The Top 30 Green Newsletters

Penned by Carolyn

In the “green” space, credibility is crucial, and things are changing rapidly as investment   washes in and out of the sector, companies make big eco-commitments, or they slink away from their environmental goals. A great way to stay up to date is to sign yourself up for a few newsletters in the space you’re interested in moving into. Being well-read is also a networking tool — you can know who’s growing, who’s been bought out, who’s making  headlines. Use these developments as opportunities to reach out to the companies or people involved and start a meaningful dialogue.

Here are our 30 favorite green newsletters – our criteria included quality of news/writing, relevance, up-to-date information, and lack of spammy-ness.

General Green News:
GreenBiz & the other Greener World Media newsletters
Mother Nature Network
SustainLane
Treehugger
Climate Change Business Journal
Green Options
Environmental Leader
Grist

Clean Tech/Renewable Energy:
CleanEdge “Clean Watch”
Rocky Mountain Institute
Renewable Energy Weekly
GreenTech Media
CleanTechies

Activism/Policy:
Sierra Club RAW
Sierra Club Insider
350.org
We Campaign
Green for All
WWF

Green Business/CSR:
Ceres
Seventh Generation
Green America (formerly Co-op America)
Terrapass
CSR Wire
Reuters Carbon

Jobs:
Bright Green Talent
Green Job List
CleanLoop CleanTech
Green Career Central

Feel Good:
Daily Ray of Hope (Sierra Club)

We’re always open to feedback – if you have other suggestions or thoughts, please share them!

More Insight from Net Impact

From Net Impact SF’s site, in regards to last week’s green jobs event:

What a success! Last night we had over 60 RSVP’s and 2 great speakers that left the crowd in an upbeat and hopeful mood. Leonard Adler of Green Jobs Network and Christina Gilyutin of Bright Green Talent were there to assure us that there are jobs out there…we just need the right tools and strategies to sniff them out!

You’re good enough, smart enough, and gosh darn it! People like you!

The burden of finding a job is not only like dating with its many high expectations and low results, but many of us feel like we need therapy just to get through it! How many resumes do we have to send into oblivion via Craigslist/Career Builder/Hot Jobs/Monster before we get a break? According to Christina Gilyutin, Director of Development and Chief Career Counselor for Bright Green Talent, we need to stay positive and remember that we are smart and talented, we just need to find strategies so that we are seen. Leonard and Christina helped the crowd to stay positive with some inspiring tips on finding a job.

Tips on how to be noticed: Networking

• Volunteer to meet people or become a leader of a group, this not only helps you to meet new people, but it shows that you have initiative
• Join affinity groups such as Green Jobs Network (www.greenjobs.net), Net Impact (www.netimpactsf.org) or SF Green Drinks (sfgreendrinks.org) which all serve to surrounded you with people who have similar interests
• At networking/social events, TALK TO AS MANY PEOPLE AS POSSIBLE
• Comments from the crowd included using your every day activities as an opportunity to tell people about your interests, you never know who you’ll meet!
• Another suggestion from the audience was to organize dinners with friends and acquaintances who have similar/related career interests
• A Net Impact leader mentioned that he found his job by talking to people in his field of interest as a peer, which resulted in a job! Confidence pays! He continued to say that if you’re looking for a job in sustainability, you need to find a 3rd vector to define your niche. Green + Business isn’t specific enough. Are you into design, procurement, logistics, materials science, …? The more specific the better.
• Be a connector! Link people to others, they will likely return the favor!

Get Strategic! Leonard Adler of Green Jobs Network highlighted 3 points for us to remember:

• Follow the Venture Capitalists! They might want to fund your idea!
• Follow the money! Where is the government funneling money right now? To Green projects! Find out what kind of projects and to which companies the funds are going.
• Follow the law! What laws have been passed recently? How does this legal change relate to my industry of interest?

Online Tips:

Spend only 10-20% of your time online for your job search and use the rest of that time giving your elevator pitch to new networks. While job boards are great, try to find job boards with a clear focus on your industry of interest such as Treehugger.com. There are a lot of Green job boards out there! General job boards can be more competitive due to their high amount of traffic and tendency to cover a broad number of industries. Also, try your old university’s job board, they often post jobs for alumni.

Need help with your resume?

Did you know about the Job Forum? The San Francisco Chamber of Commerce holds an event every Wednesday evening (6:30 to 8:30) called the Job Forum where they provide feedback on resume writing and give advice on job hunting http://www.thejobforum.org/.

What if I don’t have experience?

