Training

Thank you very much Oishee Chatterjee for sharing this here. I am sorry I could not attend the session due to work commitments. Richard is as engaging as ever and those are some great pointers. Hope you all enjoyed the sessions and learnt a lot.

Sri Ranga Vanasari, Interdisciplinary Researcher, Monash University

Thesis Writing

Richard’s only written 1 PhD thesis But, he has helped heaps of PhD students write their thesis. From start to finish. Covering the necessary word processing skill, to engaging your supervisor for drafts, to compiling your publications into your thesis. In this program, Richard covers what’s required to write your thesis, puts forward a schedule to get it done in 15 weeks, and talks about what challenges you’ll face (and how you’ll overcome them). Dr Huysmans uses real world examples from his thesis writing program, and attendees can put forward their challenges too.

Productivity

Getting your PhD started and finished in 3 years is a challenge. Let alone doing it without being fully organised or productive. In this training, Dr Richard Huysmans covers things researchers and PhD students can do to save time in the lab, at the bench, in front of a computer, collecting data, doing analysis or writing documents.

Career Planning

Climbing the corporate or academic ladder isn’t easy.

And, it is even harder in the absence of a plan.

But how do you plan a career? So much of it is down to chance and/or opportunities!

In this workshop Richard helps participants understand how they can plan their career using three different approaches.

We then look at implementing that plan, and what is needed for ongoing success.

Journal Article Writing

There are very few programs out there to support journal article writing. It is something that is assumed knowledge.

So much of the process is a black box. In this program Richard goes through Wendy Belcher’s book (writing your journal article in 12 weeks), as well as things he has learned writing his own published works and helping others in his writing program.

The workshop (Resume Writing) was fantastic and I would definitely recommend others to participate in future.

Tina Phiri, PhD student

Working with Industry

Working with industry is the easiest way to fund your research. But how do you find a partner? How do you know what you have to offer? How do you know what they want?

In this workshop, Dr Richard Huysmans answers these questions using a series of practical tips and tricks. You’ll leave having a list of potential things you could do for industry; partners that might be interested in you; and an introduction email/statement to use with potential partners.

Grant Writing

Grant writing is often about the questions not covered in the application as much as the questions that are asked. This workshop covers the key things to consider when writing a grant, tender or proposal. It also looks at the differences between all three.

Finally, participants are given a guide to producing a competitive grant in less than four weeks – allowing you to respond to those special purpose grants, tenders or requests for proposal that never have long lead times. You’ll leave knowing the three things to focus on when trying to understand a new opportunity and how you can prepare those answers in advance.

Building Resilience

PhD students (and probably academics) have some of the highest rates of poor mental health among any profession and their age-matched-peers.

In this workshop, Dr Richard Huysmans goes through his journey, building resilience. As well as tools, techniques and strategies students, ECRs and established researchers can implement to improve their own resilience.

Project Management for Research

Project management in research is often talked about in the context of being a transferable skill. A skill you pick up in your PhD and research career that is useful outside research.

However, do you actually manage your research projects? Or do they manage you? Do you employ a project management approach?

Could you use Project Management language? Do you know the features and benefits of different approaches?

This workshop covers those things and more!

You really reinforced the idea of keeping things to 2 pages (Resume Writing), keeping answers short and snappy and including more achievements/concrete examples. Hasn’t necessarily meant interviews, but it’s less mental energy devoted to each application which means I can get more done.

Julian Atchison

LinkedIn for Industry Engagement

LinkedIn is translated into more than 24 different languages. It crosses international boarders like no other social media. It is where business people go to grow and connect with other business people.

If you want work with industry – LinkedIn is the social media platform for you.

That’s why Dr Richard Huysmans has a dedicated program just for LinkedIn. You’ll come with a LinkedIn account and leave with new connections, post likes, post shares and a clearer goal for your LinkedIn profile.

Free Workshops

From 2019 – 2021 Richard ran free online workshops.

They are all recorded and now live on YouTube and the Podcast.

Resume Writing

Leaving academia? Then you’ll need a resume. Not one of those academic ones – 30 pages is not going to cut it! You’ll need no more than 2. How is that possible?! In a half-day workshop (or series of one-on-one-coaching sessions) Richard goes through what employers are looking for and how to present that in your resume. If you bring your computer, you should leave with something close to a complete resume.

