Kickstart your career in ecology
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By Jonathan Brickland, Director
As is true in so many professions, the biggest obstacle to getting your first job as an ecological consultant is a lack of experience. For employers, recruiting at a junior level is not difficult; any advert will give rise to many applicants, a reasonable number of whom will have some relevant experience and enough about them to seem interesting enough to invite for interview. With no shortage of these more experienced junior candidates, delving back to fresh graduates can be difficult to justify in business terms. But as one of those graduates, how do you get the experience when nobody will hire you without it?
At Peak Ecology we have made a concerted effort to get more involved with potential future ecologists, hopefully breaking down some of the barriers that face those entering our profession. This is done firstly through local secondary schools, with one week work experience placements for up to four Year 12 pupils each year. We also have good links with several universities to engage with ecology undergraduate and postgraduate students.
In 2013 we created our intern programme; a seven-month structured training programme which allowed graduates to gain invaluable experience whilst working. Chris, our first ever intern, kept a blog; the very last paragraph of which reads;
“During my last week we surveyed the final of the three care homes and found ten ‘mystery’ droppings, definitely bat but the species unclear. We’ll have to wait for the results of the DNA analysis to confirm the species. This made it four confirmed bat roosts in under three weeks! A great finish to a brilliant experience”.
Chris went on to work for Peak Ecology for four years before moving on to another ecology role; I speak to Chris almost weekly and we still work together on a regular basis.
The internship is distinct from seasonal roles for field surveyors, and it is stressed at the start of the recruitment process that internship candidates should not have any previous consultancy experience. What is vital for any prospective intern, is that they must be able to demonstrate a genuine enthusiasm for ecology.
A rather contentious point is whether or not an intern should be paid. Student internships, if undertaken as part of a higher education course and for less than 12 months, are not entitled to the minimum wage. Outside of this educational context, legally if they are defined as a ‘worker’ then they are entitled to the minimum wage but if they are a volunteer or are work shadowing then they might not be. At Peak Ecology we firmly believe that interns should be paid, it is the right thing to do.
The internship programme is seven months, usually commencing in April, and includes a wide range of duties which gives a really good introduction into the life of a consultant ecologist. Interns experience a range of protected species and habitat survey and are introduced to Biodiversity Net Gain. In addition to the fieldwork, there are also the office aspects of ecological consultancy; everybody contributes to fee proposals, reporting, invoicing, preparing risk assessments and various other desk-based tasks.
All of the above tasks are set out in a detailed training log and as the various components are completed, they are signed off by a mentor. The interns benefit from structured training, and the company is proactive in inviting external guests to deliver CPD style presentations to all staff. Our second intern, Nicole, who left Peak Ecology to join Natural Power in Scotland said;
“Working for Peak Ecology on the graduate internship was a great opportunity and experience for me. I gained loads of new skills useful in ecological consultancy – from different survey techniques and report writing to legislation and drafting tenders. It’s thanks to completing the internship that I have now managed to get a permanent job in consultancy.”
The programme has not only proved popular amongst candidates but it has been well-received by the Peak Ecology Team, giving them the opportunity to mentor junior staff and develop new skills of their own in management and training delivery.
Since 2013, Peak Ecology has had twelve interns and the programme is seen as being a great success. The interns tend to find employment very easily, be that with Peak Ecology or with other consultancies. Not only does the programme create great opportunities for new graduates but it really encourages quality in our profession right from the outset.
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