3p Contributor: Frank Marquardt
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Book Review: The BIG BGT Guide to Getting a Green Job
Bright Green Talent’s foray into e-book publishing is a useful—and free—compendium of tips and tricks for getting a green job, from experts in green job placement.
Written with a bias toward the recent college graduate, the straight-talking BGT Guide to Getting a Green Job opens with a no-nonsense overview of the challenges of getting a green job: everybody wants one. Fortunately, those graduating, or recently graduated, have some advantages: youth is at a premium in the green sector, you have few commitments tying you down and you probably know something about sustainability if only by osmosis, because it’s a hot topic at universities.
Bright Green Talent should know something about the green job search: It’s a search firm that offers green career coaching services and a host of resources for finding a green job.
It shouldn’t surprise readers, then, that there’s a self-promotional interlude in the book, directing readers to send them their resume, sign up for career coaching, follow the blog, and use a recruiter. The Bright Green Talent blog, in particular, provides relevant, inside information about the green market, and gets a big endorsement from this reviewer.
But not all of this make sense, especially for an entry-level job seeker.
An Interview with Gordon Laird, Author of “The Price of a Bargain”
Gordon Laird’s new book, The Price of a Bargain: The Quest for Cheap and the Death of Globalization, looks at the global forces that have given rise to cheap goods. In the process, he identifies a series of instabilities that will very likely bring this phase of cheap consumer goods to a close, while also shifting the economic center of the world away from the United States toward China and the Middle East.
Triple Pundit talked to Baird, a media fellow emeritus for the Sheldon Chumir Foundation for Ethics in Leadership and an author whose other books include Power: Journeys Across an Energy Nation and Return of the Trojan Horse, about The Price of a Bargain.
Triple Pundit: What is The Price of a Bargain about?
Gordon Laird: At some level, it’s about interdependence. Since the 1970s, globalization has accelerated. It created new value for many people and conjoined national economies in the process, but also created new risk and crisis. Whether we like it or not, our world has been entwined in ways that are still mysterious to us, in ways that link our fortunes with those of Chinese factory workers. And a surprising amount of our prosperity is leveraged on having access to cheap energy, offshore labor, shipping, and consumer credit.
Book Review: The (True) Price of a Bargain
On the way to visit a friend Thanksgiving weekend my car broke down, and I found myself at a Pep Boys in Rohnert Park, CA, wandering a vast parking lot. Big Box superstores stretched from one end to another: A Home Depot and Wal-Mart. In between, like an isthmus, was Pep Boys, Dollar Tree, and a discount beauty supply store. Islands at the parking lot’s entry housed fast food restaurants: an Arby’s (offering a $1 value menu), Burger King (offering a $1 double cheeseburger), and Chili’s, where I sat waiting the outcome of a battery test, eating smoked chicken tacos that would upset my stomach for an afternoon.
There not far from wine country, right off the 101, I had found myself stranded in the heart of the bargain, one of many that dot the American landscape: a coincidence of global circumstances linked by cheap hydrocarbons, global logistics networks, and the exploitation of global price differentials among wage-earners and for materials that feeds a consumer economy running up massive debts, both financial and environmental.
At least, that’s how I understood the situation after reading Gordon Laird’s impressively reported new book, The Price of a Bargain: The Quest for Cheap and the Death of Globilization.
How to Change Careers: “Job’s Aren’t Hot, People Are.”
An increasing number of job seekers have been attending green jobs conferences and networking events and reading a burgeoning list of green career guides as part of an effort to transition into a job where they feel good about their work.
Too often they run into one of several common challenges that end up derailing their search and undermining their confidence: They’re rejected, find employers indifferent to their resume, or are totally ignored by headhunters or the companies to which they apply.
If this sounds familiar, Nick Corcodilos’s 36-page e-book, How Can I Change Careers? might help. Organized as a series of topical essays with a crib sheet at the end, it offers easy to read, harder-to-apply advice that goes beyond the simplified and watered-down ideas in many career guides to get to the truth of what makes a career switcher a good hire. Corcodilos, author of the excellent Ask the Headhunter career guide and curator of a rather busy website, also shows you how to get there.
