“The challenge for the jobseeker is to differentiate themselves from the pack” by Shay O'Farrell
Added to website: 23 July 2007
As with life on a coral reef, life as a marine biologist can be highly competitive, and availability of jobs is perhaps the key limiting factor on the latter! Every year in the UK, thousands of students graduate with qualification in the marine sciences, and although many will have decided to pursue other career paths upon graduation, many others want to chase the dream and land that perfect job.
The good news, of course, is that nowadays there is substantially more work available within the sector than ever before; in some areas, there is now more demand than there are suitable applicants, which is encouraging for those of us looking for work. The challenge for the jobseeker is to differentiate themselves from the pack, and in a field where pretty much everyone has got the qualifications, the most effective way of standing out is to have work experience too. Cast your eye over the job adverts: outside of academia, few jobs stipulate anything beyond an undergraduate degree, but all will ask for a proven track record of experience. If you were going to pay someone to do a job, wouldn’t you want to be confident that the candidate employee could actually do the job, not just write essays?
My own background is slightly unusual within the field of marine science, in that I do not have an undergraduate degree in the sciences… I have a degree in marketing, which is kind of the opposite of science! As a keen diver, I stumbled into marine science after becoming a serial volunteer with a number of non-governmental organisations (NGOs), working with research topics varying from artificial reef building to great white shark population dynamics. Based on my experience as a volunteer, I eventually got offered a job as a marine scientist for a well known British youth development organisation, and as a result of that experience, Coral Cay Conservation offered me the position of Science Officer on their Philippines project, back in January 2004. After eight months of volunteering on the project, Pete Raines (the boss) offered me a full time salaried position with the organisation, an opportunity at which I jumped, and spent the next two years travelling around the world for CCC, undertaking the scientific management of various projects, and gaining an invaluable amount of practical and theoretical experience of working in the ‘warts’n’all’ field of marine conservation biology.
Despite my lack of an appropriate academic background, I was over the moon to be offered a place on the prestigious MSc in Marine Environmental Protection at the University of Wales Bangor, largely as result of the four years’ practical experience I had amassed. It has been an absolute privilege for me to have had the opportunity to study within the field that I’ve come to love, and in October of this year, I begin a PhD in coral reef fish population dynamics about which I am incredibly excited.
What I am trying to say to you is that hard work pays off, as does stubbornness: somebody out there is doing your dream job, why shouldn’t that somebody be you? You just have to want it more than they do, and work until you get it. I am by no means suggesting that academic qualifications are redundant… if I felt that I way, I would be in the midst of wasting four years of my life! If I were to do it all again, I would jump at the chance of doing an undergraduate degree in the life sciences.
However, success breeds success… I’ll say it again: your experience is what distinguishes you from other candidates for your dream job. If you want to be paid to be a coral reef scientist, you first need experience as a coral reef scientist, and there are many NGOs out there just waiting to give you that experience.
Speaking personally, I could not recommend CCC highly enough to anyone who wants to get that experience, and who is willing to work hard for it. You will get out what you put in, and I’m very grateful to CCC for providing me with the opportunities it has done. I would do it again in a heartbeat.
Good luck!
Shay O’Farrell
(former CCC Chief Technical Advisor)
