Are you a recent graduate discovering how difficult the current market is, unemployed, worried you might soon lose your job or just feel that your career seems stuck in place? Are you thinking that now may be the best time to re-tool your career? Going for a green MBA, now, while the job market is stagnant may be a smart move; both for recent graduates, currently unemployed (or underemployed) professionals as well as for those who want to forge a path into a career in corporate sustainability. But what is a Green MBA, why is it important and what schools are offering them? These are the questions this post delves into.

This is another installment of my series of interviews I have conducted with people who have made a career transition to the clean/green sector. In my last interview, spotlighted Nicholas Mack, General Counsel for Mainstream Energy Corporation, REC Solar, Inc., and AEE Solar, Inc. I talked to Nicholas about his transition from doing legal work in software and hardware industries to doing legal work in the solar arena. This week we are presenting my interview with Roxanne (Roxy) Podlogar, who is Senior Vice Presiden, Strategy & Business Development Smart Energy for Magpie, a software consulting firm with a focus on Smart Energy & Smart Grid markets.

Guest Post by Jennifer Massie, founder of Massie Group, a recruiting consulting firm
I have decided to conduct a series of interviews with people who have made a career transition to the clean/green sector.  This could include any type of business related to renewable energy, energy efficiency, sustainable business, etc.
I am finding more and more that [...]

The desire to make the career transition from IT to cleantech is an extremely popular one. The reasons are fairly obvious. After 30 years of tremendous innovation and high growth, there appears to be less opportunity than there once was. Whereas cleantech seems to be a area open to new out-of-the box thinking and has a landscape of great opportunity. This is the time when you can really make your mark and IT professionals seeking to make a green career transition have an advantage over many others seeking to do the same. Network engineering and systems operations, user front-end development, software development, and embedded device development are just a few areas where IT professionals will find themselves in great demand. There are skills transferability opportunities on almost every level.

There are four strategies you can use to get a green job within your own company. Green initiatives are gaining popularity and companies are increasingly launching green initiatives. They are likely to try to hire someone from the inside before looking for someone from the outside. Find out how you can get on the top of the list for consideration for these exciting career opportunities.

Matt, an intern at Bright Green Talent has an informative post up on how to make the green career transition. His plate is full. He is also interning at a sustainability consulting firm, and occasionally working in his previous profession as a commercial photographer. Below is a summary of the strategies he is using to transition to a new green career.

Over at JustMeans, Dave Stanis, of the Campbell Soup Company, speculated that based on current trends, carbon accounting will be a growing, in demand, career specialty. He recommends taking classes in carbon accounting. I think he is on to something because Groom Energy has declared 2009 the Year of Enterprise Carbon Accounting and a recent Greenhouse Gas Management Institute study revealed that the industry is suffering from a profound skills shortage. For those of you who have never heard of carbon accounting, it is the accounting undertaken to measure the amount of carbon dioxide equivalents that will not be released into the atmosphere as a result of Flexible Mechanisms projects under the Kyoto Treaty.