Try interning, its not just for the 20-somethings! If you don’t like that idea, try volunteering. Many businesses would love to have you work without paying while you gain valuable experience.

Seek Professional Help!

To learn more about Bright Green Talent’s Career Counseling Services, please visit http://www.brightgreentalent.com/

Giving Voice to Jobseekers: 3 Ways Companies Can Clean Up their Hiring Processes

Penned by Carolyn

As companies have emerged from recession-induced hibernation, shaken off hiring freezes, and started to cautiously advertise job openings again, they’ve found an entirely different landscape than when they did their last round of recruiting.

Jobseekers who’ve been haunting job boards for months have started to dive on any vacancy that they come across. Companies are seeing floods of barely-if-at-all qualified resumes come through and have found themselves trying to tackle the hiring process when they’re still hesitant about hiring, understaffed in their HR and other departments, and with vastly reduced recruiting budgets.

We speak with hundreds of candidates each week who’ve been on the other side of this stunted hiring process — most have sent in a resume and never heard back, and a few have made it through up to 8 rounds of interviews before the company decides they’re not ready to hire.

Here are a few symptoms and solutions for making the hiring process run more smoothly in this economy, and for ensuring that bridges aren’t burned between high-quality candidates who might still be interested in a company when the economy picks up.

1. The Mountain of Resumes
The problem: Companies are getting swamped with resumes every time a job is posted. Jobseekers whose background is totally irrelevant to the job description are sending in resumes because they’re desperate and “it’s worth a shot.”

The outcome: Increased time spent on reading through resumes, decreased percentage of quality applicants, and a strain on those in charge of the hiring process (HR and recruiters). Those who are high-quality, relevant candidates are wondering why they’re never contacted and start to form negative perceptions of the company. More people call up demanding to know what’s happened to their resume. Lots of time and energy is wasted.

Solutions:

• Write a tighter job description that gets into the nitty-gritty specifics of what a candidate has to have done (not “could do”) in order to qualify for an interview. Some applicant tracking systems allow you to create these applications online and will sort the responses according to whether the job seeker fits your description — this will automatically sort the “best fits” to the top where you can read them and get back to them promptly.
• Require more documents for your application — such as a cover letter, two writing samples and a resume, or a couple mini-essay questions built into your website application. Creating a slightly higher bar will make jobseekers reconsider as they
  “spam” out their resume — and as people are asked to communicate why they’re a good fit for the specific job, they’ll make your determination easier as you read through their application.
• Encourage employees to use their networks to get referrals. A lot of companies are hiring quietly right now without posting a public job description simply due to lack of time and money to put towards a full-blown process.
• Hire a third-party recruiter to read through all the resumes and present you with the strongest fits.

2. The Lack of Communication
The problem: We often joke with our candidates that applying for jobs online seems like dropping a resume into a black hole — unfortunately, this joke has lost some humor in recent months as the majority of our candidates say they have 10+ applications out that they’ve never heard any indication on.

The outcome: Again, bitterness. Candidates pin the unresponsive company as lacking humanity or basic etiquette and spread that impression. Won’t apply for positions in the future because they feel like their application is falling on deaf ears.

Solutions:

• Reject people, early and often. After meeting lots of folks who’ve told us they applied online for one of our positions and never heard back, we’ve started a strict policy of rejection when we don’t see a fit for a role. We go through every few weeks or month and shoot a batch note to the candidates we’ve reviewed and deemed not a fit to let them know that their qualifications aren’t quite right. You wouldn’t believe how appreciative people are to just know what their status is — they often thank us for rejecting them. If they’re talented and just not right for this role, they’re more likely to keep applying for other positions because they know it’s a dialogue and not a black hole.
• If you don’t want to send a note every few weeks, at least send a blast to all applicants when the position has been filled to close the loop.
• For less personalized updates, have your CEO or someone in the company write the occasional blog post on the state of the hiring process, whatever it may be — still looking, reviewing applications, rethinking the role.

3. Dragging Out the Hiring Process
The problem: Candidates are telling us that they’ve been through 5, 6, 7 rounds of interviews with an organization before being told they’re not the right fit — or worse, a couple have simply just never heard back from the company after such extended dialogue.

The outcome: We know that companies are unsure of budgets and anxious to actually take a step towards growing out their teams, but the risks of these messy processes are serious.

Candidates get very emotionally tied up in the prospect of potentially getting an offer, and the more they get to know everyone in the office, they more angry and hurt they are when after several months of interviewing, they’re turned down or told the company has decided not to fill the position. Your champions – people so passionate about your company that they wanted to work for you – may now perceive your company as disorganized and unclear on goals. Word from the disenchanted interviewee spreads, and the negative effects on brand can be serious. You may also inadvertently lose great candidates because you can’t get your act together – and it will take time and resources to woo them back after they’ have a bad experience.

