By Dylan Blaskey
Finding jobs after graduation can be even more difficult than finding a PhD position, but there are many helpful resources to ease this process. That is why the members of the H3S committee developed a list of the job boards we use while searching for our academic, industry, and government jobs. Hopefully this will make your job search much easier. While this post focuses on jobs, many of these resources also post about master’s and doctoral positions, so we note this where applicable.
Job Boards
It may be a little obvious that this is our first suggestion, but this is an excellent site. If you are interested in researching at a national laboratory or working in academia in the United States, this is the job board for you (no need to be an AGU member). This website is easy to use. Just go to the link, enter some search terms or choose a pre-established job discipline (ex. Hydrology), and then click on the button that says create alert. You will get emails of the latest jobs directly to your inbox.
Job Boards of Other Professional Organizations
Other professional organizations have their own job boards as well. Some of the best for hydrology-minded job searchers are EGU, GSA, AMS, ASCE, and AWRA. Each has its own clientele, but most have more of a balance between industry and academic jobs than AGU’s job board. Non-North American job searchers should definitely check out EGU’s job board.
As the name suggests this job board is almost exclusively for academic positions. They do have a section for non-academic jobs, but it is usually pretty empty. Using keywords to search for jobs usually results in many postings. One of the most interesting parts about this website is that it collects salary information. If you get that elusive offer from a university, you can search the average salary of assistant, associate, and full professors there.
A mix of academic and industry jobs can be found on this job board published on Nature’s website. A few PhD positions are posted here as well. This is the first job board in our list that caters to countries around the world, although it is still heavily focused on the United States and Europe.
This job board is curated by the American Association for the Advancement of Science. A mix of academic and industry jobs are posted here, as well as a very limited number of PhD positions that are usually in Europe. A word of caution, hydrology related jobs are not as prevalent on this site as some others, but it can still be useful.
We are sure there are other universities that make job boards like this, but we doubt that many do it better than Texas A&M’s Department of Wildlife and Fisheries. The majority of the jobs posted on this site are in industry and in the United States. What makes this job board worthy of our list is its focus on all types of jobs: temporary, seasonal, part time, and full time.
Although the name sounds casual, this list is far from it. All types of positions are listed here: academic positions, government positions, NGOs, industry, environmental health, internships, etc. Another great feature is the search can be specified by location, years of experience required, position type, employing organization type, and specifically for remote jobs. They also have a sidebar with upcoming application deadlines, so you will never miss an opportunity.
The one stop shop if you want to work in the US government. While there seems to be an endless supply of jobs on this site, it can be extremely difficult to get past the automatic screening of your application. Some advice we have heard is to make sure your application materials show you are the most highly qualified individual for every specific item listed on the job posting otherwise you will be screened out before you even reach the hiring managers. If you have any questions about the job, reach out to whoever is posting the position so you know what they want in a candidate.
General Job Boards
You will be able to find academic and industry jobs on general job boards such as LinkedIn, Indeed, and ZipRecruiter. Most people are already familiar with these, so we won’t go into any more detail.
Job Databases
This is a crowd-sourced list of academic jobs in the field of Earth and Environmental Science. Most jobs are in North America and Europe, but some other countries are represented outside of these areas. Remember to scroll to the bottom to find the latest jobs. If you know of jobs you are encouraged to add them to the list.
This is another crowd-sourced list but this one focuses on the Ecology and Biology side of things. Newest jobs are at the top of this list making it slightly more intuitive than the previous database. Like the other database, this one focuses on postdoc and faculty positions in North America and Europe. An interesting part of this database is that it has a tab where people can self identify their earnings, so you might want to look at it while negotiating your salary.
Email Lists
This is a hydrology specific email list and a very good source to learn about Phd and Postdoc positions all over the world. In addition, you will receive information about seminars, special issues in journals, and lots of other things related to hydrology.
This list is run out of the University of California Berkeley but has information relevant to anyone interested in geomorphology. Postdoc and PhD positions are abundant in these emails. Also, faculty positions are sent through this list from time to time. Most of these are based in the United States but it is not exclusive.
The snow and ice lovers come together in this list. If you are interested in doing a PhD, postdoc, or a faculty position in cryosphere research, you can find opportunities here. While this list is heavily focused on PhD positions in Europe, there are some other opportunities that come through. As with all of these lists, they are not exclusive to job postings, so you will get information on many other topics too.
This list is put together by the Earth Science Women’s Network and runs through the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR). This list is much more focused on jobs in the Earth Sciences than the other email lists we have mentioned. All types of positions are welcome to be added but they tend to be academic.
A clever scraper program allows this list to be customized to your location. If you love where you currently are and are looking for industry jobs within a certain distance from you, sign up for this service. It will deliver to your mailbox a list of the latest jobs within your search range and the headlines of all the local news articles associated with water.
As much as we hate to admit it, Twitter is where most jobs get shared before they even hit the job boards. Following people you are interested in working with is the best option to find jobs specific to your sub-field. However, there are many Twitter accounts that post about jobs in general. Here is a list of a few good ones to follow:
This is not an exhaustive list by any means, but should give you an idea of where to start. Please let us know if there are any obvious ones we missed and we can update this post. Good luck on your job search!