Hello all,

First post and as like a many other, born out of absolute frustration.

Prior to Christmas, I had the wonderful experience of submitting my PhD after 3 and a half years of incredibly hard work, stress and overcoming degrees of adversity. Although not yet VIVA'd and done, I'm confident I'll walk away with my doctorate and 2 first authored papers (which form 2 of my chapters) when all is said and done.

My problem is finding something now to allow me to stay in academia, preferably within the UK but open to Europe. However, I have had a string of rejections for various posts and am struggling badly to find anyone willing to employ me, as I keep coming up against serial postdocs or find myself not qualified enough for the more advanced positions (understandably). The only one position I WAS offered was in the USA but I declined this on personal grounds of having gotten married this year and rather poor working conditions by comparison to Europe.

It's becoming a bit soul destroying and I'm really starting to curse the "serial postdocs" out there who are content in stagnating and not advancing!

In need of encouragement (or a job...) though I don't seek the latter here ;-)