While short, this “answer kit” is to the point and offers a smart strategy for career change—and should be very useful for those already passionate about working in some sector of the green economy. And while $12.95 may sound like a lot for such a short book, it offers narrowly focused, actionable advice from an expert in the process of career change that make it a worthwhile investment for the right buyer.
Capitalizing On Sustainability: Partnership Capital Growth
Wall Street’s spectacular implosion in 2008—illustrated by the failure and subsequent sale of Bear Stearns to JP Morgan and, soon thereafter, the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers and the government’s spectacular bailout soured many on Wall Street’s Masters of the Universe.
But investment banks don’t just trade credit-default swaps and collateralized debt obligations. They also help companies raise capital—often taking shares in companies themselves—while providing sector-specific expertise. Their backing makes it possible for industries like technology to flourish.
They will also play a role in the expansion of the sustainable economy.
Enter the Boutique Investment Bank
Clean Careers: Clean Tech Job Trends 2009
Finding a clean tech job just got a little easier.
CleanEdge’s excellent new report, Clean Tech Job Trends 2009, which is a sort of companion to its annual Clean Energy Trends report, offers those looking for a clean tech job—as well as those curious about the sector—an excellent introduction to the trends and opportunities ahead, as well as key resources for getting one’s search in motion.
Written by Ron Pernick and Clint Wilder, authors of The Clean Tech Revolution, the report details an increasingly well-funded area of industrial activity that’s growing at above average rates. And with clean-tech job growth a focus of the Obama Administration as well as that of Chinese President Hu Jintao—and aggressive clean-tech job creation going on in the Brazil, the European Union, India, and Japan—this growth is certain to continue.
Conscientious Capitalism: The B Corp Annual Report
Corporations solve problems. Their solutions address human needs: A better running shoe, a faster search engine, a renewable way to produce energy. Sales—ultimately, profits—provide the primary measure for determining the success of these solutions.
But a corporation’s solutions (whether a product or service) do much more than simply produce profits. Sometimes for better and sometimes for worse, the activities of a corporation also significantly affect the environment and the lives of the people in the communities where the corporation operates.
Still, the metrics for corporate success remain financial. Companies that make money: Good. Companies that lose money: Bad.
Laws back up the financial metric. In states that include California and Delaware, when companies go up for sale, board members are required by law to consider what will bring the highest financial return. Issues like social good or environmental stewardship are simply not part of the equation.
Clean Tech Training for All
Just five years ago, there were a mere handful of educational and training programs available for those interested in clean tech, primarily in advanced-degree university programs. Today, there are hundreds, if not thousands, with new ones popping up every day as a result of stimulus funds flowing to colleges and universities to fund green jobs training.
These programs are targeted to candidates at every level of experience, from those with a GED to engineering and chemistry graduates looking to develop next generation solar technologies. And while a clean tech training program won’t guarantee you a job in the industry, it will help you stand out—and deliver marketable skills as stimulus money gets spent.
Van Jones in Newsweek and on Glenn Beck
Even Van Jones recognizes there’s no unified definition of a green job.
And as a senior advisor to the White House Council on Environmental Quality and founder and former executive director at Green for All, a national organization working to build an inclusive economy, Jones is about as definitive a source as you can find.
That’s why those tracking new developments in green jobs should check out Daniel Stone’s interview with Jones in this week’s Newsweek. Despite the lack of a consensus definition of what constitutes a green job, $60 billion of the recovery package going to fund them.
The Carbon Salary Survey
The first annual Carbon Salary Survey provides a valuable global snapshot of salaries and opportunities for those interested in entering a climate change-related field.
A few of the results: Men are making an average of 23% more than women, more than three-fourths report feeling satisfied with their jobs, and 68% feel equally or more secure in their jobs than they did a year ago.
The report – put out by Acona, a consulting firm; Acre Resources, a recruitment firm; and Thomson Reuters – draws on responses from 1,157 participants to paint a general picture of opportunities in a wide range of climate change roles, including energy efficiency, biomass, project development, and power generation.
