You believe access to resources, human rights, clean environment, educational opportunities, community wellness are important. You have fresh ideas, ample energy and a social awareness. You’d also like a steady paycheck.
Read the fourth part series on Sustainability careers to find your perfect job.
How to land your dream job
If you’ve read parts 1-3 of this series, you know we strongly advocate becoming a certified sustainability practitioner. Certifications demonstrate you have the basic knowledge to hit the ground running. They give you an edge over similar applicants, particularly when you pick up a topic-specific course.
Other ways to gain an edge:
Do your homework. Find out all you can about the company you’ve set your sites on. If you haven’t picked a specific company, find out about the industry. CSE regularly posts industry insights on Facebook and Twitter.
Identify the organization’s challenges. What are the most prominent sustainability obstacles and opportunities? Retail may worry about supply chain or employee relations. A mining company may angst about the environment or worker health and safety.
Tailor your resume and cover letter to highlight how you can help the company meet specific challenges. Yes, this means you have multiple resumes (beyond the “dump file” resume which has every job/volunteer position, dates, boss, address and phone number you have ever had since high school) and multiple cover letters.
Network. We’ve said this before. Once you’ve targeted an organization(s), reach out to someone you know who works there (mine your LinkedIn and Facebook contacts). A casual good word in the hiring manager’s ear can move you to the interview pile.
Prepare. Practice describing how you can meet the company’s need. If they didn’t have a pressure point, they wouldn’t be hiring! Demonstrate you’ve done research and thought about what you bring to the company.
Practice interview skills. Start with a tutorial offered by college placement offices, libraries, community centers, etc. Then, set up mock interviews with the most difficult and obnoxious person possible – never hurts to over prepare.
Send a thank you letter. You want them to remember you out of all the other people the hiring committee saw the same day. Now you know who is hiring, so send the note to specific people.
You can do this!
CSE helps professionals advance their careers through certified on-site and group training services globally as well as the online Sustainability Academy. CSE is a recognized global leader in professional Sustainability training and coaching and one of the first to recognize the growing need for advanced certified education in the sustainability field. The Sustainability Academy is CSE’s global initiative to offer affordable, specialized, online education focused on Sustainability and Corporate Responsibility. Our goal is to train 100,000 professionals by 2020 and make an impact on our planet!
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