Biology job search in San Francisco Bay Area

April 6, 2009 11:07 AM

Looking for a good source to search for biology, ecology, conservation, zoology, etc, type jobs in the San Francisco Bay Area

I'm finishing grad school and trying to move back to the bay. I'm looking for jobs in my field (broadly trained in biology, ecology, conservation, animal husbandry, behavior, zoology, more whole-organism type biology). When I do searches on craigslist or monster, though, typing in "science" and "biology" brings up a slew of micro and biotech type jobs which I am not qualified for and have no interest in. "Ecology" is a better search term, but there aren't many jobs in that field listed on those sites.

Does anyone have suggestions of other good sites that post jobs more in my field? I'm already going to the government national-park job website and the AZA, but I want to cast my net wider in the private sector, like consulting firms, non-profits, or what-not.

posted by CTORourke to science & nature (4 comments total)

idealist.org might be worth checking out. The Society for Conservation Biology has a job board, and it might be worth posting your resume and asking if anybody has leads. The Central Coast chapter of SCB has monthly meetings that are pretty expressly for networking. This may well have changed since the last time I was looking for similar jobs in the same area (~4 years ago), but I found that there's not a great aggregator. It may be better to identify organizations you want to work with and keep track of postings from them. The Nature Conservancy and the Sierra Club both have big offices in the area; Point Reyes Bird Observatory does conservation work.

Although I don't have a good handle on how other fields work, conservation/ecology really seems like a world where networking is absolutely essential. It's a comparatively small "industry," so knowing people really helps to find positions. Volunteering is a great way to get a foot in the door.
posted by one_bean at 11:27 AM on April 6

Are you on LinkedIn? If not, sign up. If you're already on there, try to find people in your field(s) on there and talk to them about what you're looking for.

Honestly, this might be a difficult process for you. Most of the people in this field that I know of are looking for a post-doc right out of grad school, and are willing to relocate for such a job. You're limiting yourself by only looking in one specific area. If you have to choose between a job in your field or a job in SF, which one wins? (If the answer is, "a job in my field" MeMail me.) Also, bear in mind that a lot of conservation/ecology organizations are non-profits that are suffering heavily in this economy, and are instituting hiring freezes. Hopefully grad school has given you some valuable networks/contacts, because a cold job search right now isn't going to be easy.
posted by booknerd at 11:40 AM on April 6

Another things I've found is helpful is to set up some Google alerts to your email or an RSS reader, with key words like "zoo" "jobs" "conservation" etc. to cover your areas of interests. A lot of small organizations have blogs that these are posted on, and you can use Google to aggregate them and simplify your search.
posted by booknerd at 4:32 PM on April 6

Have you tried Biospace.com?
posted by Thoughtcrime at 10:00 AM on April 7