Starting out a new role as a PhD student or postdoc will often be demanding and involve a steep learning curve. This is especially true if you have moved into a new discipline or field than you have worked in previously. With different approaches to research, learning and assessment than that which you have experienced before, it can take some effort to adjust to a new setting. Below are some tips to ease this transition to help you make the most of your postdoc in a new field.

Networking is a concept which is somewhat alien to many academics – you may well have heard how important it is to create an interactive network with other researchers in your field, but it's hard to know how to get started. Some people have a negative view of networking; thinking that it involves being deceptive or finding a way to turn every conversation around to yourself. But it needn't be that way! Successful networking is all about putting you in touch with other like-minded academics or professionals with whom you share interests. These networks help you both by supplying information (for example, finding someone with an expertise in a statistical technique which you are interested in using) and by providing you with a way to share your research (for example, sending your recent publications to other researchers who could find it useful). Networking can be a fun and rewarding way to build up your profile within your discipline.

It can be hard to stay motivated surrounded by chocolate, festive lighting and tinsel garlands. With the prospect of overseas holidays, dinners with family and friends, gift-giving and an abundance of food fast approaching, whether you work or study, maintaining focus can be an issue.

With the end of the year approaching, we feel it’s time to look to the start of next year and start planning which conferences to attend. The number of events available is overwhelming, so following up on our 2014 End of Year Round Up, we decided to draft a list for the start of 2015.

As the year slowly draws to a close it can be easy to focus on the work in front of us and forget about the many academic conferences still taking place around the world. Such events are a great place to build your network, boost your CV and gain new insight into your field. This list offers you a brief overview of the many conferences in banking, economics, finance and related fields that will be taking place across the globe during the last months of 2014.

While we all know the importance of publishing widely in terms of moving forward in an academic career, what is sometimes left out of the discussion is how to make sure that your research has an actual impact in the community it is addressing, or in the world at large. If you would like your research to be read beyond the gates of the ivory tower, you need to know how to effectively promote yourself and your work.

With the start of the academic year come many changes to most university departments – new students, new courses and, every so often, a new department chair. If you happen to find yourself in the lucky position of holding this post, it’s important to be aware of the plethora of responsibilities and advantages that come with the job. In this article, we’ve gathered helpful tips and reminders from a variety of sources to create a comprehensive list of what you need to know to make the most of being a department chair.

With September upon us and campuses around the globe preparing for the coming school year, many recent graduates face a harsh reminder that student life is over and it’s time to plunge headlong into the workforce. Yet, sometimes landing that first career-oriented position can be tough, particularly in today’s economic climate.

A picture speaks a thousand words, an adage that also holds true when presenting data to an audience. Whether to stand out during an academic conference or a class presentation, to share statistics with your customers, to explain a difficult concept to your students or to impress your friends with something funny: if you want to convey the message quickly and clearly an infographic is the tool to use!

Although those of us in the northern hemisphere have just entered the dog days of summer, fall is just around the corner, meaning it’s the right time to start planning out your autumn conference schedule. Whether you’re dreaming of the changing leaves and crisp air or dreading the idea of darker evenings and cooler days, right now you should focus on choosing the right event for you from this great list of academic conferences taking place around the world.

For many recent PhDs and other doctoral graduates, the first step in an academic career is at least one, if not two or three post doc or junior researcher positions. Regardless of which department you work in, such a position is a great way to make connections, publish your research, add experience to your CV and get a feel for life as an academic.

Many people who are already years or decades into their careers find themselves wanting to build upon their skillsets and expand their professional qualifications. Perhaps they want to make a career change, feel stuck in a mid-level position but lack the qualifications necessary for advancement, or perhaps they are just interested in gaining new knowledge but don’t have the time or means to head back to school. In the past, people in such situations could enroll in evening or weekend courses at community centers or continuing education departments at local universities.

Last year, we offered you a list of 10 finance conferences worth attending in 2013. Now, with summer just around the corner and conference season already underway, we want to make sure you know which conferences to register for ASAP and which to have on your radar for the coming months. With finance such a hot topic across the world right now, we’ve expanded our list to 15, while limiting the time frame to the summer months. Towards the end of the summer we’ll post another list for fall and winter conferences.

With the release of the Spanish report this week in the worldwide series of INOMICS Job Market Reports, more information has been added to the wealth of data regarding the interests and experiences of economists across the globe.

Econometrics is a thorough discipline that demands time and effort to be mastered. For many people who want to pursue a degree in economics it serves as an obstacle, but as we’ve shown before, there are many resources you can use to your advantage to become proficient in it: blogs and podcasts can introduce you to the topic and give practical advice, free online courses will incentivize you to learn systematically and increase your ability to perform a research using different econometrics and statistical software like “R” or “Stata”, and YouTube channels can greatly support your studies by giving access to lectures and tutorials of great professors at any time convenient for you.

Pursuing an academic career is very different from working in the private sector in many ways, including in terms of the application and recruitment process, even before you start in your first job!

Anyone working as an economist, mathematician, management consultant or researcher is likely to be dealing with numbers on a regular basis. Whether to refute claims, inform decisions or to build evidence to support one’s case, a good command of figures is essential for many professions. In other words, one cannot escape learning and using statistics!

Teaching, whether at school or university level, is generally and  rightly considered a worthy occupation. As supported by some Professor Ratings, however, unfortunately not every high school, college or university can boast perfect ratings for their academic staff, and many individual lecturers and professors have room for improvement, at least in the views of the students.

Business Economics is a rather broad area of economics covering everything from business organization, management and marketing to the role of entrepreneurs and impact of the government on corporations. It is also assumed to be one of the most applicable research branches within economics: where today’s academic research might result in tomorrow’s industry implementations.

Finance has become a very attractive field for many people in the last decades as it “smells” of money and promises a successful career after obtaining a degree, even though the financial crisis has slowed down this popularity trend. While many fresh Bachelor and Master graduates massively apply for positions in investment banks and consultancies, some decide to pursue a PhD, which is the way to life-long involvement in the academic world.

Whether pursuing a bachelor’s degree in economics or having finished a PhD from a top university, at all stages of the academic pursuits and research careers, young economists have been engaged in the grueling process of finding internships with reputable organizations. While masters and bachelors students aim to gather work experience and transition into full time jobs, PhD candidates attempt to combine their research with the work of relevant organizations.

Econometrics is something towards which many people have mixed feelings: both fear and respect. If you want to get a degree in economics, however, there is no way you can get away without studying econometrics on some level; and if you want to become a great economist you will have to master it: to build models, run regressions and (hopefully) predict the future. The economics profession has been blamed for failing to predict the global financial crisis, but as econometrics is considered to be one of the core disciplines to help prevent a recurrence in the future, we have collected a number of useful links for online learning and self-improvement in this field.

After our post last summer about the trend for conferences and prizes aimed at young economists, several further events are coming up this year, which could be of interest to PhD students and young researchers. Some of these are specifically for students or junior academics whilst others offer financial support or prizes to those attending or presenting papers at the meeting.