The solution:

• Figure out if you are in a place to hire. Then check twice. Do you have the money for salary? Is it a priority for the company, or do you just want to see who’s out there?
• Sit down with your team ahead of time and carefully design the metrics against which you’ll measure candidates. Clearly define the hiring process- who candidates will talk to, for how long, in what context, and in what order. Set deadlines, and do your best to meet them.

Bright Green Survey Results: Jobseekers Willing, Waiting, Wondering

Penned by Carolyn

We recently surveyed 430 jobseekers who are interested in moving into the green sector. A couple of the statistics from our results stand out:

• 50% of respondents are currently unemployed
• 61% have a Master’s or PhD
• 40% have an annual income higher than $80k; 24% have an annual income higher than $101k
• 83% have previous experience or some training/experience that would be relevant to a green company
• 69% say one of the strongest barriers to getting into the green sector is the lack of available jobs
• 41% say lack of proper training is a barrier to entry

With all the talk about green collar workers (blue collar jobs in the green economy) and the stimulus money that has been allocated to green workforce development, little attention has been paid to the demographic in this survey: highly-qualified, well-educated people that are willing and ready to move into the green sector.

So what’s the hold up? What are the challenges they’re facing as they try to channel their skills and background towards the green sector? Beyond the 69% who say there just aren’t enough green jobs (because, realistically, there aren’t enough of any kind of job right now, with unemployment rates at over 9% nationally), 41% of our respondents said they don’t have the proper training and 33% said they just don’t know where to look.

What this illuminates is a basic need for training programs and clear direction for jobseekers on how and where to find green jobs. In fact, this only reinforces our own anecdotal understanding of the state of affairs — people come to us every day just wondering how they can get into a sector that’s seeming daily more and more like a mirage. Of late, there’s more frustration in their voices, and people are wondering if all these green jobs evangelists are really just snakeoil salesmen.

But after two years in this space, we remain confident that the jobs are not an illusion — if they were, we’d pack up shop and head elsewhere rather than leading people on. The immense sense of hope and optimism hung upon green jobs was multiplied exponentially by the state of the economy and soaring unemployment rates. Yes, the sector is still growing even despite the economy (confirmed by a recent Pew report) and green companies are hiring, but not at a rate that can keep pace with the demand created from hundreds of thousands of people that have suddenly flooded into the sector.

The take-aways? Our same old line: there might not be a green job for you right now, but in 6 months or a year, when the dust settles from the economic collapse, there will be. The stepping stone in between, and how you’ll succeed in separating yourself from the crowd when that time comes, is training and preparation.

We’re not saying you’re not willing — over 30% of respondents said they’d take a week for training in greenhouse gas accounting or energy audits, and another 30% said they’d take a month. Most were ready to put up somewhere between $100-$1000 for the training.

Bright Green Talent and some of our partners are working on creating and facilitating training to help you get on the right path. In the meantime, there are lots of great resources to help you learn and network as we all ride out the storm. Hang in there — opportunity and a clean, prosperous future are waiting on the other side.

Students and Recent Grads: Unemployed? Get busy!

We read marketing guru Seth Godin’s blog every day, and today’s struck as particularly salient – he notes that just 20% of 2009 college graduates who applied for jobs actually have one. His prescription (below) largely coincides with a piece of advice that we repeat ad nauseum: while there might not be green jobs (or jobs at all) at the moment, there will be in 6 months or a year or two years, and you should be ready. Spend this time getting yourself ahead of the pack by volunteering, studying, training, networking. Here are Seth’s thoughts:

Graduate school for unemployed college students

Fewer college grads have jobs than at any other time in recent memory—a report by the National Association of Colleges and Employers annual student survey said that 20 percent of 2009 college graduates who applied for a job actually have one.  So, what should the unfortunate 80% do?

How about a post-graduate year doing some combination of the following (not just one, how about all):

• Spend twenty hours a week running a project for a non-profit.
• Teach yourself Java, HTML, Flash, PHP and SQL. Not a little, but mastery.
• Volunteer to coach or assistant coach a kids sports team.
• Start, run and grow an online community.
• Give a speech a week to local organizations.
• Write a regular newsletter or blog about an industry you care about.
• Learn a foreign language fluently.
• Write three detailed business plans for projects in the industry you care about.
• Self-publish a book.
• Run a marathon.

