When Scientists Take Bad Advice....

If only the people dispensing bad professional advice,
actually wore this label. 

A colleague (and friend of over 10 years) was recently pushed out of a job that she meant to keep for the remainder of her career.  She didn't do anything (criminally) illegal, waste her employers' resources, or commit any kind of timesheet fraud, or call in sick from Disney World.   She took some bad professional advice and paid dearly.

This colleague had the pleasure (or displeasure, depending on the day) of overseeing construction compliance with water projects in Annapolis, which happens to be the Maryland state capital in addition to being nearly surrounded by water.  This means a few things:

1.  Some people in Annapolis expect to be able to access (or build over) the water, regardless of laws.
2.  Most people with waterfront property in Annapolis have access to disposable money.
3.  Most people with waterfront property in Annapolis have access to political influence.
4.  Most people with waterfront property in Annapolis have access to good legal counsel.

In other words, if you have to deal with these folks in a situation where they want you to approve something you're not sure you can legally approve, you'll need to be highly competent, extremely patient in the face of petulance and immaturity, and have the good fortune or good judgment to be receiving good counsel, both in a legal sense and in a mentoring sense.

My friend, at her former job, had all of those things except a good mentor.   She worked on several contentious cases over the years, and worked diligently.  Although there were many complaints, that could be seen as a reflection of doing a good job in an "enforcement" position.   I mean....maybe.  But then she encountered one of "those" people, asking for permission to build something that my friend wasn't sure she could approve.  The person proposing the work was:

1.  Someone in Annapolis who has been very effective at getting his way with water regulations.
2.  Someone with access to disposable cash (in a general sense).
3.  Someone with a great deal of political influence
4.  Someone who was, in fact, a lawyer with a license to practice.

Letters from the "lawyer with free time" and my "stick in the mud colleague" flew back and forth for months.    Very little progress seemed to be made with each volley.   My friend then asked an elder colleague, someone who is very politically insulated, how she should handle it.  She was told that "if it were him," he would reject the proposal outright, partly because the final approval window was closing just two days after she received the last volley of written responses.  

My friend denied that permit. Such a denial gives the permit applicant 7 days to file an appeal in circuit court, which he did.  The court summarily ruled against the state, calling the permit rejection "arbitrary and capricious" and directing the agency in charge to issue permits within 7 days.    Eventually the permit was issued, and the project was constructed.

The person seeking the permit still has his job.   The elder environmental spokesman dispensing bad advice to my colleague still has his job.  But my colleague does not.  How is that possible?

I suppose I don't know how to answer that without saying, "We all have to be grownups."  If you're 25, or 30, or 40 or 50, and you take bad advice from someone who is your senior, you'll be the one held accountable for the lapse in judgment.  Unfortunately, I've been there - I'm glad it did not cost me a job.   But this is how life works.   All of us have college degrees.  Most have a graduate degree or some amount of graduate school under our belts.  If you aren't sure when you're getting good or bad advice, have a plan in place to ask others around you.   Keep an eye on whether you can stomach the (realistic) possible consequences of taking such advice - just as if it were your own idea on how to handle the situation.

It's true that in a highly functioning work environment, your fellow professional would stand up and say, "That's my fault - I gave poor advice and the junior staff took it."  But that kind of admission is rare in both corporate and government offices, and you'd be foolish to expect that level of protection, especially if you are considered by others to be a "junior" employee.

Networking and giving/receiving advice are critical to your success as a scientist.  But just because something wasn't your idea doesn't mean it doesn't count, once things go wrong.  Hasn't that been true in other phases of your life?  You know, your parents with that dumb, "If your friends all jumped off a cliff....." story?

If a senior colleague with nothing to lose tells you, "Go jump off that cliff, I'll be right behind you!", you'd be best to seek the counsel of another colleague to confirm the plan.

5 Reasons You Won't Get Hired in the Environmental Science Field

I recently ran across an AOL article entitled "10 Reasons You Didn't Get the Job."  Some of the things on the list are pretty ridiculous, like, "You arrived too early for the interview!" (if you are on the east or west coast, and need to plan on traffic or transit delays, you may, in fact, be 20 minutes early).  Others, like an interviewer's push to get the applicant to discuss salary, are a sad but true reason that a candidate can out themselves as either over - or under- qualified for the position (or totally qualified but with an alarmingly high or low opinion of their own professional value).

There's a whole separate list that's applicable just to the environmental field, and the applicant - especially those just entering the field as recent graduates or second-careerists - should know about these things.   Over the last 15 years, I've hired, supervised, and mentored a few dozen people - almost all of them biologists and engineers.

5. Lack of Self-Motivation.  I don't have to tell you what the job market is like out there.  It's going to get better.  Maybe not easier.  But better.  In any job climate, one of the quickest and easiest ways to knock yourself out of consideration for an environmental position is to be unengaged in the community.  I once asked a really qualified candidate what he'd been doing in the months since he finished his Masters Degree.  He answered, "Uhh, pretty much just chillin'."   I personally called him (long after he found out he didn't get the job) and gave him this same advice - it's that basic and that important.   He ultimately decided to become a science teacher at a local high school instead of becoming a professional ecologist.


