Go Green! This could be the motto of the century. We see a huge trend in going green, whether it’s buying a hybrid car, eating organic, or recycling, the topic has become widespread. Today people are also looking for jobs with companies, who are doing what they can to take care of the environment. Ceylan Oney of Clean Techies has a few tips for job seekers looking to find work in clean tech companies.

Ceylan Oney is a marketing evangelist of Turkish origin who grew up in Germany and now lives in San Francisco. In 2008, she co-founded CleanTechies together with Ian Thomson and Marco Schmoecker – a team of entrepreneurs dedicated to promoting environmentally and economically sustainable solutions. As Chief Marketing Officer, she is leading all efforts to grow CleanTechies, a leading career services forum providing insight, orientation, and opportunities for the CleanTech community. Focused on clean technology, renewable energy and resource efficiency, CleanTechies covers industry trends and facilitates career opportunities for job seekers. In 2009, CleanTechies was recognized as a “Best Business Blog” by the Weblog Awards and as a “Best Blog of the Day” by the Blog of the Day Awards.

What was the motivation to start CleanTechies?
Ian was really the one who came up with the idea to start CleanTechies. While we were both getting our MBAs at IESE Business School, he became further interested in the green energy movement and wanted to contribute to scaling green technologies. After school, he moved to San Francisco, consulted on energy issues, and founded a recruiting company to place mid-career professionals into leading CleanTech companies. We both realized the global trend towards sustainability. With CleanTech and Renewable Energy projected to grow from $284 billion to $1.3 trillion in 10 years and just in the United States the number of jobs within these sectors will increase from 8.5 million to 40 million by 2030, there is a great demand for targeted information and a need for professional career and recruiting services. CleanTechies wants to fill this gap and be the leading career services forum providing insight, orientation, and opportunities for the CleanTech community. And to serve the needs of this growing audience, we needed a team that could build a great site (Marco), understands the CleanTech space (Ian), and can communicate our services effectively (me!).

What kind of advice do you have for people who want to pursue a career in CleanTech and Renewable Energy?
CleanTechies gets a lot of questions from people who are excited about the green energy movement and looking to break into CleanTech. We are in close touch with Environmental Sciences students and recent graduates and meet many career changers that have great experience in other industry fields. On the CleanTechies Blog, we aim at guiding these folks by providing informed commentary, industry analysis, and career advice. I recently wrote an article called “Boost your CleanTech career: Polish your resume and visit these Job Fairs!” that answered many of the questions we get. My biggest advice is to do research, research, research: Identify the industries and companies you are most interested in, and learn more about their markets. Pursue their job openings, visit them at career fairs and trade events, talk to their recruiters and managers, and network with peers.

What are CleanTechies´short term plans?
We initially started CleanTechies with the Blog and soon added the Job Board. Both of them are getting a lot of attention, and our traffic has been growing continuously. In January, we were recognized as a “Best Business Blog” by the Weblog Awards and in March as “Best Blog of the Day” by the Blog of the Day Awards. We have gotten great support from recognized Green Media outlets, including TreeHugger, and our Job Board attracts a lot of recruiters and job seekers. Over the last few months, we added additional features to our site, including the Events Calendar, the Bookstore, the News section and Links collection . We recently began offering recruiting services to support companies in their hiring processes. In the meantime, our CleanTechies groups on LinkedIn, Xing, Facebook and Twitter have grown to more than 6,000 members in total. Now, our goal is to extend the CleanTechies value offering by offering additional services to professionals and career seekers. This week, we’ve launched professional resume writing services to support professionals seeking work in CleanTech and Renewable Energy, and we have more products to come!

Be sure to check out Ceylan Oney in the Spotlight and the CleanTechies bookmarks too!

This entry was posted on Thursday, the 2. April 2009 at 00:15 under the category General. You can follow any comments to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.