CAREERS IN GIS

Archive for October, 2009

There are many FREE GIS related newsletters and/or e-magazines out there that can you can feed to your email account on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis.  Many of these newsletters contain not only GIS industry information but also GIS job information.

Now it can get a bit annoying having all these feeds crowding your inbox along with information flowing in from GIS blogs.  However, here are the facts:  if you are not reading these, someone else is.  And guess what?  They are your competition!  If you really want to land that great job opportunity, you will need to spend 30-60 minutes per day doing research. The early bird does not get the worm anymore.  The bird who gets the worm is the one who never went to sleep in the first place.

Anyhow, below are the major email GIS newsletters/e-magazines that you can subscribe to for free.  They are in no particular order.

ESRI Publications

GISuser.com Newsletters

Directions Magazine

Geocommunity Spatial Newswire

GPS World and Geospatial Solutions (GPS World and Geospatial Solutions are separate but have been combined temporarily while site reconstruction occurs for Geospatial Solutions)

Geoplace.com’s GeoReport

GISCafe Daily Newsletter

GITA (Geospatial Information and Technology Association)Be Ready Bulletin

Point of Beginning eNewsletter

It should be noted that there are other more local GIS publications that you can subscribe to also.  Below are a few examples of what you may find.  There are hundreds of others.  Do a Google search on GIS groups/affiliations/associations in your region and you may find something similar.

City of Atlanta GIS Newsletter

Westchester County New York GIS Newsletter

Forth Valley UK GIS Newsletters

Minnesota GIS/LIS Consortium Newsletter

Databases are the backbone of any GIS system.  They are the “I” in GIS.  This means that a knowledge of databases (particularly the software used to manage them) should be somewhere in your repertoire.  By knowledge, I mean the basics of a database system…how to access a table, how to make a query, how to log in is even a basic skill.  When you finally get the job you have been looking for, you will likely either need to link map files on your desktop or from the Internet to records stored in a database or need to store all of your data records, including map files, in a database management system.

Unfortunately, knowing how to operate one database platform does not mean that you automatically are familiar with all.  Regardless, knowing even one DBMS gives you two advantages.  1) It shows an employer that you are familiar with the concepts of a DBMS and that 2) you can possibly learn how to work with different database platforms.

Now the important question is “Which database system should I become familiar with?”  The question that should be asked is “Which database system CAN I become familiar with?” The reason for this is that the most heavily used database platforms out there are too expensive for an ordinary person to afford and train themselves on.  For instance, if you are not already working in an job environment utilizing “the big three” DBMS’s like Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server, or IBM DB2, I doubt you will be able to afford the thousands or tens of thousands of dollars required to purchase a software license.  Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server, and IBM DB2 are usually only utilized in enterprise wide environments with numerous users.  Nevertheless, if you have the means and/or access, try to learn as much as possible.

Two other very popular database platforms that you may likely run into are MySQL and/or PostgreSQL.  What is nice about these two are that they are both open source database platforms.  Yes, free and open source!  All you need is access to a computer and the Internet in order to download and install either of these systems.  Teaching yourself is a different story.  Do a nice Google search on learning resources.  I am sure you will find plenty.

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.