Penned by Christina

As applicants feel more and more desperate in applying to jobs, the old adage about quality over quantity holds truer than ever.  As you job search, consider that it is better to narrow your search to those positions that you are really interested AND those that you are actually qualified for.

These days, most positions are being filled with those that hit all the requirements and then some. I most certainly believe in aiming high and definitely don’t want to be a Debbie Downer, but being realistic about positions in the current job market will save you effort and should better your chances of getting the positions that you do apply for.

Consider a couple points to keep in mind as you’re searching:

• Do you fit the job description? If the job description lists 3-5 years experience of Smart Grid technology as a requirement and you are just graduating from undergrad, that is likely not a good match for you and by applying you may come across as lacking judgment. (Certainly, an unfortunate biproduct.)
• If you do fit, make it obvious!  Trying to match your background to the requirements shouldn’t be a game of memory for the hiring manager.  The less work you create for him, the better the chances that your resume will be read closely.  Mapping your skills to the job requirements is important – see Raj’s previous post.  You can do this well by really understanding what the position entails which yes, will require research, networking, etc.
• Keep cover letters short and applicable.  Again, this is a great place to highlight specifically how your background matches the requirements to be successful in the position, but if it’s too long, the reader will skim and value will be lost.

Next week: how to narrow and maximize your networking.

If you want to learn more about this in a personalized career coaching session, let us know – we’d be happy to help!

Happy St. Patty’s Day – our favorite Bright Green holiday.  If you’re celebrating, follow Tom’s example and be safe and be green!

Penned by Nick

Yesterday, due to popular demand, we launched our Career Coaching service to offer individuals 1-on-1 consultations.

Choose your flavor — $57 for 30 minutes, or $97 for 60 minutes — and enjoy a generous, fun, professional portion of career counseling, courtesy of Bright Green Talent.

Though this announcement itself is hardly newsworthy, the back story on why we’ve brought this service to the fore, well, that’s worth delving into:

Recruiters live somewhere between lawyers and tax collectors on the professional reputation scale — nearly universally reviled, we’re ultimately seen as a necessary evil. Many charge too much for services that oftentimes seem unprofessional and unscientific. There’s little transparency in the industry, and even fewer firms have innovated in the sector.

Candidates also conventionally dislike recruiters. Most candidate-recruiter interactions feel like the exchange of a $1 bill: something done quickly in order to consummate a transaction, with little personal appeal. The industry’s ethics industry, are questionable at best. Having worked in the field for 15 months, I’ve seen enough to make a dead executive turn in his grave. “Bait and switch” tactics where recruiters say they have a candidate just to get a job order, only to then say “the candidate took another job, but I’ll find you another one” are rampant.

Bright Green Talent has always aimed to  set new ethical and practical standards in the recruiting industry, building our practice around helping people find meaningful careers. With the launch of our Career Coaching service, we take another step in this direction. We’ve always been focused on building long-term relationships with candidates. By sharing with candidates what we’ve learned from sending folks on over 500 interviews in the last year, we hope to improve others’ chances of getting a green job, and also increase transparency in the field.

This is a small step towards a more personal, professional service. More importantly, we’re moving towards a more human practice that reconnects people with quality, practical information on green jobs in hopes that we can start putting people back to work.

To learn more or sign up,  please visit www.brightgreentalent.com/career-coaching. As always, we’re happy to help.

Penned by Carolyn

For the past few weeks, I’ve been rattling on about prepping yourself for the job search, meeting people, and generally avoiding disaster as you try to find a green job. However, if your job search is anything like mine was come March of my senior year, your mom probably isn’t really buying the “I’m taking it slow and making sure I do it right” excuse anymore.

Given everything I’ve said about students and grads having a hard time differentiating themselves, your resume and cover letter might be the only shot you have to do so, so you need to take some time on it and get it right.

So, with the usual disclaimer that everyone’s case is different, here are some general tips for what to include in your resume and what you should definitely leave out (more to come as Bright Green launches our green jobseeker services in the next week or two).

First things first: your resume should be one page. You shouldn’t have a two page resume until you’ve been out of school for ten years. People have short attention spans, so you need to get to the point.