Beats law school.

If you wake up every morning at 6, give up TV and treat this list like a job, you’ll have no trouble accomplishing everything on it. Everything! When you do, what happens to your job prospects?

Smart Grid 101: Definitions and Opportunities

Penned by Carolyn

“Smart Grid“ is one of those terms being thrown around the media and the green business sector – and for good reason, as it’s one of the most promising areas for growth even in this economy. In terms of being able to talk the talk in the green sphere, this is a concept you should be able to discuss with some level of intelligence and awareness.

Though there’s no singular definition attached to smart grid, it’s basically the concept of combining a power delivery system with a digital technology/metering system that allows utilities and consumers to adjust their electricity use with an end goal of increasing the efficiency of power usage nationally and globally.

Get familiar with some of the issues around implementing smart grid technologies, and why there’s so much buzz and hope for this growing green sector. Here are some resources to kick off your investigation:

• The Department of Energy published a 48-page e-book called “Smart Grid: An Introduction,” which explores in layman’s terms the nature, challenges, opportunities and necessity of Smart Grid implementation in the U.S. and beyond. There’s a great glossary of terms in the back.
  
• The Demand Response and Smart Grid Coalition has information on the companies in the sector. Its member list (copied below) will give you a sense of some of the big players in the field.
• This map of 101 Cleantech Startups shows several Smart Grid companies.
  
• Smart Grid News gives information on companies in the sector, deals and transactions and trends in the industry.
• Wikipedia has some basic background and interesting links.

And now, dive in to these companies and see where you might be interested in fitting in. Our usual thoughts on networking apply – run a search through LinkedIn to see who you know there; join some groups that the company’s employees are a member of to get exposed to the industry dialogue; read through the company bios; and check out job openings.

Aclara
Ambient
Amplex
CalAmp
Comverge
Conservation Services Group
Corporate Systems Engineering
CPower
Direct Energy
Echelon
Eka Systems
eMeter
Energy Capital Partners
Energy Curtailment Specialists
EnergySolve
EnerNOC
Enfora
Enspiria Solutions
General Electric
Google
Honeywell
IBM
Ice Energy
Itron
KMC Controls
Landis + Gyr
Lutron Electronics
Oracle
PCN Technology
Sensus
Silver Spring Networks
SmartSynch
Steffes
Tendril
Trilliant Networks
Ziphany

Bright Green Talent’s Do’s and Don’ts of Cover Letters

We just started using Scribd to post our documents, such as a sample resume and our extensive interview preparation packet. Log in to our Greenhouse to access the others!

View this document on Scribd

“Can You BELIEVE This Guy?”: Thoughts on the Importance of E-mail Etiquette

Penned by Carolyn

There’s been a fair amount of news and public service announcements recently about kids and cyber-bullying – the basic concept being that kids will say things online that they would never say to a friend or peer in person.

This phenomenon unfortunately sometimes applies to adults as well. In your jobsearch especially, e-mail etiquette is just as important as phone etiquette, the way you’d speak to someone in person, or how you’d present yourself in a cover letter.

We’ve had several cases recently of finding people we were excited about putting forward for a job… and then we received an email from them that was rude, out of line, or just so strange that we had to reconsider whether we really wanted to support that candidate.

A golden rule of online jobsearching and interaction: you’re still dealing with PEOPLE. There is a real person – with feelings, and an ego, and their own personality – on the other end of the communications you send out.

Think to yourself – If you met the recruiter or hiring manager in person, would you still communicate in the same way as you do on email? Make the same claims? Use the same tone? Be as pushy?

There is a thin line between assertiveness and aggressiveness that is even harder to walk in the online space. While we’re not telling you to be too meek or passive, it’s better to err on the side of politeness than rub someone the wrong way and get blackballed altogether by the company.

Dive In: 21 Places to Look for Green Volunteering Opportunities

Penned by Carolyn

We always encourage students and grads (and everyone else!) to volunteer with environmentally-focused organizations/initiatives in order to network, get some green experience on their resume and do good as they’re jobsearching.

So, you ask: What opportunities are there to dive into a green career through volunteering?

Non-profits: Given the state of the economy, non-profits need a lot of help right now and could really value your volunteer time. Find a non-profit in your area that works on issues you’re interested in – policy, water issues, international development, etc. Do keep in mind that it’s better to focus on a specific project that you are willing to help with or spearhead. Idealist.org has an extensive list of volunteer opportunities that you can sort by interest and location to get a sense for what’s out there. Find your local Sierra Club chapter; Green for All has resources on how to support green jobs growth in your local community.

