Posted by amelia | August 13, 2012 | Jobseekers

Do Good Jobs is proud to present our first guest blogger! Today it is Jennifer Nickel. A smart young lady who I had the privilage of meeting a few weeks ago at a sustainability get-together. Here is her story…

“Ever since I was given the choice to pick my own subjects at school (after many years of receiving a fully prescribed education) I’ve suffered, sometimes excruciatingly, trying to make the ‘right’ choices for my career.  It’s been over a decade now and I conclude there is no ‘right’ direction. In hindsight I still wish to have tried all of those things that I didn’t choose and a whole lot of options opened up that I never thought of!

After taking a backwards step from ‘thinking about the details’ I concluded that all that matters is to do some ‘good’ in the world.  The details of how that is achieved is not as important as knowing this core value.  Just like a business can be guided by a core ideology and remain flexible in what it actually does (e.g. the way the company 3M has many means for serving its core purpose of solving unsolved problems innovatively), so can I.

After graduating from University in 2009 with a Master of Science I was very lucky to get a job in a research laboratory. I realize now how lucky I really was because science jobs seem to be as critically endangered as some of the species in New Zealand at the moment.  However, I didn’t feel like I was serving my purpose of ‘doing good’ in the laboratory and there was no light on the scientific-employment horizon so I decided to go back to study.  Now, I am nearly finished with a Graduate Diploma in Sustainable Practice and can’t believe how many fascinating people and projects I have the privilege of knowing.  A lot of their stories are up on this website www.sustainable-practice.org.

This year, instead of just spending my year lamenting that there is little time outside the 9-5 work week, the distance-study has given me the push to do things like evaluate the sustainability potential of my favourite country in the world (New Zealand), and get me involved with helping a business with their sustainability strategy.  Currently I’m working on a research project focusing on the successful communication of business development courses, and after the summer I look forward to carrying on with more ‘good’ work in 2013.  I am so inspired by my fellow Graduate Diploma students and websites like dogoodjobs.co.nz.  This is just the beginning.”

We are looking for more people to tell their stories, talk about their good projects or just dispense some advice!

If you are interested in contributing get in touch with me – [email protected]. You can have a read of my story in the last blog post.

Linking good people to jobs that create social and environmental change

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