Social Media

Reputation. Personal brand. Esteem. Track record. They all mean the same thing. Yet we prioritise them differently in different situations. Academics regularly focus on building their track record – their academic reputation – but spend little time on their personal brand – their reputation outside academia. Social media is a quick, easy and accessible way of translating academic success into community impact. In this presentation Dr Huysmans covers a range of social media channels why you should (or should not) use them and how best to be successful on each. You’ll come with a social media account and leave with new connections, likes, shares as well as a clear strategy for making your chosen social media channel(s) work for your academic life.

Thank you so much for your time and your valuable advice. We have received so much great feedback about the session and we definitely have gained so much from you both. It was such an engaging, helpful and encouraging session and such a good way to end the week.

PAM HDR Student Society

Thank you for your help so far, the planning has already been super helpful in getting started and I am sure it will help me in the long run!

Stephanie Lynch, PhD Student, La Trobe University

Hi Richard,

Just wanted to extend my gratitude and thanks to you! Your webinars and comments on resume revamp were extremely helpful.

I have finally secured a permanent role in the industry (That too in Brisbane) as an Associate QC Scientist. it such a big relief!

Thanks for spreading the good!

Oishee Chatterjee

Just a quick note to say that I’ve enjoyed attending the session just now. Looking forward to the next session.

Adi Afzal Ahmad, Researcher

Thanks again for your time and courses, those are amazing!

Qi Zhang, ECR, Monash University

Thank you very much for the workshop yesterday, it was very insightful and I really benefited from your presentation.

Tina Phiri, PhD student

This is something that I noticed last week.

Remember that in the beginning I mentioned about experiencing writing apprehension that made me unable to write? Well, I don’t seem to feel it anymore. It IS there – somewhere – but it is tiny and manageable.

I think, watching/listening to the others who are also working toward the same goal (producing a publishable article, reading Belcher’s chapters, doing the exercises, and listening to your take on the whole thing — help me to look at this writing activity with a different (more positive) mindset.

Another reason is because through the group discussion, I got to see the ‘gaps’ in my paper which I need to deal with before I send it to a journal. In other words, there is a list of specific tasks that guides me on what to write next. And that really helps to combat anxiety!

If you are going to have another round of “Writing Your Journal Article in 12 weeks” after the present one is over, do tell because I’d be most interested to join it.

Adi Afzal Ahmad
Lecturer, Universiti Teknologi Mara Cawangan Perlis

Thanks for running the online workshops as well. I have signed up to a number of them. I have appreciated that they are short and to the point, with many practical ideas and food for thought.

Fievel Tong, PhD Student, University of Technology Sydney

Thank you for your great presentation on “LinkedIn for Researchers” today.

Rizwan Fattah, Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Technology Sydney

I attended your workshop about LinkedIn. That was an informative sessions.

Seyedmostafa Mousavi

I wish to thank you for the online Word course I attended earlier which was very informative. There were key points that I was not aware of- even after years of using word.

PhD Student, Western Sydney University

Brilliant work, Richard. Thanks so much for presenting today. I have started the legend file and referred several people to your website to check out your other presentations.

Dr. Katrin Gerber, PhD (Psych), Research Fellow NARI & MARC

Your Instagram for Researchers lecture was great, very informative.

Dr. Stefan Lie, Senior Lecturer, University of Technology Sydney

I attended your talk on using Instagram for Research and found it very beneficial.

Mohamed Fadhil, PhD student

Thank you for an interactive and informative online workshop last week, it was great to attend.

Dr. Oana Tatucu, Research Assistant, Monash University

I got a lot from your seminar and will definitely encourage colleagues to engage with your content in the future.

Connor Jolley

Thank you so much for this program, I went from very unsure and entirely unprepared to submit my first paper to now being the one driving it and email editors. The things I have learnt will be invaluable for my future career.

Dr Melissa Sweeney,
Researcher, Monash University

Thank you so much for an amazing workshop, I enjoyed it immensely.

Rouba, PhD Student

I liked being able to tune into your workshop on One Page Project Management Thank you for the workshop, which I found useful.

Dr Louisa Selvadurai, Teaching Associate, Monash University

This is the second time I have done this program. I think it is fantastic value. I’d recommend it to others and I’m definitely doing it again.

