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Welcome to the Green Career Tip of the Week
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Online Version of this Issue Green Career Tips Archive
Are you ready to take action in finding your green career? Carol is available for you! New teleclasses start all the time. Find out more in the Highlighted Events section.
Do you want insight into the big picture of the green economy? This week's tip shares what Carol learned while creating the Green Economy Map.
In celebration of Thanksgiving, we will be taking Thanksgiving week off (from writing) next week! We’ll be back with a new newsletter on December 2nd. We can’t wait to announce the new projects we’ve been working on behind the scene!
We are incredibly grateful for the support and interest from you, our subscribers and members. We wish you and your loved ones a wonderful holiday weekend.
Happy Thanksgiving!
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Highlighted Event: Upcoming Events for Fall 2009
If one of the events below interests you, click through to the Web site for details.
Five Ways to Tap into Your Green Network: Locally and Online
Thursday, Nov 19th at 6 pm Pacific
$19/member and $29/non members
Do you want to take your green network to the next level? When the job market is as tight as it is right now, your network is likely to be the most productive way to find job openings in your area. It’s never too early to build or strengthen your green network! Join us for this teleclass, where Carol will help you dig into the details of building your own network. This is not an introductory call but rather an in-depth call for those ready for more! Because there will be fewer people on this call, we will be opening the phone lines so Carol may answer your questions live and you may all share ideas.
Click here for more information.
 Manage Your Mindset: How to Succeed in the Green Economy
A Free Teleclass
Wednesday, Dec 2nd at 6 pm Pacific
Are you having difficulty navigating your way into the green economy? Are you feeling alone or isolated in your journey to your green career? In this free teleclass, Carol reveals how understanding the green economy will help you move forward, build momentum, and succeed in the new economy.
Click here for more information.
Tip of the Week: Five Ways You Can Leverage Unique Qualities of the Green Economy
Since March 2007 when I started researching my first Green Career Central product, I’ve been absorbed with making sense of all the different green jobs, green functions, green industries, and green sectors. As I reviewed green job boards in 2007 it became clear to me that each site was using a different system to structure their job listings.
I figured that if I found it frustrating and confusing to go from one job board to the next, job seekers were most likely having the same problem. Frustration, overwhelm and confusion are not the best way to build confidence about one’s job search!
In the last 2.5 years, I’ve been searching for a visual image that would give green career seekers, students, and career counselors a clear sense of the industries and sectors that make up the green economy.
- I started out with a collection of columns that reflected different categories of green industries. As we added more and more industry profiles to Green Career Central, we discovered the silo categories didn’t hold up at all.
- Next came a multi-layered grid that worked for a while, until I realized that various industries belong next to each other because they are related.
- Then in September, my grid concept morphed into a pie chart.
In all, I drafted 11 different green economy maps before I developed Version 12 of the Green Economy Map, which we will launch soon!
Insights I’ve Gained While Building the Green Economy Map
Interconnectedness
One of my most pivotal observations was that the industries and sectors within the green economy are interconnected. You can’t talk about renewable energy without considering the smart grid. You can’t fully define the smart grid without also thinking through the role of information technology (IT) and green building. And so on.
Your Take Away: As you begin exploring your target industry, be sure to familiarize yourself with related industries. In addition to gaining valuable information about your industry, you may discover opportunities in new aspects of your industry that you haven’t considered yet.
Collaboration
A corollary of Interconnectedness is Collaboration. To find solutions to the problems we face, we must cross boundaries and establish new ways to collaborate. Bringing a group of people with different backgrounds into a discussion about a joint problem is really the only way to make progress toward a solution. New alliances and partnerships, as well as new ways to state the problems at hand, are opening up doors between industries, professions, and fields of study. Such cross fertilization is leading to amazing instances of innovation and discovery.
Your Take Away: Reach outside your immediate field as you build your network. To strengthen your position in your field, you want to be known as someone with great connections. Someone who knows just the right person to ask, or has just the right resources to apply in a situation. In the green economy this means building relationships with contacts in a wide variety of industries and sectors. As you develop your network notice who is willing and able to step beyond the confines of their own field or profession to explore a problem or situation in another field. Your contacts that are able to interact at this level will be very valuable to you as you build your green career.
Defining What the Industry Is Made of
As I discussed previous drafts of the Green Economy Map with green career seekers, career development professionals, and industry experts, it became clear that understanding the scope of a particular industry was critical to understanding how it fit into the whole picture. Making decisions about an industry based on a brief description was not fruitful. The process of digging deeper to understand the components of the industry, and to look at how all the components worked together to create the industry, led to much greater clarity.
Your Take Away: When you are in the early stages of understanding your target industry, make sure you grasp the components that make up the industry. Although many people use broad terms to describe the kind of career they want, saying you want to work in renewable energy, the smart grid, or green manufacturing isn’t enough. Each one of these industries or sectors is multi-faceted. Your skills may be useful in several different areas within each industry. The more you know about the components that make up the industry, the more career opportunities you’ll see for yourself.
