There was a certain naiveté in the air when I went to my first academic conference. I thought that all I would have to do is to write a decent paper and to present it to the public. In retrospect this could have ended badly and I wish someone had intercepted me on the way to the airport and given me some key-warnings to know in advance. Thus, after this multifaceted experience, I thought to write the following points in a humble and only half-serious manner.

When you're starting out as undergraduate student, there is so much to think about and to remember that it can be hard to know how to manage your course load. With that in mind, these tips can help you balance your courses so that your undergraduate experience can be as rewarding and positive as possible.

Applying for an academic job, like in most other professions, requires a long and sometimes exhausting process of applications and interviews. And like in every other profession, every applicant wants to be as efficient as possible and quickly succeed in getting his or her dream job with as little effort and fuss as possible.

This month, INOMICS has launched a new feature giving customers more freedom to choose how long their Announcements should be promoted online. Now when you post, you can easily choose any duration for promotion from the date of posting up to your deadline.

Starting this month, customers posting jobs, courses, conferences, programs or scholarships on INOMICS can now edit and correct their Announcements any time after publication. Whether to correct a typo, update a date, or adjust a link, you can now easily access and update your INOMICS posts.

Successfully branding your institution among potential students, employees or conference attendees is not always an easy task. It requires multi-channel efforts, ranging from setting up an attractive and intuitive website, to being present in Social Media channels, to expanding your network and building the reputation of your institution through word of mouth.

When you want to learn a new language, there's no better way than to immerse yourself in that language's culture. If you have to use your new language for your everyday needs, for example in shops and restaurants, in dealing with paperwork, and for socialising, then you'll pick up language skills much more quickly than you would from casual use.

Spanish is spoken by more that 400 million people around the globe, which makes it the second-most common language in the world. So naturally, if you are considering learning a new language, then Spanish is a great choice as it will allow you to communicate with lots of people. It's well-known that immersing yourself in a culture is the fastest way to learn - but where is the best place to do this? Below we'll look at some suggestions for the best country in which to study Spanish.

One of the most common questions we receive from customers here at INOMICS is how to make sure their Announcement appears at the top of the page. In our never ending quest to please, this month we bring you some insight into how our listing pages (All Jobs, for example), are structured1.

How does a University create value? Can it be priced, monetized or measured by the products delivered by the University? For whom does the University create value? Susana Borras suggests that the main way to produce value is research1.  Moreover Robert Thornton mentions2 that a university can be run as a market institution, but ultimately the aim of tertiary education is the production and sharing of knowledge.

One big challenge for students who are studying internationally is dealing with language issues. If the native language of the country in which you're studying is not your own native language, it can be difficult to make the most of your studies. However, it can also be a fun opportunity to learn a new language and to pick up new language skills. Today we're offering some tips on dealing with language issues when studying abroad.

According to a recent OECD report on studying abroad, in 2012 more than 4.5 million students were enrolled in tertiary education outside their country of citizenship1. Pursuing higher-level education in a foreign country represents a superb opportunity for students not only to expand their knowledge in their discipline of interest but also to gain insight into other cultures, societies and languages. An international graduate has higher prospects in the labor market than a domestic student; moreover, as Michelle Obama mentioned in March 2014, companies have begun to realize the benefit that a study abroad experience can give to their employees: they are able to speak different languages, they have a sensitivity for people and they are more compassionate2.

Have you advertised an announcement recently and wondered how to make it even more attractive for potential candidates? While a detailed description, clear application requirements and interesting offer form the core of an announcement, it is a clever use of visuals that will make your advertisement really stand out.

Valuated at approximately $4.4 trillion in 20131, the education market is one of the largest markets of all and shows signs of continuing to. If some years ago pursuing a master’s degree was an extraordinary goal, nowadays many bachelor’s graduates consider a Master’s degree as a must, radically increasing the market size. Moreover, if we sum up the technological development of E-learning and the expansion of universities in the field of international cooperation and recruitment, the education sector looks very promising for continued fast growth, with at least 23% annual growth in the coming years according to the IBIS Capital investment bank.

Finding the best candidate for any open position at a university, research institution or bank is rarely as easy as ABC. In this case study, we look at ways to prepare your recruitment campaign to get the most suitable applicants with the least effort.

It often happens that potential students show interest in a specific program by visiting the webpage, pre-subscribing for the next semester, or sending enquiries via email, however the number of completed applications is much lower than the number of people interested. We decided to research this issue and discovered the factors potential Master’s students take into account when choosing a university and type of degree. What we found is that the possibility of receiving funding motivates potential applicants and develops added value for students.

When the first online reviews of consumer products appeared in the internet, they were often received with mistrust and had little affect on how consumer choices were made in reality. Over the past few years, however, the behavior of users and their interaction with product reviews has changed dramatically, and with rocket speed. According to last year’s research, 90% of respondents who read online reviews prior to a product purchase admitted that their decisions were influenced by positive online reviews, while 86% of respondents indicated that their choice was mostly influenced by negative reviews.

Continuing with last month’s topic, it is known that quality information increases student interest in universities. We pointed out the relevance of giving detailed information in the promotion of programs, courses and scholarships. If a prospective student finds quality information and thereby recognizes the value of an institution, he or she is more likely to apply and stay engaged with the university over a lifetime. So how else can universities provide information to their candidates?

When a student chooses a program, it’s not only a decision about a subject and place of study, but also a choice regarding future career. Such a choice has a big impact on students’ dreams, plans, budgets and decisions that affect their personal and social life for at least the next 2 or 4 years.

Based on our experience here at INOMICS, as well as by examining site usage statistics, we can confirm that the click through rate (CTR) on Standard jobs advertised in summer is significantly higher than throughout the rest of the year.

Globalization has changed the panorama of the education, giving more options to students to choose the place where they want to study next. Nowadays, students from all over the world can enroll in a program in destinations they had never imagined. Moreover, high quality of education, career options and discovering of new cultures encourage young people to increase the percentage of foreign students at prestigious universities around the globe.