Primrose White, PostDoc and Psychologist

This program is great value. The course content is excellent, the opportunity to work with other early career researchers is enriching, and Richard’s input is super-helpful. The weekly meetings keep you accountable and productive, and it’s affordable. I’ll be signing up again!

Victoria, PhD candidate, Brisbane

Thanks for the workshop the other day, I gained some useful perspective from it.

PhD student

I’ve attended one and will try to catch up on a couple more on YouTube. Thanks for sharing and for your work — what you do is important!

Leo, Research scientist

Your workshop was really interesting, easy to follow and very informative

Mary Tomlinson, Centre Administrator, RMIT

Thanks for the course. It was well worth it and I may do another for my next article

Janice Chisholm, PhD student, Monash University

Thanks for your teaching Dr. Richard Huysmans! Excellent session yesterday learning how to effectively use social media for different research and industry purposes. Glad I could share some tips from Canva. For those hesitant to jump into the online space, I highly recommend Dr. Richard Huysmans informative, personalised workshop.

Katrin Oliver

Your session today was helpful, Richard. Thank you.

Dr. Mahbub Sakar, Monash University

Writing is going really well though (finally) and your MS Word course really helped so thanks very much!

Jessica Campbell, PhD student, University of Auckland

The workshop was fantastic. Your advice was clear and practical. I learned a lot from you and am keen to make my resume more graphic.

Dr. Sundy Yang, Research and Graduate Research Project Coordinator

This was an excellent session, with everyone actively participating. I found it very useful and informative I really was impressed!

Associate Professor Catherine Haigh, Director, Monash Rural Health Gippsland

I have just been through the recording and it is simply an eye-opening experience for me. I didn’t know that so much can be done in order to improve CV and LinkedIn. I am glad that I registered for this workshop. I gratefully admire the work you do to help out researchers/academics

Dr. Afsar U. Ahmed, Research Scientist, Monash University

I thoroughly enjoyed your resume and LinkedIn workshop held yesterday

Dr. Vidhishri Kesarwani, Research Scientist, Monash University

Brilliant session yesterday Richard. I thoroughly enjoyed it despite coming late and leaving early due to laptop battery troubles. I’m glad to see your business smashing it!

Dr. Valerian Zaitsev, Associate Lecturer, Monash University

Your workshop helped me write a better resume.

Dr. Edward Liu, Research Fellow, Monash University

Thank you for today, I got a lot out of it!

Kathryn Hull, PhD student

Thanks Richard! It was a totally useful and worthy workshop.

Irene Lin, PhD student

Your session was extremely helpful. Thanks.

Dr. Sheikh Alif, Research Fellow, Monash University

The workshop was very helpful. Made some changes to my CV and LinkedIn.

Dr. Anup Shah, Biomedical Data Scientist, Monash University

Things have been massively better with Word thanks- the tip about putting images and their captions in tables has been incredibly helpful, as has keeping images in the ‘top and bottom’ format, that seems to have got rid of most of my usual issues around long documents so thanks!

Jessica Campbell, PhD student, University of Auckland

I listened to your talk “Networking for Career Success” run the other day in my department at Monash. Really enjoyed it!

Jurie Tashkandi, PhD student, Monash University

Many thanks for the info and for the great session. I’m motivated now to start looking into relevant grants.

PhD holder and entrepreneur

I recently saw the recording of your ‘leaving academia’ webinar. It was very insightful. Thank you so much for doing it and also for personally reaching out about career coaching.

Anonymous ECR, UNSW

I did binge on your podcast the other day. It has useful and had helpful content.

Innocenter Amima, PhD student

Although I am in my first year as a PhD student I found your tips to be insightful.

Shakira Milton, PhD student and Research Assistant, University of Melbourne

I really appreciated the focus on non-academic careers, the strategies in maximising non-academic career opportunities, along with putting the personal, professional, and financial support systems in place. I thought the session was very well designed and communicated. Personally, I’m going towards a non-academic career path, so this focus of the lecture appealed to me.

Ripi Kaur, Researcher

Your class was very informative and gave me a great starting point for career planning.

Aruna Kartik, Research Officer, Monash University

Your workshop advice to check job descriptions for skills required in my “ideal jobs,” has been most helpful.

Dr. Jonathan Chan, Research Office, Monash University