|
Tip of the Week | Blog | Upcoming Events | What's New | About | Subscription
Welcome to the Green Career Tip of the Week
|
Online Version of this Issue Green Career Tips Archive
If you are a career counselor please read our special announcement below. For more information, read the Highlight Announcement section.
Want a green career, but not sure where to start? This week's article shows you where and how to start your green career!
Did you get a f.r.e.e month on the Green Career Central site this week? Scroll down to see if the beginning of your email is next to the treasure chest. We do this every week!
Highlighted Announcement
Are You a Career Counselor?
We have just launched a version of our newsletter that’s just for you. You’ll receive the same articles plus announcements and opportunities specifically designed for you!
Begin by downloading our free report,
Green Career Resources for Career Counselors.
If you've downloaded the free report for Career Counselors and our Six Strategies to Find Your Green Career report, you may be receiving two copies of the newsletter. If so, you may click "unsubscribe or change email options" at the bottom of any newsletter. You may then unsubscribe to the "greencareer" list and continue your subscription to the "careercounselor" list to continue receiving the newsletter especially designed for you!
Tip of the Week: I Want a Green Career… Where Do I Start?
At the Green Career Conference I facilitated a break out session entitled Brainstorming Solutions to Your Job Search Frustrations. As I began the breakout session I asked all of the participants to write down their main frustration with their own green job search.
As I sorted through the cards I noticed an immediate theme… Where Do I Start? This trend also appears in emails I receive, people I talk to after presentations, and people I talk to by phone.
Understanding the Landscape of the Green Economy
First you need to grasp that the green economy is growing, changing and evolving all the time. What’s true today may or may not be true next year, the year after that, or five years from now. While that may be a bit uncomfortable, it also means there are plenty of opportunities.
A number of interacting factors are impacting how the green economy is taking shape. Governmental policies, the availability of capital for research and business start up, and incentives and costs of carbon, are just a few of the factors that are coming together to influence green industry. As time passes we’ll see some industries grow while others to shrink. It’s impossible to predict at this moment.
Action You Can Take: Begin paying attention to news about the green economy. Gain a general understanding of what is happening. The more you read and the more you listen, the more you will understand. It’s critical that you begin this process immediately so that you are well informed when you enter the green economy. This doesn’t need to take much time. Read a few blogs, your local or regional newspaper, and a newsletter or two.
Determining Your Green Focus
The green economy is a huge ocean of possibilities. It is impossible to track, investigate, and understand all aspects of this immense universe. If you try, it’s likely you’ll be swept away with more information than you can possibly interpret.
The key to your success is your ability to identify your green niche. Now before you panic, let me explain. If you think of the green economy as a huge pie, you want to determine, based on your passions, interests, talents, and experience, which slice of the pie is a good fit for you. This slice can be a sizable segment of the green economy at this point. For example, you may determine that you are interested in green building or sustainability. With this information about your slice of the pie, you can begin to focus your attention and energy.
Determining your green niche is a process. I advocate starting the journey by creating a list of your 20 favorite skills and your 20 favorite interests. If you are leaping to focus on the first green industry that comes to mind or the industry that’s getting the most press right now, then you are sabotaging your own success. You want to start with a very rich list of clues to your future career. From there you’ll be able to see themes and trends that will point you in the right direction. (If you’d like help creating your lists of skills and interests and finding out the best way to use your list to identify your niche, check out the What’s Your Green Niche ebook below. If you are a Green Career Central member, you have access to this ebook as part of your membership.)
Action You Can Take: As you build your lists, focus on your interests and fascinations at the beginning. Keep your list near by as you notice what draws your attention during the week. What stories are you drawn to read? What topics do you enjoy talking about? What skills do you like to use during your work day and your personal activities?
As you build your list, don’t worry about how everything will come together. In fact, don’t buy into the assumptions you are making about how much money you can (or can’t) make addressing a particular topic or using a specific skill. You’ll have plenty of time later to investigate the realities of your potential career ideas.
Immerse Yourself in Your Target Industry/Profession
As soon as you’ve identified the slice of the piece you want to investigate, you can begin making progress toward your green career. With your focus in mind, you’ll be able to identify:
• What to read
• What meetings to attend
• What to learn
• Who to talk with
• What experiences to add to your resume
Action You Can Take: Don’t try to implement everything at once. Create goals for yourself based on the time you have available. Does it make sense to set a goal for each week or each month? By predetermining your focus for the week or month, you’ll know what to do whenever you have some spare time. Having that plan in mind will save you a lot of time because you won’t have to figure out how to use your time each opportunity you have.
Another strategy is to ask yourself, “what one thing can I do today to move me closer to my goal?” If you don’t have much time, perhaps you can read one of your target blogs. If you have more time perhaps you can read a book or take a course.
Keep at it. As you learn more about your target industry/profession, you’ll identify key contacts, target companies, training requirements, and most importantly, possible job openings. The more you know about your target industry/profession and the green economy in general, the better prepared you will be to make sense of the information you learn.
Your Time Line
Finding your way into the green economy is a journey. It’s not likely to happen instantaneously. Depending on your target green niche, you may find a position in a few weeks, months, or even years. Some of the jobs in the green economy haven’t even been defined yet. This time lag gives you the opportunity to explore your ideas and research your opportunities.
Action You Can Take: If you are currently out of work, I strongly recommend that you find an interim job to tide you over financially. When you have income you’ll be able to take the time to invest in your green career future.