Get down and dirty: Add some manpower to a green building project and get industry exposure at the same time. GRID Alternatives is popular in the Bay Area, where volunteers help install solar panels on low-income housing. Habitat for Humanity has some green building related projects as well. Friends of the Urban Forest in San Francisco asks for volunteers to help with tree-planting. Find your local community garden project or farmer’s market and offer to help out. Join AmeriCorps for a year of service. Go help clean up your local park, or find a summer or seasonal job in a National Park through The Student Conservation Association.

Get political: Find your state PIRG (Public Interest Research Group) and help them canvass and push green legislation in your state (we’ve got Environment California here in the Bay Area). Apply to spend a year working with GreenCorps, a year-long hands-on training program around the U.S. that breeds the country’s top environmental organizers (and has a really strong job placement program and alumni network to take advantage of at the end).

Go abroad! Foundation for Sustainable Development places students and recent grads in internships in developing countries around the world. You are placed in a domestic non-profit there depending on your development-related interests and can design your own project, seek funding, and get some great hands-on experience… all while experiencing a new culture. Ecoteer.com connects you with green volunteer opportunities around the world. Join Willing Workers on Organic Farms (WWOOF) and spend some time trading your work for room and board in one of many countries around the world that hosts a WWOOF network.

Take a “pay the bills job” and volunteer for a company you’re interested in. Make sure you have a specific project suggestion to put in front of them, rather than just willingness to work. For example, a 2007 graduate named Ajay sent us this note about his efforts to get “green” experience. He works for a utility, and offers a few days a week for free to a solar company in the area, who he reached through a contact there (go network!). As he says, “The more I work with this solar manufacturer, the more people I meet and the more people know my name.” Troll green job boards such as Treehugger and GreenBiz for unpaid internships or volunteering; use contacts at these organizations and others to find out whether you can lend a hand.

Network: Another example is helping to organize green networking events in your city. Green Drinks is a great monthly meet-up that has chapters in many cities. Contact your local chapter to help organize; if none exists, start one up! We’re working with an amazing team of Green Drinks volunteers here in San Francisco that are helping set up a “Green Careers Connections” event – by doing so, they’re networking with eachother and getting to reach out to lots of companies that they might be interested in working for themselves. We’re also big fans of Net Impact – lend a hand with your local chapter and get connected to passionate professionals.

Conferences need volunteers. When you hear a green conference is coming to town, find out ways to volunteer with the organization and actual conference. Green Festivals needs lots of hands on deck; keep an eye on GreenBiz’s list of events for whether anything’s being planned for near you.

If you’re already out there volunteering, send us a success story of how it’s helped you in the job search process!

On Not Being All Things to All People

Penned by Nick

We’re 5 people at BGT, working with over 10,000 green jobseekers. For those who want to do the math, it means we’re averaging ~2,000 relationships per person. The majority of these relationships are our source of inspiration–new ideas from new people wanting to find new careers.

However, every once in a while we cross a candidate who has a different view on who BGT is, and what we should be doing.

Last week we received the following note from a candidate:

“Have tried twice to get something meaningful from Bright Green and on both occasions have been told you can’t help in any way… not sure what sort of recruiter does not want to talk to prospective candidate, one with a strong financial background and on Imperial Sustainability masters – but it does seem a little strange. Would be good if you could think about how you can help people find the direction you mention above if they are entering a new job area in the green space.”

We believe in honest dialogue and transparency at BGT. Instead of hiding this comment in the dark, it’s worth airing out.
We receive more demand for our services than we’re able to meet. We’re doing our best to scale to meet demand, but it takes time. When folks are unemployed and looking for a new green career, it can seem like an eternity. We get it.

More importantly, it means a lot to us that folks are holding us accountable and looking to us for guidance. But at times, it feels like our candidate lose perspective and think that they’re the only one who’s unemployed, or that their skillset is so strong that they deserve a job.

The hard reality is that we can’t place everyone (though it’s our goal!). It’s not that we don’t want to help–quite to the contrary, that’s our driving motivation. We’re insanely service-oriented–check out Christina’s feedback for a few examples of the praise we’ve received.

We can’t be all things to all people. That’s obvious. In the cases where it’s not, trust that we’re taking the long-view, that we value every relationship, and that where we can, we’re helping folks in a variety of ways: career counseling, job placement, industry information, etc.

This is a collective movement towards a brighter, greener future. It will take time–for those willing to join us for the long haul, we look forward to an opportunity to work together to realize our common vision.