Most Valuable Non-Ecology Jobs for Ecologists?

[Johnny Redgate]

Why are you so anti IEEM? They are the body best representing the interests of professional ecologists and have sought to introduce common standards and practices whilst raising profile and professionalism. The Institute was sorely needed when it was founded and is doing a good job on the whole now. Granted it is consultant orientated: is that your problem with it?

[Matt Smith]

Originally Posted by Johnny Redgate

Why are you so anti IEEM? They are the body best representing the interests of professional ecologists and have sought to introduce common standards and practices whilst raising profile and professionalism. The Institute was sorely needed when it was founded and is doing a good job on the whole now. Granted it is consultant orientated: is that your problem with it?

No, I have no problem with it being consultant orientated, I am an ecological consultant myself. I have no problem with professional orgnisations or learned societies.

The IEEM a very expensive society to belong to, MIEEM membership costs £130 per year (I get a Fellowship of a Royal XXXX Society for £45 per year). Their in house journal "In Practice" is turgid and dull it normally gets binned about 10 miunutes after recieving it.

As I said most of their efforts appear to be designed to keep themselves in business. Look into the running of one of their £160 per person per day advertised courses CPD courses. You will find that all the costs and organisation for the course fall on you to arrange while they keep £150 per day themselves as "these courses are a major source of income for us".

From my point of view they provide no real benefits as far as I can see for their members. I have never lost work by not being a member. The only reason I joined was that one of my clients needed me to have professional indemnity insurance and the IEEM say members get "reduced cost" insurance . My reduced cost insurance cost nearly £800 per annum, after 2 years I found the same sort of cover for about a third of the price from another broker. I am seriously considering not renewing my membership this year and finding something more useful to do with my £130.

[Johnny Redgate]

So you think it's expensive and you don't like their mag. Fine, but that's hardly a justification for advising people to treat anything they say with a "pinch of salt". Anyway, I'm not interested in arguing about this, I just wanted to give an alternative view. Oh, and btw, as someone who has employed several consultant ecologists, if you're not in IEEM and i don't know you personally, you will be a long way down my list of contacts.

[Johnny Redgate]

Originally Posted by Johnny Redgate

So you think it's expensive and you don't like their mag. Fine, but that's hardly a justification for advising people to treat anything they say with a "pinch of salt". Anyway, I'm not interested in arguing about this, I just wanted to give an alternative view. Oh, and btw, as someone who has employed several consultant ecologists, if you're not in IEEM and i don't know you personally, you will be a long way down my list of contacts.

Sorry, didn't mean that to sound personal. If a consultant is not in IEEM and I don't know them personally, they will be a long way down my list of contacts.

[Genuine Gin]

Hello Everyone!

I posted this a while ago and admit I haven't been back since some of these were posted. I read all your comments with interest and would like to thank you again for your advice. Just thought I'd give you an update!

I've ended up doing a couple of work placements with different local councils and it has been a very useful experience. The first thing I gained from this thread was discovering that contract field survey work really is just a drop in the ocean of ecology work you can do as an inexperienced graduate, I honestly expected the winter to be completely quiet and organisations to not want to take on any extra workers during this period except to do their filing! Couldn't have been more wrong!

These jobs have also put me in touch with record centres and local volunteer groups, so my network is ever expanding!

I spent the period before Christmas organising corporate volunteers doing general habitat management work, this was great practical experience that I had not had an opportunity to do before.

I am now working for a different council, carrying out reptile habitat survey work and drawing up preliminary mitigation strategies, I never would have imagined this sort of work to be done in February! I'm also getting lots of useful experience of the planning system. It has been really great as I now feel I have a sound base knowledge of planning policy and process that, even if I don't need to use it in future, has put the rest of my work in context. I have to say, I don't know too much about IEEM, I'm a relatively new member (and I agree it is painfully expensive!), but as someone trying to get their foot in the door, I'm willing to do anything it takes to 'give me an edge' so thanks for the advice there!

Experience in planning and pre-app meetings has opened my eyes to other very interesting areas too, I'm thinking about looking into other areas of sustainable development like eco design consultancy!

Thank you everyone for helping me get my foot on the first rung!

Gin

[Matt Smith]

You have PM

[Genuine Gin]

Just in case anyone else found this confusing. I am surveying reptile habitat, for potential for reptiles only. I am not actually looking for reptiles in February!

Gin