Blog – Heading Into a Year of Job Uncertainty

When I started writing this blog post, I didn’t know what I was doing for work after the end of February 2025. If you follow my blogs, you’d know that I have been on the job market for a while. Last I wrote about my quest to work out what to do after my current contract, I was very lost (and very much haunted by the song ‘Should I Stay or Should I Go’ by The Clash). I wasn’t sure what to do, where to go, to stay in academia or to leave and dream of that sweet, sweet permanent contract.

Before you feel a sympathetic sense of panic or worry about me, as you look at your computer clock and check the date you’re reading this, just before Christmas I found out that I had succeeded in securing a short-term grant which, alongside a couple of other opportunities, will keep me able to pay my mortgage until at least the end of October. And, excitingly, lets me expand on my current project, which I am very passionate about. And so, lets all exhale…

If you want a TLDR of this post, unhelpfully positioned mid-blog, I still don’t know quite what I am going to do, but I am significantly further forward than I was before, at least in terms of that rumination about what I actually want.

The big, startling revelation from the reflection I did over this time was that I have never really related to the term ‘scientist’ – which is a bit of an unusual relationship to have with the thing you are currently doing as a career, something you are good at. I still haven’t fully worked out why this is. Even with the greatest supervision I could wish for, I still feel on the edge of science often (and I don’t mean the “cutting edge”). For many, I’m too much of certain things, and too little of others, and I guess I have spent a lot of time trying to make myself the Goldilocks to a system that, right now, isn’t for me in the way I currently interact with it. I also thought a lot about the questions ChatGPT gave me to consider, and whilst I will keep my answers private (sorry), the realisations I have had around these have definitely started to get under my skin. But I love research science, supporting diversity in the scientific space, and working for a university, so if things aren’t right in their current form, how can I continue doing something that captures some aspects of this, whilst maintaining an openness to something I haven’t considered coming at me from left field? That’s honestly where I am at just now. It was scary to get to Hogmanay and wonder – grant or no grant – what I would be doing at that time in 2025. It still is, and I am still trudging through and processing where to go, albeit in a less tight time pressure than I was in the last blog.

Whilst I haven’t sussed everything out – this is more of a ‘Should I Stay or Should I Go, v1.5’ rather than 2.0 – I have gained a lot of information and knowledge over the past several months. There’s no getting round it, the job market just now is dire. I have had a few interviews, and that feels great, but looks differently to my pessimistic brain when I acknowledge that they were for roles in my current place of work (which would be great, but I didn’t secure any). I’ve had my fair share of ghostings and immediate rejections from external prospective employers too. These rejections have been a bit of a hard lesson to learn, but a lesson learned nonetheless, and one that has been unquestionably valuable in helping me understand which side of the fence I am actually on.

Before I get into the next bit, I just want to reiterate that I am incredibly grateful and excited about my grant and looking forward to getting my teeth into the work involved. It’s a great opportunity for me to test some things out, without the commitment of a multi-year contract. However, ultimately, my current short contract life is not, specifically for me and how I see my life and my family, family-compatible, I shouldn’t be afraid to say that, because I know many people who can (and do) do both, but I am.

I don’t think I, personally, can be the best version of myself for my partner – and any future kids – if I hop from short-term contract to short-term contract.

I, personally, find it to be whatever the opposite of a breeze is, the insecurity (when the contract nears its send) consumes any spare time I have, be that because of worry or because of the applications I need to work on and submit. Maybe, I don’t have to do that. Could I maybe dare to dream of an open-ended contract, rather than something fixed-term? Might it actually work out? Perhaps, but to do that I need to just make a finite choice, select a fork in the road, a path this way or that. So, I’m gathering more data, and rounding off the work that I believe to be really important.

There isn’t really any final way to end this blog post, perhaps (hopefully) at some point I will have rounded off my insights and tell you how I’m doing at the end of the year, in that 2.0 post that I thought this might be. In any case, I am excited to see where this year takes me.

Jodi Watt

Author

Dr Jodi Watt is a Postdoctoral Researcher at University of Glasgow. Jodi’s academic interests are in both healthy ageing and neurodegenerative diseases of older age, and they are currently working on drug repurposing for dementia. Previously they worked on understanding structural, metabolic and physiological brain changes with age, as measured using magnetic resonance imaging. As a queer and neurodiverse person, Jodi is also incredibly interested in improving diversity and inclusion practices both within and outside of the academic context.

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