Ecology Consultant/Countryside Management Career

[Woody3]

My GF graduated last year (with a First Class - BSc (Hons) Countryside and Environmental Management), but is struggling, a little, to get onto the career ladder properly.

At the moment she's applying for jobs that come up on the likes of countryside-jobs.com etc, which mainly seem to be Intern-ships at best, and are usually for charities as opposed to real businesses.

Since she graduated, she's done both voluntary work and paid work (initially an Intern, that ended up being a paid job as they wanted to keep her on to do a couple of "funded" reports).

I've now stepped in to give her a hand and find something more permanent, but just wanted to make sure my approach is ok:

As stated she's browsing every day on Countryside Jobs websites. Would it be wise for her to write a letter (my preference over an email) to companies (not sure who yet - anyone in the know?) introducing herself, explaining her situation and attaching her CV? This is basically how I got my job (QS) when I left school, but I'm unsure if the Environment sector works in the same way as the Construction Industry?

Failing the above, she's thinking of doing a Masters in Ecology. Any thoughts on this?

Her initial thoughts are working for an Ecology Consultancy doing Surveys/Environmental Reports (she gained experience doing surveys/species identification during her Internship).

Any help/advice would be much appreciated.

Thank you.

(Location is the Peak District, but doesn't mind travelling for the right job)

[oldbanger]

I intended to go down this route - I got an ecology degree, forestry masters but couldn't get anything other than internship type roles, admittedly some prestigious ones, but it didn't pay. So I started a PhD but didn't finish it due to funding. I am 2 careers along more than 10 years later and can now pay the bills.

If your gf wants to get into countryside management, you do need to get out and about, e.g. Researching larger landowners, estates, trusts etc and approaching them directly. Local authorities may also require countryside managers but may only advertise on their own websites.

If going down the ecology consultant route, good taxonomists were highly sought after (or certainly were back then). She may find she needs a PhD, though.

[StevieBee]

Either of these two sites will likely provide a better range of opportunities:

http://www.environmentjob.co.uk/jobs

http://www.environmentjobs.com

It would also be worth looking at some of the big civild consultancies: Mott McDonald, Waterman, AEA Riccardo, etc, as they all have very strong Eco divisions. May not be exactly what she's after but as a shoe-in, they're a good jumping off point.

[Du1point8]

Why not think outside the box?

My OH is a treehugger and was just looking for none Corporate style Environmental jobs and getting nowhere waiting for the perfect job to appear. I decided to educated in the world of ideals and explained she could do the style of job she wanted to do but it could be in those nasty Corporations that only deal in capitalism.

She is now the sustainability data manager for a billion pound a year company (sounds better than the pittance they pay her), so you might want to come at it from a different angle if your not getting anywhere at the moment.