Getting a permanent job in Ecology is so hard for a budding ecologist, please help!

[eekoh]

Last year there were jobs for senior / principal or management roles but very little at assistant or consultant grade unless you were prepared to take a temp contract but this year there have been a lot more roles for 1st or 2nd jobbers.

Also in the part of the country where I work its like musical chairs between the big consultancies - a lot of people have had a pretty raw deal from their employers over the last year and I know several who've got so fed up that they've left consultancy completely.

[beeches]

Hi, I completely understand the frustration of getting a job in Ecology. I am a recent graduate with a 2:1 Hons degree, i have been volunteering for 5 years with various organisations including BCT, local bat groups and the RSPB. I have completed two placements with local authorities where i gained alot of experience and am a competant surveyor and report writer but after moving to scotland (for my partner) I have found it impossible to find any work.
I continue to get offered interviews but always end up with the same 'helpful' comments that i do not have enough experience (why ask me to an interview if they can already see that I do not have the experience they are looking for?)
I am trying to remain hopeful but after 9 months of applying for anything and everything ecology-based it is difficult to remain optimistic. However I continue to volunteer with the RSPB and my bat group and keep my fingers crossed that my dream job is just round the corner. Hearing other people are finally being successful even after many years is so good to know and makes me want to continue hanging on in there!
Good luck to everyone else in my position. Keep searching!

[Fritillary]

What does 2:1 mean? The other day I filled an application form for a job and I had to guess (I dont know what I wrote at the end) because it was only for internet and I could not leave the space without answering.

My adventures looking for jobs. Well I applied in a botanical garden and I arrived in second place . My problem was that my knowledge was fine but (always BUTTS ) my experience is from 10 years ago, so there is new technology that have developped during all these years and I dont know now arggghhhhhhhhhhhhh.
Well I am beginning to go as a volunteer to learn the gap....
I get the impression that today in general, you get a job for first impression or second hand knowledge.
I want to say, for me the most important in a botanical garden is to know and be passionated about plants, not to know the computer programs to deal with botanical problems....anyway , we have to keep searching and being positives

[Holly Tree]

Hi all, thanks for your comments!

Meinchewster, I can't say I have met many people like that. Everyone I know in ecology is really passionate about wildlife but I could understand people doing it for a lifestyle change as its a great field.

eekoh, what did those people go on to do instead, conservation jobs? There are some consultancies out there that really try and get away with what they can! I have experience of companies that pay their field surveyors £50 a day while charging out £350-£500+ a day for them and telling their clients they are fully qualified Ecologists! And also paying very little for food and expecting 10 hours a week overtime for free when they are only paying £50 a day, and not paying for petrol for journeys to and from site, its disgusting! Its really important to get in with a decent company otherwise you can be put off ecology.

Beeches I'm really surprised you haven't found work with a good degree and 5 years voluntary work and those 2 placements with local authorities. What kind of jobs have you been going for? They must have been looking for ecology gods heh! I know quite a few people who have moved up to Scotland to do seasonal ranger jobs, have you applied for these? I know they don't pay very well but it would be a good start and you get to see beavers, pine martins, golden eagles and drive a quad bike!

Fritillary you have a Phd don't you? You must know what a 2:1 grade is? Its like getting a grade B for a degree! You still looking for work? Is it just botany you want to do? If you are a good botanist ecology consultancies will snap you up, have you tried any? Good luck with it!

[Harry Eales]

The biggest problem that anyone has in getting work as a natural history consultant or as a qualified person in any field of natural history, is that no matter how good your degree, (even if it is a 1:1) is, that after leaving University you have virtually no practical field experience to talk about.

Yes, you have done the obligatory field trips and the collecting of specimens and their identification. But, it's next to no experience at all. You've come up through the education system from a five year old to perhaps a twenty five year old, if you've done a PhD, but your still a raw beginner.

Like most skilled jobs, you only start to learn after you have the basic practical and paper qualification, and learning more can be a lifelong learning curve.

A paper qualification means nothing more than you have passed the required exams. It doesn't mean that your the next Albert Einstein or Charles Darwin. One in a hundred million might be, but you have more chance of winning the National Lottery than being one of those.

Sadly, the great majority of University Graduates never get a job that relates to the subject of their choice. There are for instance hundreds if not thousands of Media Studies Students that qualify each year. BUT, if there's only 50 jobs on offer, most aren't going to get one of them.

It's the same in every field of education, hundreds of courses, but with next to no jobs available in those subjects once you have 'qualified'.

I have a neice with a 1:1 in Nuclear Physics, she cannot even get a job as a maths teacher in a junior school. She's over qualified. A sheer waste of several years of her life doing that degree.

We'd all like to be able to choose our ideal job, I know I wanted to, but I had to wait until I was nearly 50 years old before I got my chance. I left school at fifteen years of age, but I continued my education. I qualified in several fields, e.g. as an Armourer in the RAF, A Plumber/Gas fitter, also as a Miller/Setter/Operator in engineering. I also managed to get a BSc and a PhD in my spare time, and not by sitting on my backside.

Again in my spare time I made my chosen work subject my hobby, and eventually I got the opportunity to prove myself. Since then I've never looked back. I'm now an OAP but I'm still working (I'm not going to vegetate by the fireside). I enjoy my work and I get paid for doing it, but it took me most of my life to get that job and I had to prove myself first.

Jobs are hard to come by, no matter what your qualifications. You have to work towards your aim, simply getting a qualification on paper is not enough these days, you also need experience and that is far more difficult to get than a degree.

I'm sorry if the truth hurts, but sadly life isn't easy. No one owes you a living and you do have to work damned hard to get what you want. Good luck to you all.

Harry

[katielee]

All I can say is right place right time

Still seeking my job as a trainee ranger and not giving up on my dream!

[Fritillary]

Hello there
Sorry for being absent too long. Part I left university and not more internet but now I have access again
Someone could explain me what is 1:1 or 2:1 means? One day I had to guess when filling a form by internet because there were these 2 options.
For me things are a little more complicate to get a job because I am a foreigner so my degrees are important but in some occasions, my nationality go first .
I really dont know if I will get a job here but if not I have to go back to my country.
Some people tell me but with your diplomas you might get a good job if you go back. Well yes probably but thinking of financial crises, poor countries give very little investment on research and conservation or education.
Good luck for everyone :-)