Brag all you want:

• Awards and grants. Don’t be modest – if you won the international Rubiks Cube tournament or were named smartest student in the Slavic Studies department, play it up. Even better if you can say how many people you beat out for the award or grant.
• Concrete achievements. Include all the jobs, internships, and positions you’ve held in student groups.  More on how to present these next week.

Proceed with caution:

• A low GPA. No one requires you to include your GPA; if it’s not awesome, you don’t need to stress about not including it.
• Your SAT scores. Haven’t we all suffered enough for this test without bringing it into the job search? You took it at least 4 years ago, and it’s not even on the same scoring system anymore. If you got a perfect score, okay — but lay it to rest if your scores weren’t stellar.
• Discussions of religious/political beliefs. You don’t need to make your resume totally secular if you’ve been heavily involved in religious life or play down that you campaigned for your local congressperson, but your resume shouldn’t come across as any sort of manifesto.
• TMI (too much information) — like how much you love your girlfriend or how recently you’ve had a dental cleaning. If interests of yours aren’t obvious in your resume, you can list them at the bottom in a “Skills/Other interests” section, but think through how they’ll come across.

My rule of thumb: think about a 45-year-old reading your resume – channel someone like your 5th grade teacher. What makes you sound like a serious candidate, and what makes you sound ridiculous? (Hint: unless you can make some convincing arguments about what you learned about event planning, don’t just list all the frat parties you helped buy kegs for.)

Next week: how to actually write all of this up into one page of pure Bright Green genius.

Penned by Tom

I’m going to attack one of the simpler, yet one of the most important questions we’re asked tens if not hundreds of times every day: What’s the best way to find green jobs?

Now, I’m recruitment-company-biased, but I’ll try to leave that green hat aside for a minute and help you; whilst also re-donning the hat for a moment to introduce you to a new service we’re launching called our ‘Bright Greenhouse’, which aims to answer that question in a LOT more detail. Details to follow… but for the time being here are some of my top tips:

There ARE green jobs out there, but they’re not as prevalent as the media or Obama might have you believe. As such, it’s important to ensure that you’re using the right methods to go about finding a green job.

1) Use your experience, skills and network to open opportunities, rather than going cold to a new sector, company or people – personal connection is still one of the most powerful tools you have at your disposal. Use them wisely.

2) Think on your feet. Everybody and their mothers-brothers-dog knows how to use google or search a job board. Sit down in front of a blank piece of paper and create a simple strategy that plays to your strengths, examines your weaknesses and analyzes your differences. This will help you find your niche.

3) Do your homework. Read about and discuss green jobs for a while. If you’re new to the arena, you need to understand what you’re looking for before you leap in. Nothing pains the employer more than getting 100 resumes that are completely off track.

4) Be realistic, see point 3 above.

5) Network; there’s a plethora of events and opportunities to chat about green jobs…

And once you’ve got the opportunity in front of you:

6) Tailor your resume to the job you are applying for. If you’ve got a generic resume, it’s easy to spot and it does nothing for the person reading it. It makes them feel like they’re one of a hundred other people that have received it. Unless you’re one in a hundred of the people applying, it’s not going to get you noticed.

7) You have more avenues than a resume, ring the company to have a chat with the person hiring, if only for a couple of minutes. It’s one way to get noticed… but make sure you’re very careful about it. It could backfire.
PLAN FOR INTERVIEWS. Too many people think they can wing it. Too many people talk about themselves too much, rather than what they can do for the company!

9) Use a recruiter… even if they can’t respond to you individually, you never know – one day they might have a job that fits your skills and if you’re not registered with them, you’ll not find out! Damn, there’s that hat again.

Happy hunting (in the non-animal-killing sense).
Tom

Penned by Carolyn

Christina and I spent Tuesday morning at LaidOff Camp, an “unconference” aimed at helping unemployed people network and strategize about their job search and next steps. Around 500 people showed up at the first of these conferences – a whole slew of others are being planned around the country.

