I have learned a lot during the pandemic on how to find work and learned a ton about how to find work in Ecology over the years so I thought it may be helpful to have this information written down somewhere for others to find.....
1. Use the resources already out there Search the important job sites. Some you can set up to have them email you job updates -Texas AM Job Board (https://wfscjobs.tamu.edu/job-board/) -Conservation Job Board (https://www.conservationjobboard.com/) -The Wildlife Society (https://careers.wildlife.org/) -Indeed -Glassdoor -Any local organization you are interested in, for me it was a local science museum and the city job board for work like zoo or park jobs Check out this handy site! Step(h) into Nature https://stephintonature.com/nature-jobs Sign up for listservs, Facebook groups and other networking groups (Slack groups) -Wildlife Science Career Network on Facebook -Wildlife and Fisheries Job Board on Facebook -Women of Color in EEB (wocineeb.slack.com) Follow your favorite organizations and people on Twitter and Instagram. Follow petinant hashtags Contact friends for advice or people to connect with 2. Don't be afraid to reach out to someone you don't know BUT be polite please! Please google how to send a "cold call" email before you do it. Anyone in a professional job is highly busy and will not necessarily be thrilled to be interrupted for job advice so try to be grateful and polite. However, I have found that most people are very warm and supportive. This was a huge step for me in finding work and I truly benefited from it. I learned a lot about what I do not want in a career and also made wonderful connections, some of which are friendships now. 3. Get your online presence sparkling Create or update your LinkedIn, Twitter or Instagram Personally, I am a bit anti-social media which I am sure many other ecologists may agree with but these platforms have their utility and I have seen them get used for science in extremely cool ways. It is a neat way to get creative and show people who you are as a scientist (for some serious inspiration check out citizen scientist: Mycosymbiote at instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mycosymbiote/) 4. Be open to trying something new or not quite what you are looking for I have heard over the years that it takes 10 years of seasonal work to land a permanent position even with a M.S. While this may or may not be true the journey will not be as easy as other more common careers so consider what you are willing to give up and what you are able to manage as you pursue this career. My personal tactic was to pick up a M.S. then work seasonal jobs after that with not so ecology focused work in the off season. In the past two years I worked at a community college teaching part time, an ecology seasonal job NGO, Tesla factory, Amazon packer, and biotech diagnostics. I was not thrilled at most of these positions but they were suitable for the time and I learned some skills I wasn't expecting which have been quite helpful. Working at factories was a welcome change from the culture of academia. I made awesome friends that I miss dearly. Their struggles helped me realize how lucky I am to be pursuing a job I absolutely love. Very few people can actually do that. It's a gift. Working at factories also helped me get better at working in a dynamic, fast paced, and highly team oriented environment. This translated into excellent work ethic skills for biotech. In biotech I had a more comfortable salary which helped me to relax and search for ecology jobs more comfortably. It also helped me remember why I was in ecological science, which I had somehow forgotten over the years. I love ecology because it is a highly complex science. It requires teams of many different types of people from far ranging disciplines to collaborate and coordinate towards the common effort to restore our planet. It's a beautiful thing to be a part of and I wouldn't have it any other way.
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AuthorConducting infectious wildlife disease research and adventuring with my blue heeler rescues, Rango and Bandit Archives
May 2022
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