CAREERS IN GIS

Archive for the ‘Searching the Internet for Jobs’ Category

International organizations, such as the ones listed below, provide some assistance in developing countries when it comes to finding GIS jobs.  Simply put, everyone needs maps.  All organizations included on the list have GIS/mapping needs to further their purposes (either currently or in the past few years) in various parts of the world.  Having staff that not only know GIS but also know about local culture, environment, language, or politics provides a massive benefit.  Possessing these skills allows the international organizations to move their plans forward with much greater speed.  As a result, they will reach their goals of helping the environment or the people they are trying to assist more quickly.

As with most employment opportunities around the world, networking is necessary.  Acquiring a job with one of the organizations below is not extremely easy in certain cases, but it is still possible.  Here are a few bits of advice when exploring the given options.

1) Do a simple keyword search for GIS on each organization’s website.  If that does not produce anything, try a Google search with the organization’s name and GIS.

2) Follow the maps.  If you see a map associated with a project, try to find out who made it.  That will likely lead you to a GIS source within the organization.

3) Locate contact information on who may be in charge of hiring staff.  It can be a project coordinator or a human resources department.  Some of the organization’s websites have links to available jobs.  However, if there is no job link do not be afraid to email a contact that you may find.  You never know what an inquiry may produce.

4) Examine the requirements for working with the organization.  Certain skill sets, certificates, or citizenship are often necessary to acquire a position.  But once again, I would still inquire about projects that spark your curiosity.

I intend to update the list below with even more international organizations so please stay tuned for future posts about this subject.  Happy job hunting!

Agency for Technical Cooperation and Development (ACTED)
AlertNet
Asian Development Bank (ADB)
Asian Disaster Preparedness Center (ADPC)
Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters (CRED)
Conservation International (CI)
Cooperative for Relief and Assistance Everywhere (CARE)
European Commission Humanitarian Aid Department (ECHO)
Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET)
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)
Food Security and Nutrition Analysis Unit (FSNAU)
Inter-American Development Bank (IADB)
International Federation of Red Cross And Red Crescent Societies (IFRC)
International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI)
International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED)
International Institute of Rural Reconstruction (IIRR)
International Organization for Migration (IOM)
International Relief and Development (IRD)
International Rescue Committee (IRC)
International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN)
Management Systems International (MSI)
MapAction
National Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (varies by country or region)
Network for Information, Response and Preparedness Activities on Disaster (NIRAPAD)
Norwegian People’s Aid (NPA)
Oxfam International
Panthera
Snow Leopard Conservancy
Snow Leopard Trust
Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA)
The Nature Conservancy
United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA)
United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF)
United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)
United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)
United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)
United Nations Joint Logistics Centre (UNJLC)
United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA)
United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA)
United Nations Operational Satellite Applications Program (UNOSAT)
United States Agency for International Development (USAID)
Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS)
World Bank
World Food Programme (WFP)
World Health Organization (WHO)
World Resources Institute (WRI)
World Wildlife Fund (WWF)

When looking to begin a new job or move on to a better job, you should consider whether you want to be a big fish in a little GIS pond or little fish in a big GIS pond.  This is very important because it may determine if you grow and mature as a GIS professional.

There are plenty of “assembly line” GIS positions out there.  These are positions where you will encounter the same 2-4 tasks repeatedly.  These positions are usually in organizations where you are the “little fish”.  GIS consulting firms, large local government offices, places where you have more than two or three GIS users are where you find many of these positions.  I hate to state it, but it is rare to find any encouragement of professional development in these environments.  No training on new software or new methods, no conference attendance, no challenges, no GIS stimulation.  Usually for budgetary reasons, that is left to your superiors who are more experienced.

Then how are you ever supposed to learn if never given the chance?  Personally, I believe in training those who have less experience to the point of where their knowledge is equal to mine.  It may be the educator in me, but my philosophy is that if I know that a colleague knows how to accomplish a difficult task, that frees my time to work on other projects without any worries.

Do not misunderstand, having a job in your field is definitely better than not have a job.  Do not turn down a job just because the environment is not perfect.  However, if you are looking to move on to a better job, you need to be happy.  If you do not gain exposure to new things, especially in the GIS industry, you will not advance.  I vote for being the “big GIS fish” Being the big fish in the little GIS pond is a blessing and a curse.  You may gain more opportunity to explore new techniques or new applications but you will have a lower salary.  On the other hand, GIS professionals that you can hopefully learn from or brainstorm with will not surround you.  But then again I have posted other material on how to expand your horizons that you can use to advance knowledge

You may be using every search engine available to try and locate jobs on the Internet and are probably coming across the same old job postings every day.  Or what’s even worse is when you hear about someone who landed a great job that you would have loved to apply for.  How did they know about these jobs?  Many times these postings were made public but you were not looking in the right places.