If you are employed, do what you can to green your resume. You might be able to green current work, get involved in local green community projects, and take classes.
The green economy wave is just beginning to swell. Now is the time to do what you can to get in position to be able to make the leap into the green economy when the time is right for your target industry and profession.
Copyright © 2008 Transition Dynamics Enterprises, Inc.
"GCC's process was incredibly helpful in getting me started in a new career direction. The worksheets and brainstorming exercises in the What's Your Green Niche ebook helped me realize I already had the skills to launch a new green career. Today, less that four months later, I have a terrific salary doing business development for energy and environmental projects. Thanks to Green Career Central, my dream of merging my personal conviction with professional life came true."
-- Kelly Fergusson
Menlo Park Councilmember (Mayor, 2007) turned Business Development Manager of Energy & Environmental Solutions |
Are You Searching for Your Green Niche?
You know you want a green career, but do you know what you want to do in the green economy?
The key to discovering your green niche is pinpointing how to leverage your skills, passions, talents and experience to plug into the green economy.
When you know what part of the economy you want to target, you’ll have an entirely new level of clarity. With that new clarity, your current level of overwhelm and confusion will decrease.
The What’s Your Green Niche eBook eBook takes you through a step-by-step process to determine your green niche. Here's a list of some of the things you'll gain as you work through this eBook. You'll:
- Create your personal definition of success.
- Discover how you know what you are drawn to.
- Develop a list of your 40 favorite skills and interests with the help of checklists.
- Brainstorm over 40 career ideas based on your favorite skills and interests in an hour or so.
- Narrow your career ideas to your top two ideas.
- Develop a plan to achieve your green career goals whether you want to return to school, launch your job search, or start your business.
Members - Download (part of membership)
Non-Members - $55.00 |
Green Career Central Blog:
Green Career Trends: This week’s trends highlight local green developments in New York City, California and Santa Fe. Any green initiatives taking off in your region? Let us know by leaving a comment on the blog.
Green Career Central's Global Photo Tour: India As all eyes have turned to India this week in response to the tragedy brought on by terrorists, I thought it would be good to turn our eyes to learn more about India.
Membership Has Its Advantages!
The discussion forum topic, audios, ebook, and articles listed below are available to members of GreenCareerCentral.com as a part of their membership. If you're not a member and would like to have immediate access, we'd love to have you join us now!
Green Career Central is a membership site with a comprehensive set of easy-to-use programs, resources, and events to help people achieve their green career dreams whether they want to find a green job, start a green business, or get a green education.
  
"I want to thank you for your service, it was helpful to me in my job search. The regular, cheerful, hopeful messages gave me courage every week to keep looking and doing what I believed in. Your very specific advice also made it clearer and clearer in my mind what I needed to do. Even though I generally understood the basic principals prior to subscribing, the regular reminder, and repeated messaging and refining each detail in more and more clarity was very helpful.
I've accepted a position that is really my dream green job. In my new role, I am part of a small group working to build The Nature Conservancy's capabilities to leverage conservation know-how across and beyond The Nature Conservancy's programs to achieve conservation results at an unprecedented scale. I love doing this work, and I thank you for giving me the courage to keep finding a place I believed in to share my skills.
Thank you!"
~ Anne, El Cerrito, CA
Read what other members are saying about Green Career Central here....
|
|
This Week's Drawing for a
30-Day Trial Membership: griffdb
If this is the beginning of your email address, contact us with a subject line of "Trial Membership" and we'll tell you how to get signed up for your 30-day trial membership to GreenCareerCentral.com. You must reply within 2 weeks of the date of this newsletter.
Current Members...you didn't think we'd leave you out, did you? If you see the beginning of your email address, we'll add one more month to your membership.
|
What's New at GreenCareerCentral.com
New Map of the Green Economy
In case you missed this new content in last week’s newsletter during the holiday week, we wanted to rerun this new content announcement:
As I was preparing for one of my presentations this month, I had an insight that allowed me to create a one page table that provides a broad-brush map of the green economy. Take a look. Let me know what you think. Hopefully this “work in progress” will provide you with some new insights about the options that are available within the green economy. We plan to keep working on this table, we’ll let you know when we have the next version for you.
Download the Green Career Map
Articles
Thinking of owning your own green business or greening a business you already own?
Check out the articles to help you Go Green!
New Job Listings
Click here to get the details about several positions we've just learned about.
Did You Know...
...if you missed a Tip of the Week, you can read the archived publications?
Green Career Tips Archive
About Us
|
|
Green Career CentralTM is a virtual career center for motivated professionals who are ready to find a green career that fully expresses their passions, skills, values, and talents.
Carol McClelland, PhD, founder and Executive Director of Green Career Central, has helped thousands of people discover their dream career through her book Your Dream Career For Dummies and her work with individuals, groups, and students. Together with her team of experts, researchers and writers, Carol has pulled together sixteen years of experience into a broad collection of how-to articles, resources, support, and teleclasses to help you find your way to make a difference and prosper.
Why not have the green career you've been dreaming of? You can struggle on your own or gain support throughout your journey. The decision is obvious ... Join Us Now!
|
Copyright (c) 2007-2008. Transition Dynamics Enterprises, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Green Career CentralTM is a trademark of Transition Dynamics Enterprises, Inc
PO Box 354, Menlo Park, CA 94026
650 322 8661 | Contact
Subscriber Information
|
