It might seem that a growing band of sustainability professionals are chasing a shrinking number of jobs. But the opportunities are there for those who know where, and how, to look. And for companies there are techniques to ensure the right candidates emerge

Getting a job in sustainability is more difficult than getting a job in, say, accounting, finance or marketing. Many companies don’t know that they need individuals who understand corporate sustainability issues, and don’t know the specific skillsets they need to address those issues.

This makes it hard for job seekers to align their skills and interests with the right job opportunities. In short, a job seeker can’t just go to the big companies with confidence that at least one of them will have a rewarding and relevant job.

And there are growing numbers of candidates for whatever jobs might be out there. Beyond Grey Pinstripes, an annual survey from the Aspen Institute, identifies consistent increases in the number of business schools offering courses focused on environmental, ethical and social issues, and the number of classes offered at each school. More business schools are requiring students to take a course focused on these issues.

Slow growth

Meanwhile a recent Brookings Institution report noted that from 2003 to 2010, the US green job sector grew less quickly than the overall economy.

The state of green buildings illustrates the trend: a September 2010 US National Public Radio report noted that there are about 155,000 individuals who have earned the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design Accredited Professional (Leed AP) designation, but there have only been 55,000 building projects registered and 12,000 certified by the US Green Building Council.

Individuals looking for their first job in corporate sustainability, or professionals who want to make a vertical move, need to employ a multipronged approach to find an opportunity. This is more time-consuming than simply applying for open positions, but it will lead to an increased likelihood of success, a substantially larger professional network, and a greater understanding of market trends and future employment opportunities. These advantages will make any employee more valuable to his or her company and will open more doors in the future.

Here are the keys to a successful multipronged job search in the sustainability sector.

Go beyond the job advert. The characteristics of the emerging market for sustainability-focused staff mean that job announcements may be vague or incomplete. It’s important to get in touch with the hiring manager to understand just what the company is looking for, and the specific skills and abilities that are being sought.

This also will provide some one-on-one time with the individual who is going to review the applications. In addition, it is important to ask about the hiring timeline, because some companies do not have any urgency to hire, but are surveying the market for potential employees.

Use your professional network. In addition to applying for advertised job opportunities, it is important to investigate and uncover new opportunities. This is where networking is vital. It’s likely that anyone looking for a job in corporate sustainability already has friends, colleagues or acquaintances who are in the industry or working with companies that are making investments in green offerings. Between phone calls and emails, it is possible to reach out and ask for assistance, referrals or simply intelligence on which companies are hiring and which are not.

Many interactions should lead to at least a couple of leads. As a first step, put together a list of all the relevant individuals you know and topics of discussion for each. As a general rule, don’t simply ask people if they are hiring; be more open-ended and ask for the opportunity to discuss opportunities and compare notes on the market. It’ll be obvious that you ultimately are looking for a job. In addition, you don’t want someone to read your email and immediately think: “No, I don’t have a job for this person. I’ll ignore the email.”

Widen your network. This may be the most important step for securing a job and positioning for success. Based on the organisations you know and the research you can do online, it is possible to quickly and easily grow your professional network. There are a variety of news websites that cover developments in the green space, such as Ethical Corporation, Environmental Leader, GreenBiz and the New York Times Green blog. LinkedIn can be used to identify individuals at the right companies.

A short four- or five-line message that includes your qualifications and why you are interested in speaking with the individual should yield a fair number of responses. Many individuals will be willing to spend 20-30 minutes on the phone discussing what they do and how their companies are addressing sustainability. And most will be interested in hearing what you as a job seeker have observed: market trends, emerging players and recent news.

Many sustainability professionals are entrepreneurial and understand the value of networking. Remember, not everyone will respond to your emails and phone calls – even a 50% response rate would be high.

Be conversational, and use information you learn from one contact as the basis of discussions with others. If you make a good impression during this kind of discussion, the individual is more likely to be willing to introduce you to his or her network. By going into each discussion hoping to learn about new opportunities within the market, rather than simply asking for a specific job, you’ll have more fruitful discussions, gain more knowledge that will improve your search, and identify more job opportunities in the long run.

All of these conversations will allow you to practise your pitch and gain more information that can be used to show your expertise (both will come in handy when you interview). Some of your contacts can even serve as informal advisers as you start interviewing at specific companies or when deciding which offer to accept. I always go back to contacts who have advised me or introduced me to others to update them on my progress and get their feedback on my most promising leads.

Identify the players. The short-term goal is to get a job, but the long-term goal is to become more knowledgeable of the market and grow your network, which will make you a more valuable employee and provide options should a job change be necessary in the future.

Keep detailed notes of your discussions and review them often to identify trends. During your conversations with contacts, mention potential employers you’ve talked to and ask if there are other firms with similar offerings. For example, if three of the four largest retailers in a specific industry have recently hired sustainability managers, calling the fourth (even if they have not posted a job) could yield an opportunity. That fourth retailer may have no idea of the hiring activity of its competitors.

Observe and understand market trends. In an unsettled market, one of the most valuable contributions of any employee is to understand the market and help to develop a strategy to succeed. In the case of sustainability, many companies are still considering how they will address future regulations or redevelop their products based on future resource constraints and consumer sentiment.

The same market knowledge that would lead you to engage the fourth retailer, as mentioned above, will be highly valued by many companies and can serve as the basis of discussions with luminaries in the industry: market analysts, strategic advisers, and other individuals who have their fingers on the pulse of the market.

