[DonScott]

Hi There
I've just joined the forum. I graduated in Ecology last year and am looking for practical suggestions about getting some form of paid work.
I knew it would be hard to get a job before I graduated so I organised a graduate expedition to Madagascar with two other graduates last year as a way of getting some experience thus helping me to get a job.

It is now becoming apparent that despite the expedition costing me thousands of pounds and eight months of intensive unpaid work, it cuts absolutely no ice with potential employers. Despite being responsible for
the coordination of a team of 8 researchers for four months, formulating sound methodology and carrying out a detailed botanic survey, writing an 80 page report, obtaining almost 10 thousand pounds funding from major conservation organisations, giving several talks on our research, having a published article, currently writing a scientific paper based on our results and building a whole website to disseminate the data, all people want to know is if I have a Great Crested Newt License.

I am quite frustrated by the parochial nature of the U.K ecology and conservation industry. I spent four months working in an area of the world with massive endemism and threatened and endangered plant and animal species then try to get a job here and people want to know if I have a license for a species whose distribution is: "United Kingdom and northern France, through southern Scandinavia, and central Europe, to the southwestern part of West Siberia (Kurganskaya Province; records in Sverdlovskaya Province need verification)".

Having said that, i am determined to get an ecology job so I'm working at all these requirements which the various job descriptions have.
Anyway I empathise with your predicament Martin!
I think the reason it's quite hard to get a job is because it's actually an enjoyable thing to do, not like training to become an accountant.