ClimateTech Careers – Natalie Lavery, Climate People

This is texturung TV. I'm Bonnie Schneider with tech strong TV and joining me now is Natalie Lavery with climate People Natalie is the marketing lead and we're going to talk a little bit about how Tech workers are now looking at new opportunities in the climate and sustainability space Natalie. Thank you so much for joining me.

Of course. Thank you so much for having me. So tell me about the the trend that we've been seeing with unfortunately.

There's been a lot of layoffs in the tech World in general in 2022 and even starting off in 2023, but the climate space seems to be a new area where people are considering maybe moving towards for employment. Yeah, definitely. So as you mentioned there have been massive amount of tech layoffs in the past few months and in traditional recession fashion, we do see investors tending to flee towards safer assets.

However, climate Tech doesn't really fit into that mold. According to climate Tech BC. There were 64 billion new dollars investment dollars in climate in 2022.

And that's just plain and simply because the hard reality is that climate change is real and it's continuing to worsen and we are in dire need of technologies that address those effects head on and so climate change doesn't hanging out on the sidelines. So therefore neither can the investment dollars the climate companies or that Talent, um, and then adding on to that the inflation reduction act also past last year, which has guaranteed 370 billion dollars in climate spending, which is also just going in towards incentivizing new innovation. That's a really good point.

And before we go further just our audience is familiar with climate people. Can you talk a little bit about your company and what your what you do there as well? Of course, so kind people is first in class climate Tech recruitment agency.

Mission is simple. We are trying to mobilize a Workforce transition to get more people working in climate to address some of that harm that we were just disgusting. So yeah, we hire in recruit for positions across a wide range of climate sectors in I'm a marketing lead at climate people.

So I just kind of head up all of their marketing initiatives website Outreach all of that really try to spread the word and get more people working on these causes. And in the climate people is a fairly new company. How long have you been around?

Yeah. So this is our second year business. We started in last May so get very new.

But yeah, I was kind of shocked when I joined the company. I didn't realize that there could be enough of a demand for there to be a entire recruitment agency dedicated to climate roles. But we approved that wrong.

We are there's a lot of jobs to be filled and we're definitely busy. So definitely the demand is there. That's fascinating in just a couple years how much you've grown?

Can you talk about some of the jobs in Tech like specific job titles that you see that that your clients are saying? Hey, these are the kind of people we're looking to hire or positions. We might be wanting to fill Yeah, so every job can be a climate job.

That's what I always like to say. Sounds a little bit CL. iche really true So at climate people we're seeing great demand for software Engineers data Engineers product managers, ux designers and so on and so forth many technology companies tend to hire their hard tech positions first because a lot of climate companies are startups and then they tend to hire more supporting roles in the future.

But yeah lots of hard tech right now, but again every job can be a climate job. I'm in marketing and I'm gonna climate job so really it's all about positioning yourself in that space and figuring out how to get a job in your career field. Do you think that some of the people that are reach out to you are surprised if they are a software engineer or a product manager and maybe they never thought about the climate space it has that happened before where people are new and that didn't have a background of that and all but this is where they decided to pursue a position.

Yeah 100% that's kind of like my the main thing we hear from people um is that I had no idea that I could be in a climate profession as an engineer or as a whatever a lot of people have a really strong misconception that you have to be a scientist or environmentalist to be in this space. But that's really not true climate Tech is really repositioning of the entire global economy. It's not a sector it's about reimagining how we do every different type of job.

So yeah, definitely hear that a lot and that's kind of the main purpose of climate people is to prove that to not be correct and really encourage people to take a job, even if they don't have that hard environmental background. That is really interesting. You know, a lot of people obviously now are looking when they when it comes to looking for work.

They want to work in a position where they feel they're doing something meaningful and they're getting something out of it. Do you think that's also what attracts Tech workers to The Climate space? 100% Yeah, and definitely I think people do want to work in a rewarding field and then that paired with those layoffs that we were just discussing how big Tech and fan companies aren't as secure as they once were it's making it.

This climate industry is emerging in their or they are secure jobs and there they are well-paying and they really kind of align with everything that big Tech used to be. So it's that rewarding work paired with all of those real life job factors and making people really interested in this space. And then again, we can't we can't deny the affect the climate change any longer and people are seeing that and they want to be a part of that solution.

So it's a really great outlet for someone to take tangible individual actions. And what about the factor of coming up with these Solutions and Innovation? Some of the technology is I mean, let's say someone's a product engineer or their product manager and they're doing something maybe they're used to developing a certain type of product.

But then when you're coming into this space, it could be something that no one's ever done before so you have a lot of innovation and kind of on both sides of it with someone with tech experience. They're doing something that's sustainable. But since these are Sustainable Solutions that many of them have never been tried before what is the spirit of that you're seeing in terms of people.

You talk to that are looking for jobs. Yeah, so a lot of it is. Kind of just applying all of the skill sets that existed in other Realms and applying to climate.

So while the solutions may look different and they may have that climate aspect. The day-to-day is honestly shockingly similar and that's what we tell a lot of companies that we work with that are trying to hire. These people is you don't have to require climate experience in order to attract some of the best talent.

You can get someone that was just affected by the the big Tech layoffs and have them kind of reallocate those skills and directly apply them to a climate job. We actually recently conducted a survey where we interviewed around 577 people who are looking for jobs and climate and people who had jobs and climate and we ask them what was preventing them from getting a job and 51% of people said that their lack of climate experience was preventing them from even applying to a job and as you can see from what I just said is you don't really need that experience and then people are just qualifying themselves. So really trying to find a way to make those skills that you've had in previous Industries and apply that to the climate space.

It's really not that different. that is such a good advice and if someone if people are interested in looking into climate positions Do you think that they need to you said they don't have obviously they don't know they don't have to be a climate scientist, but does it does it help though to have any interest in sustainability? Absolutely.

I mean these companies most of them are startups and as you and I both know startup Founders are extremely passionate about the work that they're doing in Founders are oftentimes involved in the interview process at this stage of company. And so if you go in showing that passion and showing that you genuinely care about their climate solution, they're gonna be impressed and we do try to work with the climate companies and tell them that they don't need to require climate experience, but they still want it. So if you do your homework, can you really understand the ins and the outs and the industry it definitely will help you for sure.

And what do you think is the Outlook going now that we're in early 2023. Unfortunately, we had those layoffs in the tech space last year and at the start of this year, but what do you what is your climate people? What are you forecasting in terms of jobs and availability for tech jobs going forward?

There's gonna be a lot. It's gonna be a role on this year. I'm sure teradatu is a climate education platform and they predict that 99% of the people who will be working in climate by 2030 haven't begun.

So that means in the next 10 years 99% of the people haven't even started. So a lot of people are gonna be coming into the space. And as I touched on earlier climate Tech isn't a vertical it's a transition of the entire global economy.

So at kind of people we really do predict that we're going to see jobs in all Industries across all sectors really transitioning to focus on climate Solutions because there's no other option. We must start acting and addressing on these things. So yeah that talentic Apple only continue to grow at an exponential rate.

So we need the companies and we need people and we need to pair them together and that's hopefully what kind people can help with. It was really great Natalie. Thank you so much Natalie Lavery from climate people for joining me on Tech strong TV.

Thank you have really opened the eyes of a lot of people that maybe thought well, I don't know if I know enough about climate to it, you know to apply for one of these positions, but I know a lot about tech, but you're saying hey, you know, what about tech there's a space for you and climate. So, thank you Natalie. I appreciate your time.

Thank you.