The Pros and Cons of Working in Conservation

For years now, listeners have been emailing me with many different versions of the same basic question:

“How do I get a job in the conservation world?”

Some of the inquiries come from college students or young professionals, while others come from folks who are deep into a specific career path but want to make a change. I’m always happy to receive these messages, and I’m flattered that anyone would think I have valuable advice to offer.

Unfortunately, I’ve never been able to provide what I believe to be a suitable answer, mainly because I could not do the question justice within the constraints of email or social media. And over the last few years, the volume of messages has reached a point that I simply cannot keep up with it all– so if you’ve reached out and I have not responded, my sincere apologies.

For (at least) the past three years, I’ve been considering answering this question in podcast form, thinking the episode could serve as a detailed resource for anyone who asked the question… and for those who will in the future. But I’ve procrastinated or rationalized reasons not to, mainly because I felt extremely uncomfortable about sitting by myself, blabbing my thoughts and ideas into a microphone. I never want to come off as a know-it-all or some kind of wannabe internet guru.

But the volume of the incoming messages kept increasing, so I finally decided to put my ego and self-consciousness aside and just answer the question in podcast form.

I wrote an eight-page outline that laid out everything I know about finding a job in the conservation world, then I sat down in The Shed and let ‘er rip. The result is a ridiculously long soliloquy in which I put it all out there. I’m calling it a SHED SESSION.

Please keep in mind that this episode is simply a recounting of my own personal and professional experience– it’s not some kind of one-size-fits-all “hack” that will lead you directly to your dream job. I’ve long said that I am the last person anyone should be asking for career advice, and there are certainly tons of people who are much more experienced and accomplished in conservation than I am.

But for those of you who did ask, this episode is for you. I lay it all out, including: my specific career path; my specific job in the conservation field; skills that are needed in the conservation sector; why relationship building is the most important skill; how I built a deep and broad network in Colorado despite only knowing one person when I moved here in 2010; why I think networks are the most valuable assets; what I looked for when I was hiring for conservation roles; what you should look for (and avoid) in conservation organizations; pros and cons of working in non-profit conservation, book recommendations, and more. Links to everything are in the episode notes.

Again, all of this is just my personal experience and my possibly weird ideas about doing purpose-driven work. For those of you who have reached out, I hope this adds some value. For everyone else, we’ll be back to the regularly scheduled interviews later this week.

Thanks for listening!

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• Full episode notes and links: https://mountainandprairie.com/shed-sesh/

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TOPICS DISCUSSED:

• 3:12 - Intro, Questions, and Goals
• 10:20 - Disclaimers
• 13:58 - Discussion outline
• 15:45 - My career path
• 19:53 - My specific job in conservation
• 22:30 - How I built a network from scratch
• 40:01 - Advice on how to build a network
• 48:55 - What I looked for when I was hiring
• 54:39 - What you should look for in a conservation organization
• 1:05:51 - Book Recommendations
• 1:15:05 - Pros and cons
• 1:22:22 - Closing thoughts

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