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Navigating Marine Science Careers: Building Your Resume Beyond Courses and Internships · How To Protect The Ocean

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  A few episodes ago, I talked about the breakdown of sort of
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  the marine conservation and science careers, you know, of what
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  I've been through, through my experience and through my eyes and how I'm
• 0:09
  helping my daughter become a zoologist and a wildlife biologist by
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  sharing my experiences and prepping her before she goes off to university of
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  the types of things that she should prepare for, you know, and
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  do before she gets to university or when she's in university. And
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  then even after she's in university to get a job and build her career,
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  in wildlife biology, whether that be oceans or land. She's more of
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  a herpetology nerd instead of an ocean nerd like myself. But
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  that's great. It's always good to see your kids do great
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  things and follow their passions and their dreams and what
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  they want to do. So I've been talking to my daughter about this. I've
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  been talking to other people. And I've got some great feedback from the
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  last episode that I sent. And it was great, again,
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  it's great to hear from people, whether it be on LinkedIn, whether it be on Facebook, whether
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  it be on Instagram at HowToProtectTheOcean when
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  they DM me. But it's great to hear the feedback from
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  people that they have. And I have a colleague and a friend, Erica
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  Moulton, who is a dean at
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  a college in Florida. She
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  hit me up after listening to that episode, and she's like, hey, I really liked your episode. I
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  have a suggestion for you, something that you could mention to people
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  in the next episode whenever you're covering careers. And
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  that has to do with all of the extras. you
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  could put on your resume to show what you've done instead
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  of just the courses and maybe some internships and things like that. All
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  very well, you know, you know you need to have an undergraduate degree
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  a lot of the times, you know potentially you need a graduate degree for certain
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  aspects of what you wanna do with your career. But we don't talk
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  a lot about the extracurriculars that you do,
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  whether it be in high school or university, or even beyond, that
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  kind of show that you're involved in, you know, ocean
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  conservation and that you have a passion for this and that you are
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  going above and beyond what you can normally do instead of
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  just finding a job, you're actually looking for opportunities. And
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  that could be volunteer ships that could be going on a board of directors, which
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  we'll talk about in a second for a small nonprofit or local organization,
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  or even like being a volunteer coordinator, you know, as
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  a volunteer to do some cleanups or things like that. in leadership
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  roles essentially, but also participating in local, you know,
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  committees and politics and things like that. There are so many
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  ways that you can beef up your resume, but not
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  just for the beefing up your resume, but also for the networking opportunities
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  and also for just getting more involved. in
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  marine science and conservation. And this is what we're going to be talking about in this case.
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  I might mention wildlife biology every once in a while, because that's what I talk to my
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  daughter about. But that's really what it comes down to.
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  It comes down to how can you help yourself not
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  only build your career in the future or
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  even presently, but how can you really forward on and
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  follow those passions? Follow those
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  areas where you can augment your career, but
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  also like get to know the, you
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  know, the feel that you want to go into, get to know, you
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  know, what areas you really want to go into. Because oftentimes, like
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  Eric and I, we talk about it, Erica and I, we talk about it all the time, where
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  we'll get messages from people. And I have a Marine Facebook group,
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  a Marine Science and Conservation Careers Facebook group, as well as
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  on LinkedIn, Marine Biology Jobs. And a
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  lot of times we hear, first of all, Anybody know of any jobs in
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  marine science and conservation in the UK or in Europe or
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  in? The US or in the Northeast or in the west coast
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  of Canada or you know wherever you are People
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  like anybody know anybody looking for a job. That's not how you get
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  jobs Right? You have to know where you want to go to
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  be directed. The first question I always ask, like, what area do you want to go into? And it's like,
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  I'll do anything at this point. It's like, no, you have to figure
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  out what you want to do. Because if you're doing the wrong thing in
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  the field, like the wrong path, you're not going to be happy. And
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  you're going to hate your job. Trust me. These are not easy jobs
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  to take on. They require a lot of thought. A lot of times they require a
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  lot of physical activity if there's a field component to it. And you
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  have to be in your right mind, right frame of mind to be able to do
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  it. You want to have that passion to do it. That was your dream. So figure
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  out your dream, figure out your niche or a couple of niches that
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  you would like to pursue, especially at the beginning of your career, so
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  that you can really narrow down that path. Right? And
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  then you can start looking at, okay, let's see what kind of extras, but you're always
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  trying to do extras. And I was just, I was actually just talking to my daughter about
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  this recently. She's in high school. She's going into grade 12. They have