When searching the Internet for available positions, you are likely searching using two main types of websites to locate postings.  The first type of website is where a person looking to hire manually loads the posting information to the site.  The second type of website will scour the Internet looking for job postings that match the description or keywords that you enter.  It is this second type of site that can be misleading.  Employer’s web servers may sometimes block these “search engine” type websites from accessing or publishing their online information.  The way these sites search for jobs can make them appear malicious and are therefore blocked.  Another, more likely, scenario is that jobs posted on an employer’s website are so new that the information has not existed long enough to be detected by the search engine.

So how are you supposed to find out about these jobs?  The answer is that you have to regularly check the career/jobs section of an employer’s website for new postings…all of them.  That may sound like a lot of work but no one said it would be an easy task.  However, you can definitely narrow it down.  First thing that you need to do is identify which corporations, businesses, consulting firms, government offices, etc. use GIS.  That list may sound long, but the categories are pretty easy.

1.  Any government office these days is using GIS for something.  City, county, state, federal, along with any and all of their subdivisions…public works, police, fire, park districts, tax assessor, public schools, public health, etc.

2.  GIS consulting firms.  A simple Google search will return the ones in your area.  Start combing their websites.

3.  Real estate management firms.  GIS and real estate go hand in hand.  There is no guarantee that the firm in question will be using GIS but the biggest ones almost definitely are.

4.  Insurance companies.  I do not mean local sales offices (but it’s worth a shot) but GIS is likely used in corporate headquarters.  Insurance companies are realizing the benefits of GIS in analyzing all sorts of information and can be a good source for jobs.

5.  Any sort of company dealing with retail.  Think of large department stores, chain restaurants/franchises, pharmacies, grocery stores, just about anything located near shopping districts in your area that you can find in cities and towns across the USA or around the world.  The corporate headquarters of those institutions are very likely using GIS to analyze their own operations and their competition.

6.  Transportation/distribution companies.  UPS, FedEx, trucking, railroads, anyone that deals with getting things from here to there needs to analyze costs across space.  That means using GIS.

7.  Colleges and universities.  In many cases some sort of advanced degree is needed to work in these environments but do not think you need to be a professor to work here.  Many different disciplines are incorporating GIS into their research which usually means staff positions using GIS.

If you visit these sites systematically, you may very well get lucky and get a huge jump on others who may still be searching Hotjobs.com every five minutes waiting for some new job posting to appear.

The jobs are out there.  Finding them is a different story.  Do not assume that every available job is automatically posted on the Internet.  Postings do not magically appear on websites like CareerBuilder.com and the GIS Jobs Clearinghouse.  Websites like those require someone to load a posting to the site and occasionally a fee is involved.  Businesses and government offices do not always have human resource staff to help fill a position.  Available positions are more likely just put on their institution’s website and that is as far as it goes.  It’s up to YOU to find it.

Indeed.com is one of the better websites I have come across that acts as a search engine collecting information from other job search sites like Monster.com, Dice.com, etc.  In other words, it is a one stop shop that will allow you to narrow your search by proximity, salary range, etc.  Also, if you visit Indeed.com on multiple occasions, it will remember which postings you have seen and which ones are new (although you may have to do a bit of filtering but not much).  However, I would suggest that you do not limit your search by salary or enter several keywords either.  A simple keyword search on “GIS” should do the trick.  Sometimes being too specific will leave a good position undiscovered.

Looking for GIS jobs over the web is an art form.  Of course there are the obvious GIS job posting websites listed on the right side of this page.  GIS Jobs Clearinghouse, GISjobs.com, etc.  The problem with these websites is that everyone else is searching them for GIS jobs as well.

This anecdote will give you a good idea of your competition.  Just over 10 years ago while working for a GIS consulting firm, I posted a position for a entry level GIS Technician on the GIS Jobs Clearinghouse.  Within one day I had over 50 resumes faxed to me.  Within the first week, I had received hundreds of resumes from all over the United States and all over the world as well…Canada, Ukraine, India.  Do not think that only local people are applying for jobs available in your neck of the woods.  Also, do not think that sorting through hundreds and hundreds of resumes is the easiest task either.

So should you even bother applying for jobs on sites like that?  Of course you should.  It will never hurt your chances if you are qualified for the job.  But if you are applying for a job that is on the other side of the country or the world, ask yourself how likely it would be for those doing the hiring to contact you.  Are they going to pay for you to travel to them to do an in person interview?  Some will and some won’t.  Preliminary interviews can always be done over the phone but it is extremely rare for someone to finalize a job over the telephone.  They will want to meet you in person at least once.