I'm not suggesting that you spend 90 hours a week volunteering for environmental organizations. But if you want to be in the environmental field, and you can't find a paying gig (yet), use your free time wisely to at least infer to potential employers that ecology (or soil science, or whatever) are more than just a job and a paycheck for you.  If you truly love it, then spend time in it.  For the record, better answers would have included, "Hiking the A.T. and trying to rediscover my spirituality" or "puttin' some time in at my Mom's farm, you know, little wildlife projects here and there." Or better yet, "I have a small business building wood duck boxes (even if you have only built 2, and sold both to your Dad). Here's my business card -  it's my way of staying active in the field until I find work." 

4.  Don't know the players, don't know the game. Whether you are on the academic or the private consulting ends of ecology and environmental science, it's absolutely critical from the start of your career to know who the major players are, and what the major issues are in your chosen sub-field.   For example, my subfield is wetland restoration.  I would not hire anyone for a paid position that didn't know the meanings and importance of most of these words: "SWANCC" "Rapanos" "Carabell" "CREP" "404".   Furthermore, if the job description I'd posted had any reference to our primary funding sources, I'd expect each applicant to have looked up those websites and know basic acronyms like WRP, NFWF, NAWCA, and SRLF.   I'd expect them to know the names of several of the active, high profile scientists, landscape architects, land managers, and engineers in our state. 


This all may sound trite, but it's important.  There are many different theories about ecological theories and about environmental laws, and those all tend to conflict and inform (and sometimes misinform) each other.  When you walk into a job, you need to know, on a very basic level, who will oppose your work and why.  Who supports it, and why?  


3. Basic technical knowledge.   The job market is tough out there.  We're on the east coast, where jobs are semi-available, but not keeping pace with the staggering number of graduates within environmental college programs (to say nothing of other types of college graduates who happen to have practical environmental experience....or political connections).  Okay, now that I've said all that, PLEASE DO NOT APPLY FOR JOBS IN HIGHLY POPULATED AREAS IF YOU ARE NOT QUALIFIED FOR THE JOBS.  If you've never spent time in a wetland, and want to apply for a wetland permitting job in Idaho?  Go for it, I guess.  Florida, California, or Pennsylvania?  Do not waste your time, or the time of the person reviewing the resume's.

When it comes time for the interview, for the love of God, be prepared.  If it's a primate job, know the difference between old world and new world primates.  A wetland job?  Know the 10 most common wetland plants in the area where the job is located (lists are available for most states). A job with birds? Know the status (endangered vs. common vs. pest) of as many locally present birds as possible.  This type of knowledge, even if only lodged in your short-term memory, serves two purposes:  1) immediately inspires confidence in the interviewer to think, "OK this person can walk in the door and do this job," and 2) fills your interview time with witty banter about orchard orioles, some-story-about-Jane-Goodall, or the last special natural place you visited.  All of those things are better than getting battered by interview questions!  And if you don't know some real stuff about your sub-field, you will probably fail this test.

2.  Outspoken Attitudes about Job-Related Topics.  Do enough homework to know what topics not to discuss.  Do enough practice interviews to be able to soundly defend your ethical and moral values on these topics.  Don't ever lie (you'll hate yourself if you do get the job) - but be prepared to defend yourself in a polite but robust way. The biggest ones, if bungled on your end, that could quickly turn off a potential employer (so much so that they might immediately end the interview):
a. The role, importance, failings, and hazards of environmental regulations
b. The role of active habitat management vs. landscape preservation (aka "throw away the key")
c. The role of fishing and hunting in conservation and population dynamics
d. Animal rights issues, as they apply to environmental management, animal testing in research, and everything inbetween.
e. The role of guerrilla activism in environmental science and conservation.

Remember that if you are searching for jobs in a defined geographical area, you're likely to run into your interviewer again at some point.  Wouldn't you hate it if what they remember you for is some off-the-cuff comment you made about "An anarchist takeover of America would be best for biodiversity."  Yikes. 

1. Atrocious Resumes.  Yup.  This is nothing new.  IF YOU ARE 22 YEARS OLD YOU DO NOT NEED A SIX PAGE RESUME'.   Did I make that clear?  Hiring entry-level environmental staff is a crap shoot at best.  No one cares that you had a soils class that one time, or that you totally did the weekend sojourn with the Forestry Club that one time.

Your ONE PAGE RESUME' needs to confine itself to your contact information, education, truly relevant work experience (not Victoria's Secret), and somewhat relevant leadership (not just volunteer) experience (yes: "I organized the Young Alumni Dinner."  no: "I volunteered at the dinner").

Please also:

*Do not misspell anything.
*Do not have a ridiculous email address like, "HotRedhead84"
*Do not list truly demeaning jobs unless it's a story you just *have* to tell, i.e. you started by spraying out port-a-potties at age 17 for minimum wage, and then bought the company three years later, at age 20.