I am a humanities student in the final few months of my Phd. My project is interdisciplinary in nature as I am employing various theories of gender and masculinity to reread certain works of fiction. I have been an arts and humanities student throughout my uni years but engaging with the theoretical texts has really made me question of what sort of impact I want to make with the skills I have acquired.

I have just seen a job posted in a nearby university. It is a research position looking at gender equality in certain working environments.

My question is how can I approach an application for this social science post as a humanities student. I meet all the essential and desirable criteria (managing large project, publications, presenting, etc) but obviously I have no experience of quantitative research methods, e.g. SPSS, or indeed qualitative research methods (they ask for experience of NVivo for example).

They do mention in the application form if I'd be willing to undertake necessary training prior and during the project so maybe this is my only (small) chink of light.

What do you guys think?

They'll be looking, or should be looking, for what you have to offer as a researcher to the project. Don't let the fact that you're an humanities student prevent you from applying. Seriously, in this climate apply for everything you can as there's not a lot out there. Go for it!

I think it would depend on how the project has been designed as to whether you'd have any chance or not. If they have committed to certain types of data analysis and collection, then you would need those skills and while you can get training on how to use a particular software package, you couldn't realistically pick up quant skills to a reliable standard from nothing very quickly (particularly if the last maths you did was GCSE). Did you have any methods training as part of your PhD? If so, I'd emphasise anything even vaguely relevant.