Understanding the market also is vital when determining which employers offer the best mix of professional growth and job stability. Just as in the tech boom in the late 1990s, many emerging companies in the green space will not survive (even those that initially are successful).

Educate the employer. Many companies have not yet realised that they need individuals who understand sustainability to position their companies for future success. Even companies that are hiring individuals with sustainability subject matter expertise may not be able to adequately assess and rank their candidates.

To this point, in The Sustainability Imperative, published in the Harvard Business Review in May 2010, David Lubin and Dan Esty identify two challenges facing every company focused on sustainability. The first of these is formulating a vision and plan for value creation and the second is having the right talent and resources to execute the strategy. Individuals who can help the company understand the need for such a strategy, and have the ability to help craft it, will immediately prove their worth. To the second point, companies that have not yet developed their strategy may have trouble defining their hiring needs.

Continuously improve the process. As the search progresses, you’ll get a good idea of which efforts are successful and which need to be rethought. For example, if many of your emails are not being returned, try using the phone or asking someone in your network for some advice on crafting a more compelling note. Or go to one of your new contacts and ask why that individual responded. That may help you improve the strategy. It’s likely that small tweaks in the process can yield significant improvements.

Even while following the multiple prongs of this strategy, job seekers will face challenges during the job search.

First, there is no taxonomy of the sustainability industry. It isn’t like finance or marketing, where there are established leaders that provide the most prestigious and sought-after jobs.

Simply identifying the employers that best align with your skills can be difficult, as the market is evolving rapidly. Kachan & Co’s A New Cleantech Economy, published in September 2010, does provide a useful summary of cleantech companies, but does not include consulting, professional services and enterprises that are growing their own sustainability departments. It will be useful for some job seekers, but not all.

Second, companies are not always organised to employ sustainability and energy-focused professionals even if they do this kind of work. It is possible that the various relevant responsibilities are spread over a variety of individuals with other, non-green roles. Or companies may employ a few business developers and project leaders who understand sustainability while using a deep bench of other professionals to work on projects as they occur.

While there might be enough work to employ a single person focused exclusively on sustainability, organisations spread it to numerous individuals based on location, client relationships, and other factors. As an example, think of all the individuals with Leed AP certification: a company will not hire a new employee if it can identify a current member of staff with some knowledge and interest in the issues.

Keep contacts

Finally, it is possible that the individuals with sustainability responsibilities are not in a position to hire – they simply don’t have the budget or approval. This is most common at enterprises that have just established an internal corporate responsibility or sustainability department. These individuals are great contacts, since they might hire in the future, typically have a lot of market knowledge, and probably can open doors for you at other firms.

Questions to ask these individuals include: what services are you planning to procure? What offerings in the market seem to be the most successful? Their answers may reveal new job leads.

In other cases, companies aren’t hiring because they don’t have enough billable work. This is common at professional services organisations, which may promote their green credentials in the hope that they will gain work in the future, but will not hire until that work has been sold. This means that even companies with an advanced green posture may not be in need of sustainability professionals – yet.

There are challenges to finding a green job, but it is possible to uncover rewarding opportunities. The market for individuals with knowledge and experience of sustainability issues is likely to grow in the future and candidates who have a broad view of their job search today will be positioned for success in their next job and throughout their career.

Joseph Aamidor is a product manager for building efficiency specialist Johnson Controls. He is a graduate of Indiana University’s school of public and environmental affairs, and has worked as an adviser to the US Environmental Protection Agency and for an energy accounting software firm.

Where to look

There are many sites that list green jobs. Here are a few of the best:

• Indeed.com: Search aggregator; can be effective when using the right search terms. Includes extensive filtering capabilities and the ability to save searches.
• Ethical Corporation: Mainly senior level positions with a focus on European markets. Good for corporate responsibility (CR) positions.
• Environmental Leader: A good mix of business-focused sustainability jobs, including energy, environmental management and CR. Some filtering capabilities.
• GreenBiz: Like EL, a good representation of business-focused sustainability jobs in the US. Includes a variety of filters to sort by location, job type, etc.
• Sustainablebusiness.com: Includes a mix of energy, environmental and CR jobs. Includes a variety of filters.
• Business for Social Responsibility: Good mix of US-based CR jobs.
• Cleantech.org: Focused on more technical and engineering jobs (renewable energy, for example).
• CleanEdge jobs: Energy-focused jobs, with some overlap of Cleantech.org.
• GreenJobs.com: Focus on energy jobs, specifically renewables.

Who’s hiring?

There are three primary types of enterprises that offer professionals jobs in sustainability:

1.      Government/non-profit (could be large or small operations)

a.       Research positions – gathering the data that informs the policy..

b.      Programme development/management

c.       Stakeholder engagement – any association with a focus on sustainability.

2.      Corporate (typically large companies)

a.       Sustainability officer/manager. This role varies by company and industry, but typically is a good place to look.

b.      Corporate (social) responsibility officer/manager. May be grouped with the individual or team focused on sustainability. If not, this position will focus on issues such as stakeholder engagement or ethical sourcing.

c.       Energy manager. For companies with a substantial building footprint, the energy manager typically has a leading role in sustainability.

d.      Environment, health and safety manager.

3.      Vendor/services (Could be large or small enterprises)

a.       Consulting: strategy, systems integration, other professional services.

b.      Software: data management and analytics, smart grid, etc.

c.       Architecture/design/engineering: firms typically focused on green buildings and the built environment.

Infrastructure/equipment: makers of devices, meters and equipment. For example