We had the chance to give a workshop on transitioning into the green sector. After giving some tips on where to start researching, networking, and learning, we turned to one of our favorite topics — paying it forward. At Bright Green, we’re trying to revolutionize the job search by educating jobseekers and connecting them with great, green opportunities. However, we can’t place everyone that comes to our door into a job, so we want you to realize the power you have to find a job and help others do so too. As we’ve discussed before, it’s really hard to find a job wholly on your own — you have a much better shot if you get a referral or meet someone and have an “in” with the company. Doing someone a favor by connecting them with a friend or acquaintance might not pay off for you right now, but we believe that it will come back around when you’re in need in the future. Simply put: create good will, create opportunity.

To facilitate this favor exchange, we used the “post-it exercise,” where everyone wrote a question or interest on a post it that they left on the wall. We encouraged people to check out those post-its during the day, and, if they felt they could help, to leave an email address. The hope is that everyone can pick up their post-it at the end of the day and have a group of folks to reach out to as they move their job search forward.

If you have success stories from “paying it forward” in your jobsearch, please leave us a comment –  we’d love to hear them!

Here are photos taken by Steve Rhodes. You can find the rest by searching Flickr for “brightgreentalent.com.”

With so much buzz around green jobs, journalists have been reaching out to us at Bright Green Talent to learn more about green jobs. Here are a couple recent hits:

• Today, Nick was featured on a TriplePundit post about Emerging Careers in the Solar Space.
• Carolyn discussed the youth climate movement and green job opportunities with Truthout.org.

Nick’s speaking today at Tufts’ Fletcher School and MIT Sloan; tomorrow he’s headed to Yale to speak with School of Management and School of Forestry and Environmental Studies students. Hope you can join him!

Penned by Christina

I have spent the last few weeks addressing those of you wanting to get into sustainability consulting. When it comes down to it, these jobs are relatively few in number. However, don’t despair: there are an unlimited number of other ways to have a positive impact through your work. Thus, I am thrilled to move on this week to talk about those other ways.

If you haven’t done this already, take a step back and consider where is it that you can have the greatest impact. I mentioned a book last week (Tempered Radicals: How Everyday Leaders Inspire Change at Work by Deborah Meyerson) that focuses on individuals creating change “from the inside” by successfully balancing a passion for radical change with an ability to conform to the norms of an organization. I have met a number of people from organizations such as The Gap, Whole Foods and Ford that have told me stories about how being a “tempered radical” in those organizations allowed them to bring about significant sustainability changes and initiatives. (Stay tuned as we bring you interviews with some of these people in the coming weeks!)

1. If you are currently employed, look around and take action! Whatever organization you’re in, whether it’s 5 people or 5,000, there are likely countless ways for you to carve out a sustainability-oriented project. Look for inefficiencies — people leaving the lights on, no composting, excessive airplane travel… and think about constructive, cost-effective ways to change these practices in your company. Sure, these projects might have to be done on your own time (ie, you’re not paid for them), but that’s worth it because it gets things moving in the right direction at the organization and it provides you with a project to talk about in the future – if you think about it, creating change from within a non-green organization is actually much harder than working on sustainability initiatives from within a green company. (Not to mention, “displaying initiative” is always a good thing…) And if things go really well who knows…that side project could grow into a full-time position! (It has happened.)
2. If you do have experience in a traditional discipline such as accounting or marketing, you may be able to impact a company, whether it is the one you currently work for you or another, by figuring out where you can infuse sustainability principles. (For example if you are an accountant, volunteering to help with your company’s CSR report or GRI initiative will get you plenty of exposure to a growing field.) This can be very effective but certainly requires you to do some homework to determine how to make that happen.
3. Whether you’re employed or not, it’s a great time to (strategically) volunteer. Look at organizations that are aligned with your dream job and start networking to get in there as a volunteer. Non-profits need a lot of help, given recent cuts in donations and funding. And remember, this is not limited to non-profit organizations. You should pitch a project proposal rather than just offer you time since this benefits you in two ways:

• You are more likely to be selected (since many organizations are being inundated by offers to work for free.)
• You are more likely to get a substantive project that you can utilize later in your job search.

Check out the Taproot Foundation, a great organization that matches folks with non-profit volunteer opportunities. Also, to move into solar, check out Grid Alternatives.

If you have other ideas about how to create change “from the inside” or success stories of doing so, feel free to post them here! More ideas next week.