Constant Evolution
Although the main stream media may have you wondering if the green economy exists, exploring your target industry will prove to you that movement is happening in the green economy. Granted, some industries are developing in faster, more visible, and more quantifiable ways than others. Most of the industries I researched while writing Green Careers For Dummies were making discernible headway. Furthermore, signs of continued growth and development are also clearly evident as professional and trade associations talk about their plans for the future.
Your Take Away: Now is the time to begin tracking developments in your target industries. Even if you aren’t able or willing to make a career change right now, becoming familiar with the developments in your industry will give you a strong foundation that you can leverage when you are ready to make your move. I’ve found that watching an industry unfold gives me a much deeper understanding. I can then follow the logic of insider discussions about future trends more fully, and I’m better able to spot trends myself.
Can’t Find Everything You Need
As I researched various green industries for my book, I came across industries that weren’t developed enough for me to fill in all the blanks in my standard profile. I could see signs that the industry was moving in a green direction, but I couldn’t find a sufficient number of job titles, professional associations, or future trends. When this was the case I had to step back to determine what I really knew about the industry. In some cases I grouped two related industries into the same section, in other cases I wrote a short side bar to give readers the information I found, even though it wasn’t as complete as I would have liked. Although this turn of events always frustrated me, I had to accept that in that moment the industry was not developed enough to profile. There wasn’t much I could do about it except continue to watch for future developments.
Your Take Away: Given the early stage of so many of the green industries, you may worry about the lack of information or resources about your target industry. You may not be able to fill in all the gaps in your understanding through Internet research alone. The answers you are looking for may not be recorded yet. You may need to connect the dots through conversations you have, classes you take, books you read, and blogs you follow. Although your first inclination may be frustration, consider how your perspective might be different if you viewed that same gap as potential for opportunity.
Being on the cutting edge of a new economic revolution has its pros and cons. Sometimes the cons associated with the constantly evolving, early stage industries seem to outweigh the positives in our minds. We get so caught up in the fact that WE don’t know something that we forget that NO ONE knows everything about everything in the green economy. It’s precisely for this reason that opportunities abound! If you have the determination, fortitude, and creativity to follow your threads of interest until they begin to weave together, you’ll witness the unfolding of your future career.
Green industries are taking shape, developing, and maturing…right now! Begin (or continue) your exploration so that you can get in on the bottom floor.
Copyright © 2009 Transition Dynamics Enterprises, Inc.
Update
One way to deepen your understand of an industry in the green economy is to become an industry tracker for Green Career Central. We are just about to put out our third call for applications for our Industry Tracker program. There are still plenty of fascinating industries to track.
If you’d like to become a Green Career Central Industry Tracker, signup here.
Green Career Central Blog:
Green Career Trends: Trends this week include a new resource for clean tech start-ups searching for federal money, a move toward more green building, a wind turbine inspired by bee wings (!), and new forms of solar collectors including a solar curtain.
Follow the Green Money: Bioenergy, electric vehicle charging stations, waste heat recovery, and building materials from milk jugs all received major financing this week. Check out the recipient companies!
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.
  
"It's a hard to find an investment these days that pays for itself many times over but the annual fee for joining Green Career Central is certainly worth every penny. The process laid out is structured and easy to follow. It takes you through the steps to get a truer understanding what your interests and skills are and makes you excited about researching your career options, while giving you a sense of progress and accomplishment. The weekly tips and "how to" resources on the website are time saving and are in of themselves an invaluable resource. Thanks Carol."
~WG Becoming an Energy Systems Consultant
Read what other members are saying about Green Career Central here....
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This Week's Drawing for a
30-Day Trial Membership: cjohn
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.
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What's New at GreenCareerCentral.com
Preview: Green Economy Map
Although we aren’t quite ready to launch our new Green Economy Section of the site quite yet, we are getting close! This map will enable you to see the whole green economy and then click to explore various industries and sectors of the green economy. Hopefully we’ll be ready to unveil our new green economy map when we return from Thanksgiving. Keep watch!
Green Career Central Discussion Forum
Ask a question, let us know about a green event in your area, answer a question someone else has posted. Join the conversation!
Prepare for Your Green Career
Are you looking for some ideas on how you can prepare yourself to move into your green career goal? Choose the link to find suggestions you are looking for:
Did You Know...
...if you missed a Tip of the Week, you can read the archived publications?
Green Career Tips Archive
About Us
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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 eighteen 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. Carol is currently writing Green Careers for Dummies, which will be available in bookstores in late January/early February 2010.
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!
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Copyright (c) 2007-2009. Transition Dynamics Enterprises, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Green Career CentralTM is a trademark of Transition Dynamics Enterprises, Inc
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