When looking for a new job it’s important to consider how involved in chemistry you would like to be. Consider a dart board – the bulls-eye is hands on science, using your chemistry knowledge directly, then you have the next section is where you might use your skills, but not practically and the final section, the outside ring is where you use all of those transferable skills that you have gained alongside your chemistry knowledge.
It’s fairly straightforward thinking about jobs which directly use your chemistry experience in a practical way – perhaps as a environmental scientist collecting samples in the field or an analytical chemist at the bench or a computational chemist designing the latest molecule?
But what about that elusive job where you use your chemistry knowledge but not in a hands-on-practical way? Common roles people ask us about that fit these criteria are:
Teaching
Patent work
Science Communication (in all its forms)
Consultant
Less common ideas are:
Technical writing
Business Information e.g. data analyst
Policy work
Regulatory Affairs
Publishing
The last option includes everything from sales and marketing to careers advice!
Just a word on publishing…the Royal Society of Chemistry employed approximately 50 people in 2013 into
Publishing and Development Editor roles – perfect if you are thinking of a career in publishing. We are expanding all the time and if you are interested you can find out more about
our jobs on this page.