Secondments: how to dip your toe in the water

Linsey Robertson, Research Development Manager in the College of Science and Engineering, University of Glasgow

In a very timely fashion, by the time this post is published I will have just started my third secondment post in two years! My permanent job is Research Development Manager in the College of Science and Engineering (CoSE) but I am currently seconded to Planning, Insight and Analytics as a Strategic Planning Analyst for CoSE. This is my second internal secondment and is a maternity cover role. In this article, I am going to focus on an external secondment I did last summer, but a lot of the benefits are the same.

Why I did a secondment

I have been in my permanent job since 2015. Our team has a lot of experience, and we get along well. I have enjoyed my work, and my job offers a lot of variety, but I recently I felt I was ready for a change. I applied for a 4-month secondment to Kingston University, in Greater London, working as a Research Development Manager in a university-wide team on a specific project to support nine interdisciplinary research groups. The secondment offered me a great opportunity to ‘try on’ a new job without fully committing. As a former scientist who likes to weigh up pros and cons, it felt like a win-win for me. I mostly worked remotely but I spent some time meeting the team in person and had weekly online meetings with my manager.

Benefits of a secondment

The secondment was an opportunity for me to work on a defined project, rather than juggling the many things that accumulate in a job over time. It helped me feel confident and showed me that I could join a new team, integrate quickly and do my job well in another institution. It gave me the chance to bring my experience from a research-intensive university to a post-92 university where research is not so prevalent. I got great feedback from my manager and colleagues, and I really felt like I was adding value to the team. I widened my network and am still in touch with my secondment team – my line manager was a referee on my latest secondment job application. As it was a short contract and I have a young family, I mostly worked remotely. But I also got to pretend I lived in London for my three visits down to the office!

Challenges of a secondment

There is always a steep learning curve when you start a new job, and a secondment often has the added time pressure of getting up to speed quickly. Doing a remote secondment could have been tricky but I spent some time at the start meeting the team face-to-face, both at work and socially. They showed me some lovely establishments on the banks of the Thames! We set up shared documents, and I had regular catch ups with my manager to keep the work on track. On a more practical note, the IT and contracts parts took a while to get set up, but luckily everyone was flexible, and we worked around things that were delayed.

How to find a secondment

I found my secondment advertised on jobs.ac.uk as a short-term contract role. I contacted the hiring manager to see if they would offer it as a secondment. They hadn’t considered that route before and the team had never had an external secondee coming in. In the end, my manager said they thought it had worked well and it’s something they would do again in the future. Also keep an eye on internal vacancies at your current university too, as these are often available as secondments. Telling people what you want to do and what you are interested increases the chances that they’ll send relevant opportunities your way.

I would encourage anyone to do a secondment – I’m a big fan!