The Need for Green

🌎 Tech Skills to Save the Planet

Let me branch out and give you the root of what GreenTech (aka ClimateTech) is all about. Today, we're talking about planting the seed of innovation to help save our planet. GreenTech, is all about creating technological solutions to save our planet. We're talking about technologies that tackle environmental issues head-on and promote sustainability such as EVs, solar grids, wind farming & kelp forest restoration. With the rapid advancement of such technology, positive climate legislation, and the undeniable evidence that our planet is melting, there’s never been a higher demand for tech workers in this space. The problem: we need more green-skilled workers.

🎧 Listen While You Read

📈 The Supply of Green Skills is Running Dry

In 2021, less than 1% of hiring involved green jobs, and half of them didn't even require any green skills. eye roll

Right now, we have enough people with green skills to match the demand for green jobs, but within the next 5 years, we're screwed. The demand will be through the roof, but the supply will be bone dry. It's time to step up and level up our green skills, people. Chop chop!

Let’s get some quick definitions down:

• Green skills: are those that enable the environmental sustainability of economic activities

• Green jobs: are those that cannot be performed without extensive knowledge of green skills

• Greening jobs: can be performed without green skills, but typically require some green skills

The following are the top green skills required by employers (% is share of job postings requiring each skill):

1. Sustainability (27.6%)

2. Remediation (8.8%)

3. Occupational Safety and Health Advisor (OSHA) (8.6%)

4. Climate (5.6%)

5. Renewable Energy (5.4%)

Some of the fastest-growing green skills by growth percentage are:

1. Sustainable Fashion (90.6%)

2. Oil Spill Response (80.4%)

3. Sustainable Business Strategies (56.6%)

Dive deeper into LinkedIn’s Global Green Skills Report 2022

🔗 Other GreenTech Resources

1. ClimateTechList - Software jobs at top (high-growth, high-impact) climate tech companies

2. Climate Tech Careers - An aggregator of various programs, job boards, and communities to help you start a career in climate

3. ClimateBase - Discover jobs at thousands of exciting climate tech companies and nonprofits around the world.

💼 Companies with the Green

1. Ecobee - They design and manufacture intelligent, eco-friendly home products such as smart thermostats, smoke detectors, and home energy monitors. With the global smart home thermostat market size projected to reach a compound annual growth rate of 20.1% over the next 6 years, Ecobee is one of the top players going head-to-head with competitors like Honeywell Google. Check out their job board.

2. SunPower - SunPower is a solar power company that has been headquartered in Silicon Valley since 1985. They are an industry leader in solar sustainability and social responsibility and have received more than 1,000 patents for solar innovation. Here’s their job board.

3. Veolia - Truly a green giant with more than 179,000 employees on 5 continents, Veolia designs and deploys water, waste, and energy management solutions that contribute to the sustainable development of cities and industries. Peep the job board.

💬 ChatGPT Tip of the Week

Currently, the experience of using ChatGPT to help with your resume isn’t the most user-friendly, but if you ask in the right ways (and ask nicely), it can spit out some very useful content for your job-seeking needs!

Prompt:

Personalize my resume for [X role] at [Y company].

Here is the job description [Paste Job Description].

Here is my resume [Paste Resume].

Use concise, intellectual, and confident language.

Copying and pasting a job description into a chat field feels weird. Almost as weird as copying and pasting your resume. However, this technique gave me a very useful, personalized set of paragraphs that I could use in a number of ways in my pursuit of that position.

🛠️ Tools to Help with Employment

1. TealHQ: “Simplify your job search and land your next position sooner with Teal's all-in-one suite of tools.” Teal has an AI-powered resume builder that can take what you have and automatically tailor it and generate personalized cover letters for multiple jobs at once.

2. Our friends over at WarnTracker.com are the true oracles of tech. They post about layoffs before they even happen! - “A WARN (Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification) notice is a notice required by the federal WARN Act in the United States, which mandates that employers with 100 or more employees provide at least 60 days advance written notice of a plant closing or mass layoff affecting 50 or more employees.” Check out their database and stay one step ahead of your employer.

💸 How I Spent My Severance

You know what they say, when life gives you lemons, you book a fancy hotel in Berkeley and treat yourself to a facial and massage at a nice spa! And let's not forget the dopamine hits from the Amazon cart - retail therapy is always a good idea. When the blues kicked in, I said, "DoorDash, don't mind if I do!"

And yet, responsible as ever, I managed to put aside enough for my cut of the mortgage for a few months and paid some bills. All in all, I’d say I’m sev-erely enjoying my time off! Here are some all-too-practical, AI-generated uses for your severance:

1. Pay off any outstanding debts, such as credit cards or student loans. Boringgg

2. Use the funds to gain new skills or further your education. I’m always down for some upskilling

3. Consider donating a portion to a charitable organization or cause that you support. I can def get behind this

4. Treat yourself to a well-deserved vacation or splurge on a hobby you've been wanting to pursue. Now we’re talkin’!

I’m curious how are you dispersing yours? Jump in the comments and give us all the deets!

🗣️ We need your feedback!

One last thing tech-savvy gossip queens and kings! Did you read our newsletter and have some thoughts on improving it? Don't hold back, darlings! We want the tea hotter than that scorching cup of coffee you're sipping on. So share the link with your job-seeking homies if you thought it was better than other emails in your work inbox, and spill the beans in the comments (web version) if it was as dull as morning standup. We pledge not to judge - this isn't like one of those employee surveys where you have to sugarcoat everything.

Steph
Cofounder @ Offboard