4 Common Barriers to Your Dream Climate Job —And How to Crush Them

By Diego Espinosa, CEO, Co-founder & Learning Designer at Voiz Academy

Are you passionate about making a difference in the climate space but struggling to break into the field? You're not alone. Many professionals face significant barriers when transitioning to a climate career. Here are the 4 most common ones:

1. Your career successes don’t directly map to climate job ad requirements.

We have good news on this front. Your out-of-climate experience can make you better at climate jobs. We see it all the time in our participants. With some work, you can identify why, and be able to make the pitch to hiring managers.

2. You lack technical skills and don’t know where to start.

Let’s lay it on the line. 1) It’s hard to get by without “core” technical skills. 2) They are not hard to learn quickly. We recommend: Do not wait for a cohort program! Just dive in this weekend. Do a GHG calculation, or evaluate a CDP disclosure, or assess SBTi targets. Going from “zero to one” skills is transformational (as Reid Hoffman, LinkedIn’s Founder, argues).

3. You’re not sure what role to focus on, and find yourself getting ghosted when “spraying and praying”.

It happens to most pivoters, it’s disempowering, and it’s unnecessary. The solution: Before you hit the “Easy Apply” button, invest some time getting to know target roles, what makes hiring managers and their teams successful, and how you can advance that success.

4. You feel alone, and lack a climate network to support you.

We get it. Feeling like an island is demotivating. That said, we’ll tell you what others won’t. It takes effort to build relationships. You need to commit to meet people, take an interest in them, forge relationships, create two-way streets. It helps when you can access spaces where everyone commits to that effort. That’s what we’d look for, not just “networking events”.

Okay, all of those barriers are surmountable. You can get the job you want. At Voiz Academy we’ve designed our career coaching offering, and our unique unlimited upskilling platform, to do just that. Curious? Check us out!