There was a certain naiveté in the air when I went to my first academic conference. I thought that all I would have to do is to write a decent paper and to present it to the public. In retrospect this could have ended badly and I wish someone had intercepted me on the way to the airport and given me some key-warnings to know in advance. Thus, after this multifaceted experience, I thought to write the following points in a humble and only half-serious manner.

Despite great progress that has been made in recent years in making academia more friendly for women, it still remains hard for women to be accepted and to excel in many academic institutions. Many women in academia, especially those in male-dominated fields, report that they find it more difficult to be taken seriously and more difficult to get promotions to senior roles than the men in their departments. So what can you do to maximise your career prospects as a woman working in an academic setting? Here our our tips to help women achieve career success.

If you're attending an academic conference for the first time, it can be a rather overwhelming experience! Follow these five tips to make your conference trip as smooth and productive possible.

Co-teaching has become popular in recent years, especially in university teaching training. It involves two teachers, one experienced and one in training, coming together to teach a class together. They share the instruction, the setting of tasks, the marking, and the physical classroom space. The idea is that for a profession like teaching, in which teachers are constantly learning even after they finish their teacher training, more direct instruction is helpful. Observing and interacting with a more experienced colleague allows new teaches to learn more and get guidance if they are having any classroom issues.

Applying for an academic job can be a frustrating process. If you've been rejected from an academic job and you're stewing over why, read on to find out the reasons that your job application might have been unsuccessful.

Applying for academic jobs can be a fraught process! If you haven't had much experience with the academic job market, it can be hard to learn as it is quite different from applying for places at a university to be a student. Even if you have experience with applying for professional jobs, there are different norms in academic hiring which can take some time to grasp. To help you through this process, today we're covering some of the things that can go wrong during academic hiring, so you know what to look out for and how to prepare yourself.

Applying for a PhD can be a long and difficult process, with not many opportunities for you to hear feedback on your application. If your application was not successful and you're not sure why, here are some of the most common reasons for PhD applications to be rejected. If you plan to improve your PhD application this autumn, download our free guide "How to successfully apply to a PhD in Economics".

If you're applying for a PhD, the process can be rather complex, so here are our answers to some frequently asked questions about applications. If you plan to start your PhD application this autumn, download our free guide "How to successfully apply to a PhD in Economics".

Do you want to study at a university at the undergraduate or postgraduate level, or join a professional organisation in an English-speaking country? Then IELTS Academic is designed for you.

For most academics, when they consider their future careers, they think of two options: academia or industry. There are other options, however, such as one we will be discussing today – working for the government. Academics can serve on councils and advisory boards, or work as part of a civil service, or as advisors to policy makers. But what are the advantages and disadvantages of working for the government? This is the topic we're considering in this article.

For academic careers, the big question is always: academia or industry? But why not a bit of both? If you want to combine teaching and working in industry, there are possibilities for part-time teaching work or tutoring jobs which fall outside of traditional work hours. You can have an industry job and try teaching too. Below we'll look at some of the options.

One of the great advantages of performing your research within an academic setting rather than a commercial one is the degree of research autonomy which you posses. This means that you have the freedom to pursue the work which you think is interesting and worthwhile, and to pick the methods and research approaches which you find to be most suitable. In fact, having flexibility and freedom over your work was identified as one of the top advantages of working in an academic institution in our 2015 Academic Institutions Report. Clearly, this is an important issue which is one of the major differentiating factors between academia and industry. 

One issue for those working in academia that can be difficult to deal with is the problem of job insecurity. It is common for postdocs or junior lectures to be employed on short-term contracts of a few months to a few years, meaning that they must secure a new job when their contract ends. Today we have some tips on how to manage this insecurity if you're working in academia.

When you're been abroad for a semester or longer during your studies, you're bound to have picked up lots of new skills and knowledge that can help you to stand out when applying for a job or course of study. But in order to take advantage of this, you need to know how to convey your extra skills to potential employers or universities. So today we're offering advice on how to show off the best of your study abroad on your resume. You can use the following ideas as skills to highlight on applications, or find ways to include this information in your cover letter, letter of motivation, or to answer interview questions.

When you're teaching, it's important to find a way to engage with all of your students, to keep their interest and to make sure that they understand the information that you're conveying to them. However, the size of a class can make a huge difference to what teaching methods are most appropriate and effective.

For graduates of the social sciences, there is a wide range of career possibilities open. For people who are curious, self-motivated, and capable of both good organisation and creative thinking, research can be an extremely rewarding career.

A popular activity among PhD students, particularly for those in structured programs, is a journal club. This is a regular meeting at which PhD students gather together to read  and discuss a journal paper from their field. These meetings can be a fun and educational addition to a PhD program, and today we're discussing how you can make the most of the opportunities presented by these meetings.

Open access refers to materials which are publicly available without restrictions on access or reuse. To publish your research in open access means that anyone, including other researchers and the public, will be able to read your paper in its original form. In order to support this free access for users, journals which publish open-access charge a fee (often in the region of several thousand Euros) to the authors. But, this cost comes with advantages. Today we're looking at the case for making your research available in open access form.