The chicken and the egg!

[Real Wild Child]

Yes this is unfortunate, it happens in all walks of life. You want a job but noone will give you a job until you have experience but you can't get experience, until you have been doing the job. Good luck on wha t you are going to do.

[Sodfoster]

Cheers guys its good to hear I'm not the only one who feels this way!


Hannahpanda I would say it is probably a good bet to look down south for temp work. There is lots advertised, although be wary of what you get offered. One of the companies I worked for gave us a contract to do some GCN surveys and the money was ok it was hourly pay and we got a living allowance per day of £20 which worked out well. Then after 3 wks when this initial contract was finished we where give a new contract for a longer term on min wage but it was salaried not hourly and they cut down the living allowance to £10 a day!! we where working around 50 hours a week sometimes but only paid for 37.5 so it worked out that we where paid 3.93 an hr! plus we where living in a hotel so we had to buy our food out as we had no where to cook anything! And finally if that wasn't enough it was cost me £60 a week to get there and back from up north!

On the flip side I made some good friends and meet up with some really good ecologists who sadly happened to work for a poor organisation. It even turned out that they paid them very poorly also (the reason everyone stayed is that they promote people very quickly but at the same time pay them less ie an ecologist will go to a senior level within 1-2 years but be on about K less than the national average!! they even had a principle who was only out of uni 4yrs!).

sorry I'm off on one again!!

Finally in reply to real wild child, you have a point and I guess that is the way things are. Although I have 3 friends from, 1 did law, 1 did IT the other Graphic design each one of these left uni with decent degrees no prior xp but each one got a Job because the career they chose recognised the degrees they had gained. How may IT, Law firms and graphic design companies do you know where they expect you to have 2yrs experience with recognised licences for graduate positions??? My point to this is when you search for Ecology Jobs there are plenty advertised for senior or principle positions which seems to say there are not enough senior/principle ecologists to go around so why isn't the industry investing more in the Graduate/ Entry level jobs so in 4-5 yrs there will be plenty??

[Highland Damsel]

Yeah it takes an employer to take a leap and give good graduates a go. It is worth sticking in there though.

I started doing voluntary conservation work when i was thirteen and was told several things about the profession i decided was what i wanted to do. The rangers i knew said that it was a way of life, not just a job, getting a job was hard and sometimes it was about being in the right place at the right time and also who you knew to hear about things coming up and that rangers were usually 25 and over for their life experience. I'm not sure about the last bit but the rest was pretty spot on. I volunteered for four years, whilst at school and college (inc a GCSE in Environmental science) studied countryside for two years and then couldn't get a job so about six bad jobs later became the next best thing, a gardener, working outdoors with plants. Did that for lots of years studied again but made sure it linked back to coutryside and eventually found out about a job locally by knocking on the door of the local rangers office and then introducing myself to the boss at an event. Said boss chose me from other applicants because of my mix of practical and academic experience - it took 15 years to get the job i had wanted since i was thirteen. That is not lucky that is perseverance and not letting go completely but still gettin on with life. Hang in there but don't give up it can happen

[maccyd82]

Sodfoster: It certainly sounds like you have enough good experience to be going for permenant Assistant ecologist jobs, especially with the newt licence thats really good. You could certainly get a seasonal contract with the RSPB and there are tons of them, normally stating in march on the ABB sites.

Sadly there are soooo many people in your position, as seen on here, that the consultancies can pretty much do what they want to you because there are plenty of other people ready to step into the breach for less or even free just to get their foot in the door. It sucks but thats the way it is. The consultancy i worked for last year had over 300 applications for the temp GCN jobs! The only way they could think of to even starting to narrow it down was to only take people who had MSc - which lead to a lot of over qualified people wandering round the countryside with plastic bottles!

Pimp out your cv and in january hit all the consultancies hard along with recruitment agencies, theyll all be recuiting hard and interviewing february time. Do you have examples of the projects you worked on at the consultancy in you CV? Have a section under your emplyment history of that job called "Selected Projects" and list the ones youve worked on and really big them up. Its all about the size of the project and the client. "Conducted extensive newt survey work on large pipeline project for XX" sounds a lot better than just listing the surveys youve done, s really important to make that CV stand out. In terms of report writing give specific examples of reports at uni you wrote and fit in the title of your dissertation somwhere if you havnt already done that, but if not hope that helps and good luck! If you want any help id be happy to help.

[maccyd82]

Hannapanda:

You dont have to know if youre doing GCN work next year to apply for a licence, if youve got the experience and two referees then you should apply for it now, its such a big plus point for potential employers youd be crazy not to!

Get the licence and if you dont do any newt work next year you can still renew it.

My colleague wasnt sure about it but i told her to go for it, she applied and had the licence approved and back to her within 2 weeks - just in time for an interview so she could go along to it and say she had go her licence.

Seriously, just go for it, it can only help your chances in the competitive field!

[maccyd82]

Btw Sodfoster, i BET i know what consultancy youre talking about! Although tbh it could probably be one of many.

[maccyd82]

And for my last point.... phew in on a role tonight!

Nightshade - You surely agre that everyone has a right to join thier local group be it grass roots member or career person? I certainly dont believe people trample on grass roots members, everyone is there because they are enthusiastic about the subject. Surely the fact that someone spends all week doing ecological work and then gives up their weekend to come along to thier local bat group or whatever shows not only their enthusiasm, but also their wish to improve their knowledge to be able to do a good job - in the interests of ecology, not business or developers or clients.

Ive been along to my local bat group and was made to feel rather unwelcome because im a consultant and young, and I know other people who have had similar experiences. If the grass roots members werent so bl**dy precious about their little club then perhaps they wouldnt feel as if they were being trampled on? Yes theyre consultants theyre obviously only in it for thier own career gain, surely thats not true or am i just being naive? Either way its sadly its the way a lot of grass roots members think, and its stopped me from bothering from going, and making contribution to bat conservation - which is surely what its all about?

Here the rant ends, although id like to know what other people think!