Hi Nicola,


Congratulations on the arrival of your daughter and good luck to you as you get used to life back in work after maternity leave - it can be tough, so I hope your employers and colleagues are helping you to navigate what can be a difficult transition.


Regarding staying up to date with the industry, here are my suggestions...

Speak to your boss

I would recommend that you speak to your boss about how you're feeling and explain that you don't want your professional life to suffer because your personal life has changed. What does your company offer (training budget, internal courses, mentoring?)

Access your training budget

Do you know if you have access to a training budget? If so, find out what it is and have a look for courses that you think might be useful. The IET runs lots of courses and a link to IET courses is given below. Take details to your boss of previous things you attended to show that you used to attend evening courses etc as this will show that you are dedicated to learning more about the industry rather than you're looking for a nice jolly day out of the office. Take information about the course(s) you want to attend and what you would get out of it, how this would benefit the company etc.  (eg. networking opportunities, market research, horizon scanning etc.) 


These don't have to be physical courses, they could be remote/online courses that you could undertake in your own time once the bedtime routine is over. The IET has the Learning Academy through which you can study online (link given below) or there are remote courses such as The Open University which offer flexible study.

Attend relevant conferences

As I understand it, training budgets are for training and development, and "development" could be attending an industry related conference too. You could see if there are any conferences that are local to you or that you would be able to get to and from within working hours so that you can use your work time to develop your career. A link to IET events is given below.

Catch up with IET TV

If you are unable to attend events in person, you could also look online as many events are recorded nowadays and you could still access the content even if you can't attend in person. Have a look through IET.tv to see if there are any presentations you are interested in (link below). 

Use your volunteer day

Some companies also have volunteer days - is there an event that you could volunteer at that would give you networking opportunities or other career input that you would find useful? This doesn't have to be a big event, it could be something like volunteering in your local school for a careers day or talking to schools/scouts/brownies etc. about STEM topics  (it will still look good on your CV and show that you are connected and passionate about STEM in general).

Become a peer reviewer or writer

Another way to keep in touch with the latest developments is to act as a peer reviewer for a journal or as an editorial board member. Every article published in a journal must undergo peer-review, but journals do not have an infinite bank of willing reviewers - editorial staff have to seek reviewers every time, and for every 10 people approached, chances are that 9 will be too busy or will not respond at all, so editorial staff working on a journal in your area of expertise would certainly be pleased to hear from anyone offering their services as a reviewer! You could send your CV to the managing editor of a journal that covers your area of interest and tell them that you would be interested in reviewing articles on X, Y or Z. If any appropriate submissions come in, they could send the submission to you for review. Not only will this keep you abreast of latest research before it is even published, you won't have to pay to read the article and you can add 'Reviewer for XXX journal' to your CV (again, this is an activity that can be done fairly flexibly after your daughter is in bed). Or you could write for a journal yourself - again, this is something that you can do in your spare time, but may be tricky depending on the work you do and whether there are any confidentiality issues with the projects you work on. A link to IET journals is given below.


As well as journal articles needing peer-review, book proposals for most publishing houses undergo a peer-review process too. If interested in reviewing book proposals, again, I would say to send your CV and details of the topics you are interested to relevant publishing houses. Quite often, you will get a free copy of a book as a thank you for your review, the reading of which will again help you keep knowledgeable to your industry, and again, you can add Reviewer for XXX publishing house/XXX series to your CV. You could also consider writing book chapters/books or acting as an editor for a book.

Reading relevant material 

If there is anything that the IET has already published that you would like to read through that you think would help keep you up-to-date on things, don't forget that IET members get knowledge credits which you can use to download book chapters or journal articles. 

Join a TPN

I've attended a couple of events hosted by IET TPNs (Technical Professional Networks) recently. At these events, the chair of the session has made a point of saying "people think that the TPNs are closed off secretive groups, but we would love more people to be involved, please, please, please contact us", so you could think about joining one of the IET's TPNs? Many TPN meetings have remote attendees who dial in from other countries, so this is potentially something that you could do if your employer is flexible enough to offer you an hour or so every now and then to dial in. The TPNs organise events, but there may be many aspects that you are able to help with over the phone or via email (eg. researching potential speakers etc.) even if you can't attend the event in person, although if you are helping to organise things, you may be able to use your volunteer day (if you have one). The TPNs can be accessed through this communities portal, searching for the relevant area you are interested in.

 

Sorry if my answer is very IET heavy, but hopefully there are some things here that you could explore. I hope to see what the others in this group suggest and please do keep us posted on whatever it is you do decide to do and how you find it.


Good luck!


Amber 


Links:


IET Training Courses: https://www.theiet.org/career/courses-training

IET Learning Academy: https://academy.theiet.org

IET Events: https://events.theiet.org

IET TV: https://tv.theiet.org

IET Journals: To referee: https://www.theiet.org/publishing/publishing-with-iet-journals/become-a-referee To write: https://www.theiet.org/publishing/publishing-with-iet-journals

IET Books: https://www.theiet.org/publishing/publishing-with-iet-books/ (or email author_support@theiet.org if you would like to become a book proposal reviewer or have an idea for a book)

IET knowledge credits: https://www.theiet.org/publishing/subscribe-or-buy-our-content/knowledge-packs/

IET TPNs: https://www.theiet.org/membership/communities/technical-and-professional-networks/

IET useful link: https://www.theiet.org/career/