9 Sustainability Job Boards and How to Use Them

By Shannon Houde

As most of my clients will tell you, one of my first pieces of advice for job-seekers is that jobs boards are a waste of your time. Odds are that you will not find and land your dream role through a jobs board, especially since over 50 percent of open roles are never even posted publicly.

That being said, jobs boards can serve a useful purpose. They are a great way to scan the market and find out what types of roles are open in your sector as well as who is hiring. Learning about your options can spark ideas about which path you’re interested in pursuing as well as what skills/education you need to acquire along the way. Plus, since I know you cannot resist the urge to surf, you may as well get strategic about it.

For sustainability and impact job-seekers, there is an overwhelming amount of online resources and it’s easy to get lost. Targeting your search not only saves you time and energy, but allows you to key in on the criteria that matter to you most. A useful jobs board provides filters for location, experience level, sector, salary and more to help connect your with the most relevant opportunities.

Always remember to bookmark or save roles of interest so that you can reference them later and begin to customize your personal marketing materials (bio, LinkedIn profile, elevator pitch) to include relevant keywords. Once you find the jobs board that you like, follow them on social media or request personalized email updates to condense future searches.

To give you a head start I’ve put together this brief list of the top sustainability and impact sector jobs boards to help you land your dream role:

1. Acre Resources

Acre is the U.K.’s leading sustainability recruitment firm. They showcase a comprehensive range of jobs across corporate social responsibility (CSR), sustainability, energy, environment, and more. Search their job board by location and salary to find positions within corporates, nonprofits, and NGOs.

2. BSR (Business for Social Responsibility)

BSR is a global nonprofit that works with more than 250 member companies. Scroll through or search by topic for the latest CSR and sustainability positions.

3. Environmental Career

The site’s concise job descriptions complete with company logos allows you to easily scan through the list of roles, and you can search for positions according to location and industry.

4. Environment Jobs

This busy environmental and green jobs site sends user specific vacancies in their job alerts. Environment Jobs has a diverse international green jobs list that the job hunter can search and load their resume to, free of charge.

5. GreenBiz 

GreenBiz is a great source for news and resources on the greening of mainstream business. You can subscribe to job alerts or follow their job updates on Twitter.

6. Green Dream Jobs 

A leading green jobs service on sustainablebusiness.com, Green Dream Jobs allows for search criteria and posts jobs across the US on a daily basis.

7. Idealist 

In addition to being a wonderful job search engine, Idealist gives the curious an opportunity to find organizations, events, and blogs regarding all things sustainable.

8. Nonprofit Oyster 

Nonprofit Oyster is a mission-focused nonprofit career site that provides seekers the ability to search for jobs by industry, state, or job function.

9. Net Impact Global 

Create an account with Net Impact Global to apply for positions and “Explore Careers” for job search tools and tips.

Did I forget to include your favorite jobs board? Tweet it to us, we’d love to check it out.
Image credit: Flickr/Dean Meyers

Shannon Houde is founder of Walk of Life Consulting, the first international career and executive coaching advisory service focused solely on the impact, sustainability and corporate responsibility fields.