5 Tips for Landing a Social Impact Job

It's no secret that getting a job in social impact can be difficult. From finding the right position, updating your resume, applying, and interviewing, the process may seem strenuous or even impossible.

Check out Rocket's top 5 tips and tricks for landing a job in the purpose space!

1. Make LinkedIn Your Best Friend

LinkedIn is no longer a platform solely for applying to jobs (after all, look at where you're reading this!), but rather a critical tool to:

• Understand what job opportunities exist
• Identify different certification classes that excite you
• Learn more about industry specific events

In fact, LinkedIn can be a great place to develop your own perspective on key topics in social impact. By following industry experts and top influencers in the space, you can review their content and perspectives to help inform your own. Below is a list of great people to consider following (they also tend to post social purpose jobs) along with some relevant job boards and hashtags to monitor:

People to Follow:

• Amanda Ponzar , Chief Communications & Marketing Officer, CHC: Creating Healthier Communities
• Caroline Ouwerkerk , Social Impact Career and Leadership Coach
• Kavell B. , Partnerships Manager, Social Impact, LinkedIn
• Susan McPherson , Founder and CEO, McPherson Strategies
• Nick Martin , CEO at TechChange

CSR/ESG Job Boards:

• Boston College Job Board
• ACCP Job Board
• Green Jobs

Social Impact Job Boards:

• B Work
• Nick At Noon
• Raise for Good

Suggested Hashtags to Follow: #socialimpact #socialimpactjobs #csr #nonprofitjobs #nonprofitresources #csrjobs

2. Custom Outreach is A Must

We often hear: NETWORK, NETWORK, NETWORK! What does that mean anymore? Here's what we know: Individuals in the industry are often open to connecting with other folks in the space. To tap into this community:

1. Leverage your LinkedIn network or #socialimpact hashtags to identify industry leads & positions that pique your interest
2. Create a personalized note tailored to the individual you're reaching out to
3. Rather than a job ask/favor, inquire about a conversation and or an informational discussion to learn more about an individual's current role and/or career journey

3. Find the Hubs and Go After Them

The social purpose landscape continues to grow. Whether you're interested in the nonprofit area, agency space, or the corporate sector, there are ample opportunities for you. Check out some of our favorite resources for connecting with purpose professionals and learning about what job opportunities are currently available:

• Selfish Giving: weekly newsletter from our peer, Joe Waters . Provides relevant news on all things corporate partnerships with a specific excerpt around job openings?
• Association of Corporate Citizenship Professionals: an inclusive member-driven community of CSR & ESG professionals. Our network of peers supports one another, learns together, and collaborates to drive change. ACCP also has a job board consisting of corporate social impact jobs in additional to an annual conference (this year Oct. 16-18), which is an incredible opportunity to network with other individuals in the space.?
• Engage for Good: a community of both business and nonprofit professionals who have a common goal of engaging consumers and/or employees around social issues, best practices, tips and trends. Engage for Good offers members access to online webinars, newsletters, podcasts and countless resources to better understand the purpose space.?
• Boston College Center for Corporate Citizenship Professionals: recommended job board for all types of opportunities within the social purpose landscape
• ESG & CSR Board: releases 'The Shortlist', a newsletter sharing collections of news on ESG & CSR leaders: what they’re working on, career changes, and conferences where they’re meeting up.

4. Highlight Your Issue Expertise

General CSR & Impact experience no longer stands out, so what does?

• Find your niche— Show recruiters specific passion areas that excite and interest you to show differentiation. You can highlight these passions through certifications, original content, passion projects etc.
• Leverage Issue Expertise—Now more than ever, hiring managers are looking for issue and industry experience from candidates (i.e. finance, supply chain, ESG, reporting). Being able to address social impact through these lenses can help differentiate you in a job search or even on your existing team.

5. Prioritize Community > Connections

This industry is smaller than you think! When it comes to growing your network, don't get hung up on having a certain number of connections. Instead, identify individuals to connect with whose job titles and experience excite you and focus on growing and deepening those relationships. As always, follow-up, follow-up, follow-up because you never know where you may be down the road!

As always, we're here to help! Drop us a line.

Julia Broudy , Senior Account Manager | [email protected]

Last year, we partnered with the University of Colorado Boulder - Leeds School of Business , alongside New Belgium Brewing , to fund two scholarships for the 2022 semester in an effort to advance systems-level equity across the CSR and social impact landscape.

Through our continued?partnership, we’ve also had the privilege of working with the incredible faculty to teach lessons and provide classroom content. When asked what the most difficult challenge students are facing when it comes to social impact – the response was unanimous: landing a job, which inspired this piece. Thanks to Justine Roberts and Jennifer Forman for being incredible thought partners and peers throughout this partnership.