Five Professions That Remain High in Demand: Vault Talks Green Jobs With Chris Russell

If you spend even the elementary 10 minutes on getting updated on news everyday, you could not have missed the buzz the green jobs market has been creating. Especially with the stimulus it received under President Obama's American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), the green market has created jobs in the past year in economies that have otherwise consistently reported depressed statistics of unemployment. A great example is California, which in the last two quarters of 2009, persistently showed an uptick in green jobs, with environmental consulting responsible for the majority of new jobs, while the overall unemployment rate continued to climb up.

In fact, California was ranked No. 3 in December for the Hottest States for Green Jobs, with Oregon taking the top spot. With the unemployment rate steady at 9.7%, it is natural to wonder how the green job market is doing and whether it is continuing to create jobs or tapered off after its initial buzz. To get some insight, I spoke to Chris Russell, founder of the latest green jobs search engine to hit the web: Greenjobspsider.com. He is an experienced entrepreneur in the job search field and has several successful ventures under his belt including AllCountyJobs.com and JobRadio.fm.

Russell pointed out several interesting indicators for those interested to step into the green space or looking to change fields within their industry to capture the green buzz. He gave thumbs up to engineering candidates, emphasizing that they remain the No. 1 demand from employers in the green space--whether that is civil, mechanical, chemical or biofuels. He also stressed home weatherization as a hot industry for a while to come, as demand continues to outrun supply with more people taking advantage of government incentives to make their businesses and homes energy efficient.

Here's an excerpt from the interview.

What are some of the key indicators that drew you to start Greenjobsprider.com?
I started to gain interest in the green job market in early 2009 after experimenting with a few niche sites for solar and wind. As I researched the sector online I realized that renewable energy will become the next great job market. Companies are more interested in green than ever before, legislation is being passed to encourage green technology and incentives are being offered to go green. I also started to find dozens of places online that offered green jobs but quickly realized this was a fragmented user experience. So I thought about ways to aggregate these jobs and the result is GreenJobSpider.com, one of the first niche job search engines that focuses on the green job market.

How would you define "green jobs"? Are they restricted to construction, manufacturing and utilities roles?
There are various ways to define green jobs but basically they are jobs that create, support, maintain or regulate renewable energy products or services. So while there are definitely many construction and manufacturing roles in green, there are also green sales, marketing, finance & engineering jobs.

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Also, get key strengths, personality matches and misses, and in-depth analysis of what is involved in becoming an Energy Efficiency Expert and a Sustainability Manager.

Follow Chris on Twitter @ChrisRussell and get updates on new postings in the green job market on GreenJobSpider @greenjobspider. And of course, there is always @VaultCSR to keep you updated on the latest news, trends and insider info that you need for your green career!