The sample includes individuals from multiple industry sectors, a variety of functions, and from around the globe. The report includes short (and general) job descriptions of the top ten roles, looks at team size (80% of respondents work on teams of ten people or less), and education (23% of respondents have a bachelor degree in a climate change-related subject, 44% in a non-related subject, and 67% have higher degrees).
And the salaries? The average across the sample was $75,901, with half the respondents making between $40,000 and $100,000. In North America, the average salary was just shy of $100,000 ($99,995). In Australasia, the average salary was $92,812, and it was $77,291 in the UK, $78,059 in Europe, and $56,609 in Africa.
Learn more about carbon careers by reading Emerging Opportunities: Carbon Markets.
Green Jobs By the Numbers
“Two thousand nine will be a tough year,” Jigar Shah, founder of Sun Edison, wrote me in an email. “It will take the entire year for the solar industry to reorient itself to the new rules of the game. In the meantime, the third and fourth quarter will help us make up for a weak first quarter, but not enough to produce overall growth in 2009.” Shah doesn’t expect hiring in the solar industry to pick up until 2010.
Still, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 targets $11 billion for a smart grid, $2.3 billion for advanced battery technology, $6.3 billion to states and local governments for greater energy efficiency, guarantees $60 billion in loans for renewable energy power generation and electric transmission projects, and $2.5 billion for energy research. As that money gets spent, it should boost hiring and the economy with it.
Solar Rising: Top 10 Utilities
In 2008, tight credit and reigned-in consumer spending slowed the march of solar in the residential and commercial markets. But the just-released, second-annual Solar Electric Power Association report, 2008 Top Ten Utility Solar Integration Rankings, shows the steady growth of solar at utilities nationwide.
Installed Capacity Up 25 Percent
The report looks at how much solar was interconnected in calendar year 2008 and cumulative solar installations through the end of 2008, and includes both photovoltaics and concentrating solar power. Ninety-two utilities participated (out of some 3,000 nationwide), representing an 80 percent participation rate increase over the 2007 study – though it’s worth noting that participating utilities generally self-select into the survey as a result of having active solar programs.
Results show an average increase of 2 megawatts among participating utilities over the year, enough to offset the use of over 300 homes on an annual basis. Overall installed capacity of the utilities that participated in the study rose 25 percent, from 711 megawatts to 882.
How to Work with a Clean Tech Recruiter
Say you gave notice, the economy be damned. Or you took the corporate buy-out offer and want to take your considerable skill set and apply it to world-changing (and potentially lucrative) work at a renewable energy startup. Or you just finished a workshop with Solar Energy International and are looking to implement phase-two of your job-change program (i.e., the find-a-job part).
And you’re trying to get a clean tech recruiter to take notice.
What do you need to know?
Start with the Facts
“Our business, we don’t have a magic bullet to create jobs,” says Dawn Dzurilla, President and Founder at Gaia Human Capital Consultants, a retainer-based executive search firm. “We work with those who we think we can earn a living working with, even in the green economy.”
That’s right – clean tech recruiters are businesspeople, too.
Fortunately, a number of firms offer services that go beyond retained or contingent search. (Retained search means a company is paying the search firm to fill its vacancies. Contingent search means the search firm is paid only when it places a candidate; contingent firms typically work with dozens of companies.)
Inside Job: Making Your Impact at Work
Net Impact’s new report Making Your Impact at Work: A Practical Guide to Changing the World From Inside Any Company offers fresh ideas for greening your job without finding a new one.
And it reinforces a commonplace among career counselors: Volunteering and taking the initiative to do what you’re passionate about is one of the smartest ways to gain new skills and advance your career.
The free report – and accompanying case studies and discussion, available to Net Impact members – shows how intrapreneurs in different functions and divergent industries have created positive change and, sometimes, new jobs as sustainability leaders.
The guide’s advice, which draws on the experience of change agents at companies that include eBay, McDonald’s, Accenture, Timberland, Ingersoll Rand, and Google, is straightforward and, once you read it, relatively intuitive. If you’re angling to get involved in the green economy and on automatic at work, consider taking the suggestions to heart to reenergize yourself by aligning your values with your work and creating a project to green your office or organization.
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