Trash Talk #6: How to Get a Job Working on Climate
After being gainfully “funemployed” for a total of 7.5 months, I’m thrilled to share that as of Monday this week, I started a new role as a Customer Success Lead for Afresh. Afresh is an AI company that is solving for food waste within grocery retail, and I’m still reveling in the feeling of somehow landing in what feels like the perfect next step for me, one that seamlessly marries my personal passion for food sustainability with my background in tech and partnerships at Google.
In this episode of Trash Talk, I wanted to share my experience and learnings of how I transitioned from a completely unrelated industry into something I more deeply wanted to dedicate my life to. The tips below are tailored towards anyone who is looking to move into the climate space (this is a climate newsletter after all), but I believe many of them can also be applied to any job search.
Of course, this is only my journey, and what I share below is not the only way to find a job working on climate. However, I hope that it will be helpful to those who are in a similar position as I was — one of discovery and exploration as you try to figure out how and where to pivot. The goal of this is to help you determine how to spend your time where it matters, and to land a role that truly aligns with what you desire.
1. Learn, learn, learn, as much as you can, as early as possible.
The entire reason I started my sabbatical with a commitment to “give myself 3 months off with no expectations” before starting to actionably look for a job was to consciously create a space focused on discovery. I found that when I was fully working, I didn’t have the time to dive into all of the interesting sustainability resources I kept coming across (books, webinars, virtual conferences, email newsletters…), so I purposefully set aside some time to research the current trends, what companies were starting to do, and what kinds of skills were valued.
To be honest though, I also started this process much earlier, long before I actually quit Google (read: you don’t need to quit your current job to start learning). As soon as you realize your future path might look different than what you’re currently doing, start seeking out projects that will give you experience on this topic. Self-initiated projects not only give you something to talk about in future interviews, they also show potential employers that you are genuinely passionate and proactive about their cause. If you can’t find these opportunities within your own company, there are tons of volunteer or pro-bono ways to get involved — Climate Changemakers, Climate Fellows, or community based programs such as Citizens’ Climate Lobby or Sunrise Movement.
Additionally, there are numerous educational programs you can sign up for if you prefer a more structured way of learning — Terra.do has excellent climate schools, The Ellen MacArthur Foundation has Circular Economy masterclasses, even Coursera has many free options.
2. Leverage (and grow) your community.
I tend to fall into the trap of romanticizing jobs. Because I know this about myself, I knew it was important to talk to real people in the field to get an accurate picture of the future career paths I was considering. I was pretty sure I wanted to go into food sustainability, but I had zero existing connections in the food industry, so how was I going to have these conversations?
This is where you have to be fearless in putting yourself out there. Essentially, it means reaching out to as many cool people as you can and seeing who will talk to you. One encouraging thing I’ve found in the climate space is that people are incredibly, genuinely helpful. We’re all building towards the same goal of a better future, so many folks are willing to accept a cold outreach for a coffee chat.
Personally, these were the three most effective ways I found to have engaging conversations:
- I upgraded to a free trial of LinkedIn premium for a month, which gives you the ability to send 15 InMail messages to people you are not connected to. I used this to research people at leading companies who seemed to be doing jobs I would be interested in, and sent them notes requesting an info chat. From this I ended up connecting with 8 people — an over 50% success rate!
- I told friends about my goals, and they connected me with other friends, siblings, colleagues, etc. If you see someone on LinkedIn you want to talk to and a mutual friend is a connection, ask for an introduction (it works)!
- I joined existing communities to feed off of mutual inspiration and learning. I particularly had a number of incredible conversations with people in the Work on Climate Slack group — those who were either already working on climate, or looking to transition just like me (The WOC slack is also how I found my job at Afresh :) — more on that later).
Through this, I got to connect with so many amazing people who worked within regenerative farming, “ugly” produce, food supply chains, climate tech, environmental consulting/education, climate tech recruiters, sustainable CPG startups… I am grateful to each and every one of them for the insights they shared as they helped me figure out how I could best fit into the space.
3. Get really clear on what you want out of your next role.
As you get more clarity on your desired industry and prepare to start searching for an actual job, it’s important not only to define what kinds of skills you can bring to a future employer, but also to really define what you want a future role to do for YOU — for your life goals, your career aspirations, your financial needs, the type of environment you want to work in, etc. If you do this right, this will actually save you tons of time down the line.
