Employability

Industry Skills Expectations for Bioscience Graduates

Graduates are expected to know the basics of their discipline well - theoretically and practically. Some graduates (not those who get employment easily) think that because courses are modular they think they can forget about the first year modules because they have passed them. Students should be building on the knowledge they acquired and should retain it during the rest of the course. Job seekers in discipline specific areas should expect to be asked technical and factual questions to establish their knowledge at interview.

Industries have expectations that both new and experienced graduates will possess certain attributes and be able to use important skills. These abilities will be subject to the normal appraisal process used to assess the performance of graduates in post. There are, of course, a number of different assessment/appraisal schemes in use which have been developed and are used in particular companies. The material set out below derives from different industries and outlines some of the typical criteria which are used in such schemes, all files are in pdf format.

Job descriptions

• Job descriptions – Example 1

Appraisal Process

• Guide to using these appraisals
• Experimental/'bench' biosciences 1 – complete document or summary
• Experimental/'bench' biosciences 2
• Experimental/'bench' biosciences 3
• Experimental/'bench' biosciences 4

Syllabi for training courses offered by bioscience industries to new graduates

• Syllabus example 1
• Syllabus example 2

The Howard Hughes Medical Institute website has an interesting section on the qualities needed to become a scientist.

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