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  this, uh, this thing that they do at the beginning of every year is to help welcome
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  the freshmen or the great nines, uh, in high school. And it's called
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  the linked crew and you do two days of training and then you, you
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  go in and you, you know, you're kind of like a mentor and you kind of help them around
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  the school and, have programs and stuff like that, especially at the beginning,
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  the first few days of school, they do programs and stuff. We have an ISTEM program
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  and so she'll probably participate as well in those activities and
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  get to know some of the great nines to kind of get the great nines to feel
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  comfortable. It's a big step, you know, going from middle school or elementary
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  school into high school, right? So she's doing that, and at
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  first she wasn't sure if she really wanted to do it. I said, it's a great opportunity to
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  do extras. In fact, I mentioned Erika on it, and I was like, you know, a
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  colleague of mine, a friend of mine saying, hey, this is what we need more. We don't see this
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  enough on resumes where people are taking leadership roles or
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  getting leadership training in different aspects so that they can use
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  that on resumes later on. When you wanna go from like a field person
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  to a manager, or to a supervisor of some sort
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  in that area, you need to have those leadership skills and this
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  could help. It's not going to be the be all and end all of it,
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  but this could help and get you other jobs on your way
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  to the career that you want and the job that you want, your dream job. So,
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  you know, doing these types of things in high school, doing these
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  types, being camp counselors and all these kinds of things is great. Now,
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  let's start talking more about when you're in university. and you're going down
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  more towards your niches. You're starting university or in the middle of university, maybe
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  you're at the end of university and you're like, hey, you know what? I know
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  the coursework. I know the marks I need to
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  get and maybe I need certain marks and do your GRE if you're
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  in the US or whatever equivalents elsewhere to get
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  into grad school and all the things you need to do for grad
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  school, which we'll cover on another episode. You know those things. But
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  you don't know about, hey, how can I get the work experience that I
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  need? You have, if you're at college or university, you
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  have all the tools in front of you. You don't even realize
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  it. You have professors that are looking for volunteers. Sometimes they hire students,
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  right, undergrads. You know, you have accesses to
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  laboratories. Like when I went to University of Guelph here in Ontario, they
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  had a marine program, but they have a hydro lab. They had a lab. That was
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  all on like keeping fish so that we can do aquaculture studies, we
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  can do different type of scientific studies and behavioral studies.
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  We had a whole lab full and I volunteered in
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  my last year, unfortunately it was only in my last year, to be able to take care of
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  those animals and look after the systems and learn about the computer systems and
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  the alarm systems and the work that goes into it to help me
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  direct like, do I want to go the aquarist route? Do I want to look
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  after fish or even help, you know, people with their experiments and,
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  you know, feed the fish and do some like, you know, record some
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  of the data that they're looking at if they can't be there
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  and stuff. I got to do all of that just by volunteering. I think
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  it was like six to eight hours a week. It wasn't even that much, right?
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  Two hours a day or I did a whole Friday that I
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  would get like an eight hour day and it was fun. It was a lot of fun. I learned a
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  lot and it reignited my passion because a lot of times when
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  you go to school and you're going to the courses and you're doing the exams and
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  the assignments and midterms and field labs and lab
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  midterms and lab finals and lecture midterms and
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  lecture finals for the same course. It's a lot. It's a lot and
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  you kind of lose that focus of what you got into the
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  program for in the first place, right? It's like, what job am I going to
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  do? Where am I going to go? Where am I going to live? What am I going to do? I have no
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  idea. And I had no idea when I started, when I was graduating, but
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  I started to have an idea of the possibilities because now
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  I was volunteering in a lab. Then I'm talking to, you
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  know, the head, the, the, my boss, like my supervisor, who was
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  a graduate student talking to the lab manager about all
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  the stuff that. they do when they go out for us they went out east to
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  collect animals every year and they would do field courses and all
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  that kind of stuff and talking to them and hearing their stories and
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  getting some of their advice as mentors and you know sometimes
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  getting in crap if you're not doing your job properly you get all that you get
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  that work environment you start to see okay this is where I could
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  go this is what I could do and then you start to get introduced like
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  when I was working in a lab where a lot of professors had you know studies
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  going on and so you're you're interacting with their labs and those
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  professors and you start to learn more you start to hear you know of them
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  and they start to like you because you're helping them with their studies and
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  so they're interacting with you and you know for me I got
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  a really great program and I had really great professors and and