There are many, many reflection exercises or trainings you can find online that can help you get clear on this. If you want to hear more about the practices I personally used, I recorded an interview on this with my good friend Randy for his podcast Leap of Fate. Our conversation covers what I did to uplevel myself in each of the following areas:
- Developing a healthy relationship with intuition
- Identifying & overcoming fears
- Becoming comfortable with ambiguity and embracing the unknown
- Knowing your self worth
4. Critically evaluate potential roles and companies against the criteria you’ve outlined for yourself.
Now is when you have to actually stick to the principles you’ve outlined for yourself, and be courageously discerning about which opportunities truly fit that profile. It’s easy to either get distracted by a shiny title, or to feel like you have to adopt a “spray and pray” tactic so that you don’t miss any opportunities, but it’s my firm belief that if you are not genuinely interested in a company, they’ll quickly be able to sniff it out. Not to mention you might not be happy once you actually end up there.
Some ways to dig into this:
- Read through a company’s website and/or blog, and search for news articles about how their business has grown and the strategic direction it’s moving in. Is this something you can see yourself contributing to?
- Look up previous employee reviews on Glassdoor.
- Search for virtual talks given by anyone at the company — webinars, interviews, online events, etc. to get a sense of the company culture and priorities.
- Tap your network (see Tip 2) to see if you can connect to anyone currently at the company to chat about their experience.
Doing this helped me weed out dozens of other jobs I could have wasted time writing cover letters or interviewing for, when deep down I knew they weren’t a fit.
5. Be strategic about where you spend your time.
Most people will tell you that it takes a minimum of 2–3 months to find your next role, and while I started out naively optimistic, I can tell you now from experience that that timeline is pretty spot on. It can take at least 1–1.5 months from when you apply to when you get an offer, just given the amount of time it takes to schedule all the interviews. Budget for this time within your search plan, and hopefully the following tips will also help you avoid unnecessarily dragging out the process.
Counterintuitively, these would be the three places I would recommend spending the vast majority of your time during your job search:
- Getting clear on what you want (Tips 3 & 4).
- Seeking out connections at the companies you want to work for to get internal referrals. This is the best way to get a foot in the door.
- Practice practice practice, and get feedback throughout. Ask for a second set of eyes on your resume, practice interviewing with a friend or a coach, and thoroughly prepare for all your interviews with polished stories to tell. You have a wealth of experience, but how effectively you are able to communicate this experience to a stranger matters.
I would not recommend spending any more than 20% of your time on these two areas:
- Perfecting your resume over and over again.
- Writing cover letters (Not completely outdated, as I did get one interview solely from a really well-written cover letter, but you should not be spending hours and hours writing cover letters. Nor will you if you are being strategic with your applications.)
For Afresh, I found out about the company because I saw two people in the Work on Climate Slack group post about it. I reached out to both of them; one was happy to chat about his experience there, and lucky for me, the other one turned out to be the internal recruiter, who then put me in touch with the VP of Sales, and the rest fell into place from there. Who knows how quickly I could have gotten an interview if I blindly applied through the website?
I also received an interview at another company for a role I was fairly under-qualified for, because of an internal referral. I was declined an interview at a third for a role that I was perfectly qualified for. So, referrals work.
6. Lastly, and perhaps MOST importantly — celebrate yourself!
Once you land that dream job, really take some time to cherish how far you’ve come. Most of us quickly jump from meeting one achievement to striving for the next, without taking any time to integrate the amount of effort and dedication we poured into getting to where we are today. Take some time to really soak in how good it feels to finally have the thing you’ve worked so hard towards for so long.
Perhaps this looks like giving yourself a short break between your current end date and your next start date. Perhaps it looks like a celebratory dinner with friends. Perhaps it looks like sitting at home and journaling your reflections on what you’ve learned. As my career coach friend told me — once the offer has been extended, the ball is your court. You have the upper hand in determining when you want to start, as the company has already expressed they are committed to bringing you onboard. Appreciate this.
For me, I accepted my offer at Afresh on July 30th, but set my start date as September 13th (thanks to the encouragement from said career coach friend). I had a few vacations planned for the end of the summer, but I also wanted to give myself some time to fully soak in the last bit of my sabbatical and truly enjoy it (because quite honestly, for much of the prior six months there was a simmering underlying anxiety of “should I be applying to more roles?” “what if the right opportunity passes me by?” “what if I don’t find a job in time?” I’m a human just like anyone else!). I am so grateful to have given myself that time, allowing me to start this next chapter 100% refreshed and ready to dive in.
If you have any questions or want to chat further on any of the above, I’m more than happy to connect. Just shoot me a connection request with a note on LinkedIn and we can take it from there.
