Photo by Amy Hirschi on Unsplash

Hello everyone! This month we have been talking about recruiting and interviewing in military contexts which I'm sure is something many of you have some experience of or are working towards.

We have lots of top tips throughout the newsletter but one of the things I often hear is an anxiety from researchers without a military background about making the first step to reach out to possible military interviewees or conducting their first interview. Whilst it is easy for me - being ex-military and having completed my doctoral interviews a while back - to say reach out and go for it, they don't bite, I think a more practical tip is to try and find other researchers who are also planning to make a similar step. Through our online workshops, I have seen how much confidence and reassurance come out of getting together and hearing the same anxieties and how others have overcome them. We hope that we are able to continue to provide a space for you to find a community so that you are not alone in your research.

Thank you so much to Lucie Pebay for all her hard work on this month's theme, and Georgie Eckersley for her input too, and thanks again to everyone who has been in touch sharing with us their writing, events, experiences and recommendations, we really appreciate it. This month also saw us hold our AGM and we look forward to sharing more about this with you in our April newsletter.

Hannah West
Chair of the Defence Research Network

See the full newsletter here: Recruiting and Interviewing the Military Community

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