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  you know we would go out for beers after or you know hang out
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  in the lab and talk stories and stuff and I would just sit there and listen you
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  know you hear comedians all the time I listen to a lot of comedians I love I love stand-up
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  comedy and you hear about how they they What
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  do they call it? They had they think it's like they take house or something like
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  that And essentially what that is you get the the more like the
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  popular? Comedian or like the person the comedians been around doing it for
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  decades. They sit down. Oh, they hold court I think is
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  what they call it and they sit down and they talk to all the other comedians who are
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  trying to get their careers going and their comedy sort of career
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  going and and they may have struggles and stuff but they listen to them and they listen
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  to their stories and they listen to the advice and they become their mentors
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  and stuff like that and that's what it was, that's what I love and actually that's
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  how I got into podcasting, had I known earlier I probably would have been doing
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  it earlier but that's what I fell in love with, it was those stories, those
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  field stories and you know how people are interacting and
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  the stories that they had and the good times and the bad times and the challenging times and
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  so forth and you hear all of that stuff and that's what you
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  know, what made me fall in love and reignited my passion for
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  marine science and conservation as I was about to graduate. You
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  can do that throughout your entire career at university. Just
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  think about that. If you want marine biology so bad, whether you
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  want to go the academic route, the non-profit route, the private consulting,
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  all your skills are right in front of you. The ability
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  to get the experience and skills are right in front of you as a volunteer, but
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  you're already on campus, you're probably taking their courses, you're
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  probably learning, and it'll reaffirm the learning that
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  you're doing in your courses by doing a lot of the stuff that, like
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  helping out with their studies, or maybe helping out in the summers with
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  their field work and things like that, getting paid for it. Think about that.
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  Just think about that. You know, you may have to do some volunteer, but you're already
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  taking courses. You're already on the campus. And why not? It's a
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  little bit more work. but you are there to do
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  everything you can so that when you graduate, people know
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  you, you have the opportunity to get jobs, you have the skills, you've
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  been in labs, you've been working with teams, you can get references and
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  all that kind of stuff and maybe direction of here's
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  some graduate schools you can go to or maybe you collaborate with a different
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  professor at a different school or even within the same school and they
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  wanna take you on as a student because they loved working with you so much and they have some
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  ideas that you've been you know, talking and exchanging ideas back
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  and forth throughout your career at your undergrad. You know, just
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  imagine that scenario, right? I'm not saying for everybody it's
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  going to work, but for a lot of you it can work and you
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  have more direction after. Now, the other thing that you
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  can do that I'm really, really excited for people to do is,
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  and I've talked about this before, but is participate and
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  volunteer to be involved in societies. Scientific
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  societies and conservation societies are your networking
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  tool. But there's a lot of work and collaborations that can come
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  from that. A lot of people talk, hey, we go to conferences in person,
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  virtual, virtual is a little harder to collaborate and meet new people. But when
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  you go there, you network, you meet new people, your professor go, they
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  bring the lab or as many people, hopefully, you get
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  to present a little bit, you get to meet some people, they introduce you to
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  their colleagues, their friends over those years. And, you know, and
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  like, you know, I talked to Dr. David
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  Ebert, Lost Shark Guy. He's my co-host on the
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  Beyond Jaws podcast. A lot of his students, they
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  either came from somebody else that he knows. So
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  if they were an undergrad at a particular school where he
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  had a colleague or a friend that he trusted in you and they said, hey, I have a student
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  for you. They're very interested in lost sharks or discovering species.
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  This person's got a great work ethic. I can give you a strong reference. Why
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  don't you talk to this person, he, her, or they, and be
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  like, hey, let's talk and let's go. He gets a lot of people from there.
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  And he also suggests a lot of people from his labs to go on and do
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  PhDs. So there's that camaraderie
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  among these networks, whether it be sharks, marine mammals, or
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  fish, or anything. There are all these communities out
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  there that they all talk and they all exchange and be like, hey, I've got a
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  student for you. You should check this person out. They're great. I'm going to suggest this
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  person. That's how it all works. That's how it all works. When you
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  know what they talk about, it's not what you know, it's who you know. still
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  works for marine science and conservation. You just have to put yourself out there. And
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  sometimes getting to conferences is not easy. It's expensive. They're
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  often far. Like, unfortunately, I'd like to go to the International
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  Marine Conservation Congress. It's just not in the books for me this year. It's in South Africa.
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  I live in Canada. It's really far to get to. It's expensive to get to.
