideal part of the whole thing was that I had to prepare a presentation for that interview! I had to pitch a new planetarium show, and there was a whole list of criteria that the pitch had to meet including a tie-in to the history of the Royal Observatory, suitability for ages 5+, and a link to current research. Which is why I found myself in Le Mans at an Internet cafe late on Friday afternoon, trying to find information for my pitch. I then wrote and practised it between the Le Mans Legends race and the start of the main race on Saturday; it's a good thing I had my laptop with me!

The travel to Belfast went very smoothly indeed. When I arrived at the hotel I was staying in, I checked my email to find a pleasant surprise - I'd been offered the 1 year fellowship at St Andrews. That was a load off my mind, as it meant that no matter how the two interviews the next day went, I had something sorted out.

The interview at Belfast went very well. The panel were very friendly and the entire experience was rather relaxed, although it was a bit odd having one of them there via Skype. My presentation, which I'd been worried about, went down well, and I think I gave good answers to their questions. After the interview I didn't really have time to dwell on it though, as I had to immediately get a taxi to the airport for my flight to London!

I made it to the Royal Observatory at roughly 3:45pm, so had 15 minutes or so to calm down after my rush across the city. That interview I thought went almost equally as well. The presentation was as good as could have been hoped given the limited preparation time I had, and although I struggled with answers to a couple of the questions I think I did pretty well. I was rather taken aback when they asked how much I thought I should be paid though!

After meeting my girlfriend for dinner we went back to her flat, where I checked my email to find that Belfast had offered me their postdoc a mere 4 hours after my interview. I was shell shocked to be honest; I wasn't expecting a response that quickly, and the entire day had been so much of a whirlwind that I wasn't sure whether I was coming or going. The job offer just put the icing on the cake.

I then had to wait for a response from Greenwich, and to give them their due they didn't keep me hanging. Yesterday I got a rejection email, and some feedback on my interview saying that my technical side was very good, but that I'd seem hesitant at times and needed to work on my public speaking. Fair enough really, it's not something I've ever enjoyed.

Earlier today I chatted to my supervisor about it, and he backed up what I was thinking - go for the 3 year job and move on to somewhere different. So this afternoon I accepted the offer from Belfast. I'm still waiting to get all of the paperwork to make it official, but I can't wait to start. It does mean that I really need to get my thesis written, so I'd better get cracking!