Penned by Carolyn

Last week, I talked about how to meet people and up your chances of getting noticed in the resume pile.

However, it’s important to be sure you’re getting noticed for the right reasons — the way you interact with people is a great demonstration of your judgment and social wherewithal, and how you might fit in with a company. The first impression might be the only impression you get to make — and you’d be shocked how quickly word travels in the tight-knit community of green businesses and organizations.

We know you’re new to the job search process, and people are throwing advice at you from all angles on how to succeed. However, since we all have a morbid fascination with horror stories, here’s a list of people you really DON’T want to be remembered as.

Appearance:
- “The guy who looked vaguely homeless.” If you’re meeting people in person, dress nice. The green sphere is generally somewhat more casual, but people expect you to look neat and well put-together, even if you are currently living in a tent to reduce your carbon footprint.
- “The girl dressed for a frat party.” To state the obvious, don’t be showing too much skin – especially if you’re competing with a bunch of other students or recent grads and trying to present yourself as older and more mature.
- “Wait, which guy?” Everyone tends to wear muted colors or dark clothes when they interview or go to job fairs. Wear something unique — a bright color or an interesting necklace/accessory which might make you more memorable in a sea of jobseekers.

In conversation:
- “The guy who talked forEVER.” If you’re at a schmoozy event, don’t corner someone for 25 minutes, and, as tempting as it may be, don’t recite your senior thesis from memory. Converse. Ask smart questions.
- “The girl who asked me point blank for a job.” Be confident; don’t be too brash. If you have a good conversation with someone, get their card and follow up with an email the next day saying something along the lines of, “Great to meet you, enjoyed the conversation, I’m interested to hear more about your company and employment opportunities that might be available.” You’ll do even better if you have a favor to do for them in return — connecting them to someone you know, lending them your lawnmower, etc.
- “The guy who kept interrupting me.” As your mother always says, have manners and be a good listener. Also, make sure your conversation is relatively P.C. – if you don’t know the person that well, better to err on the side of not offending them, given that you don’t know their sensitivities.

Ethics:
- “The guy who fibbed.” Be honest! We can’t emphasize this enough: if there’s one thing that will automatically get you ruled out from a job, it’s getting caught in any sort of lie, even something that seems totally innocuous. As recruiters, we’ve dealt with this as candidates have tried to tell the company different stories than they’ve told us — and, given that there’s a lot of information sharing going on, it won’t go unnoticed.

Next week: a more positive spin on what you SHOULD do when you’re meeting folks. And start getting ready for our jobseeker resource center, the Greenhouse, to be launched within a few weeks.

Penned by Tom

A few weeks ago, we asked you to send in your questions… and you did, they poured in – thank you! Over the coming weeks, I’ll be trying to respond to some of these. 

What are the top skills required to work in the green economy?

Obviously the skills required vary according to the jobs you’re hunting for – yet there are some interesting constants within the green movement. We hear certain trends over-and-over from organizations hiring in this sector. These are not exhaustive, nor exclusive, but they’ll give you an idea of the themes out there:

• Experience is often as important as skills, unless you are applying for a highly skills-based position (i.e. solar engineer).
• Experience is almost always more important than education.
• Organizations want people who’ve got business experience, as well as environmental experience; thereby demonstrating a wider skill set.
• The ‘ideal’ candidate is often someone who combines the two of these.
• You can be too green. Organizations (including the non-profits) need people who understand how a business functions and is practical and realistic. If you refuse to use computers, fly or travel to work by car, for environmental reasons, you’re going to reduce the chances of getting many positions.
• General environmental degrees are useful, but won’t distinguish you from the best people out there without these degrees. i.e. someone with a masters in environmental studies won’t always trump someone with a top degree from a good school – although obviously every little bit helps.
• The top skills at the moment are generally specific to specialist roles, such as; engineering, solar technicians, energy assessors, planners.
• You can determine which of these are ‘hot’ or not by glancing over green job boards.
• Look through the recent moves by governments to stimulate interest in the green economy, there are clear trends that indicate which skills are in demand.
• Check Carolyn’s previous post about skills for students
• Also, see Raj’s post on technical (specifically solar) skills

Until next week!