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  I just can't do it this year. And so hopefully, next
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  time, I'll be able to participate and go
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  to that conference. But I'm going to be watching every other people like tweet
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  and all that kind of stuff to see what it's like and to see what people are doing
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  there. But, you know, it's if you can't do
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  that, you can still participate in the planning of
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  those conferences. Right. You can get on committees and
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  volunteer. One time I was the chair of the funding committee and
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  I had people helping me out. We were all trying to get funding to fund
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  that conference. There's other ways where you can be on the social committee, or
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  you can be on the student committee if you're a student, or you can be
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  on the communications committee and
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  help out with all the different tasks there. Then you're building a rapport
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  with other people who are also in the marine science world, not all students.
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  Some of them are graduate students. Some of them are managers and hiring
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  managers. You just never know who they would suggest
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  or be like, hey, I've got somebody here. Andrew's great. He can help you with
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  this. You know, people don't really know him. He's trying to
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  get into this new area. I think this would be a perfect opportunity to pick him up
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  and work with him. Like, that's how it works. That's the great
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  part. If you show what you can do and you show how hard you work, people
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  are going to be like, all right, this is cool. Like, I'm really going to enjoy this, you
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  know, and I'm going to enjoy working with this person. So, you know,
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  Erica had the great suggestion of talking about the extracurriculars that
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  you have. And it could be a different things too. It doesn't always have to be
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  within marine science and conservation societies and all this kind of stuff. It could
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  be other societies that you're part of. It could be a board of directors that you're part of, like a
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  non-profit organization. They're always looking for board of directors
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  to help them out and help manage those non-profits. Then you get
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  to see it from a different aspect. You get to see how hard it is to
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  run a non-profit organization and all the different intricacies that go in
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  to putting together and running it and making sure you're
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  abiding by all the charitable laws in each country that you're in.
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  It could be a lot, but it could be fun. And then again, you're networking
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  with other people who may be a part of other jobs or other
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  organizations and they might be like, hey, this person is
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  looking for a job. I have a perfect job opportunity for
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  you. there's a lot of things that can come out of that you
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  just have to put yourself out there and I know you know looking
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  for a job is hectic looking for a job is emotional it's
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  draining you can't do it full-time you can't do it each
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  and every day all days of the week you have to
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  start getting into doing other things networking Joining
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  societies a lot of the times they're really, you know, I think it's like 50 bucks a
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  year or something like that The Society of Conservation Biology
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  is one that's really really great Estuarine Society has
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  one as low which is the I think
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  it's American Society of Limnology
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  and Oceanography, I think as low is a FS
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  which is American AES, Elasmo
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  Brank Association, ESA, Ecological Society
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  of America. There's all these different organizations to
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  be a part of that you can join. You don't have to join all of
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  them. I suggest joining one and really putting all your effort into
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  that and joining that and participating where you can. And then,
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  yeah, that's the way you go about it and you start to learn what
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  it's all about. Hear different research that's going on
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  you get to you know participate in planning these conferences that go
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  on Sometimes they have work groups that you can be a
• 17:24
  part of and work group meetings and stuff like that It's all
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  great a lot of its virtual these days to make it easier for everybody And
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  it works out really well and it helps not only just drive your
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  passion for what you want to do But it helps networking and
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  it helps build up your resume So when people see that, it's like, oh, this person gets involved,
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  like this person knows what to do. Don't take on too much, make
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  sure that you get good references from those. And then you've got
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  a great CV and a great resume. So that's my advice to
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  you. Thank you, Erica, for bringing that up. I really appreciate it. And
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  I appreciate you guys for listening each and every time to these episodes. I'd love
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  to hear your feedback. What societies do you join? Have you
• 18:03
  joined one? What are you considering? I'd love to hear your thoughts. Hit
• 18:06
  me up on Spotify as a comment, on YouTube
• 18:10
  as a comment, or hit me up on Instagram at
• 18:14
  HowToProtectTheOcean. And if you have stories that
• 18:17
  you want me to take a look at and cover on this podcast, I'm
• 18:20
  looking for original stories. If you have calls to action or
• 18:24
  petitions and things like that, feel free
• 18:27
  to hit me up on LinkedIn or email
• 18:31
  me or through the website speakupforblue.com or
• 18:34
  hit me up on Instagram at howtoprotecttheocean. Lots of calls to action today.
• 18:37
  But anyway, thank you very much for listening. Really appreciate it. Have a great day. We'll talk to
• 18:41
  you next time. This has been Speak Up How to Protect
• 18:44
  the Ocean podcast. I'm your host, Andrew Lewin. Have a great day. We'll talk to you next