Podcast: Dr Nick Askew | Conservation Careers
Do you want the best advice to land a job in wildlife conservation?
At Conservation Careers we’ve interviewed over 500 professional conservationists and shared their stories and advice on our Careers Advice Blog and Podcast.
But in this special podcast with The Guide to Mindful Conservation: Dancing in Pink Hiking Boots, we hear from Conservation Careers’ very own Founder and Director Dr Nick Askew about his career in wildlife conservation.
Find out what inspired Nick to start a career in conservation, discover all the different support and free resources Conservation Careers offers to help you land a job, and learn why we should be optimistic about the future of conservation.
Audio Transcript
Scarlet
Hello, everyone, and thank you for joining me Dr. Scarlet Smash on my podcast Dancing in Pink Hiking Boots. We are here on this glorious day to talk about our thoughts, feelings, and ideas on different life topics and the emotions we feel as we go through life. I believe in the power of sharing for inner peace. We all need friends, support groups, and a community. We need help in how to be mindful of your thoughts and feelings. I am not a licensed therapist. I’m a marine conservation outreach scientist that has a lot of opinions, experiences, and has been on a lifetime journey to find a peaceful mind and happiness. I believe in the power of thought, deep reflection and vulnerability. I will share my thoughts, feelings, experiences, and my soul searching journeys with you. Hello and welcome today. I have Nick Askew here from the Conservation Careers. And I’ve asked him to come on the show, because we stress out a lot about trying to find jobs. Well, Nick definitely provides wonderful services helping us find conservation jobs. So Nick, hello, how are you? Thank you for joining me.
Nick
Hey, I’m very well actually. Thanks for having me on the podcast. It’s nice to be chatting to you.
Scarlet
You’re in the UK right now. Where exactly are you?
Nick
So I’m in a little town called Oundle sat in my office at the end of the garden, and we’re kind of in, we’re about an hour from Cambridge. So if people know Cambridge in the UK, then we’re about an hour from there essentially, yeah.
Scarlet
Beautiful. What’s the weather like right now?
Nick
It is overcast, windy and it’s been a bit drizzly today. Yeah, I was lucky enough to tour with my three kids this morning and we got wet this morning in the playground. So yeah, it’s nice to be inside for a bit.
Scarlet
Yeah, exactly. Well, we’re going to be talking about how can we be better at finding careers and you’re the expert in this? You’re actually helping students internationally. Right? You work with NGOs, universities, trying to help our graduates get careers in the field. I love that. And if you could tell us, how did you get into this?
Nick
Oh, yeah, good question. I guess first off, I mean, I, you know, I believe that your career is one of the most important things that you have in your life. I think that’s really important. So you know, we all spend a huge proportion of our awake, well, we’re asleep for a lot of our life for starts, you can exclude about a third of it, right? So for the two thirds that you’re awake, a large portion of that you’re working on something predicatively trying to strive towards, not just you know, create an income for yourself and a lifestyle wherever it might be, you’re trying to have some purpose and some meaning for your life. Perhaps even leave a legacy or something like that. So I think finding the right career for you individually, whatever that might be, if it’s in wildlife conservation, or something entirely different, whatever it might be is so important. You know, make the most of your precious time on this planet. Because I think that’s where I’m coming from. I think kind of deep rooted sense. How did I get to conservation careers where I am now? I’ll try and give you the nutshell version, but cut me off if I waffle. So I started off, being really passionate as a teenager about fishing, just getting out into nature trying to catch fish, sitting on riverbanks and lakes, and often unsuccessfully, not catching anything but spending long periods of time essentially, without knowing it, just being immersed in nature. Fishing gives you that purpose, that reason to sit in one spot on your own for like 10 hours straight or longer. You know, just watching the birds go past and the butterflies kind of flip through the dragonflies and everything else. And I think from that experience of really enjoying, like fishing and everything else, I just became really interested in nature and wildlife and everything else. Well, I wanted to name the Kingfisher as it flew past and I wanted to know that was a banded demoiselle you know, a dragon fly, whatever it might be, you know, and that was really important to me. So I became passionate about nature as a kind of teenager. And then when I was like choosing what I wanted to do in my life and choosing my university degree and that sort of stuff, I naturally kind of fell into biology, ecology, the environmental side of stuff. So I did a degree in biology which became ecology. And then, from that I just, you know, I just realised that nature conservation is where I wanted to be. So at university, I ran a conservation volunteer group. We spent our weekends out on nature reserves, you know, out on the reserves, we’ll be digging ponds, ditches, putting up fences, doing surveys, whatever it might be, you know, and that just kind of gave me some real, practical hands on skills about how to conserve and manage, you know, habitats for wildlife. And I also I got to meet some really interesting people, do some really interesting stuff. And from that, I guess my career sparked and flowed.
Scarlet
And that’s how you came about creating Conservation Careers? Were you sitting there fishing and thinking, this is what I want to do.
Nick
Between that and now there’s probably 15 years of stuff. So from that moment, I mean, we talked about storytelling a little bit. So I remember, like a real moment that happened for me that actually has changed so much. I mean, you’re looking at me right now you can see the picture of a barn behind me. Just before I went to university, this is York University in the UK, the north wing. I am a Yorkshireman so I’m from this area. You know, I just passed my driver’s license. That’s something so I could drive off go to nature reserves on my own, which is really fun, you know, a bit nerdy maybe for a 17 year old but I wanted to get my binoculars and just go off and see what I could find. And I went to this reserve called the Wheldrake Ings, the Lower Derwent Valley just outside of York, and it was a summer’s evening, it was absolutely beautiful there. A bird called curlew was calling and they’re just making this beautiful kind of summer’s call. I know they’re going to swim the binoculars down the riverbank, there’s a barn owl just floating down the meadows towards me. And to this day is like the most beautiful the kind of spinetingling-ly exciting moment for me. I’ve never seen a barn owl before. I’d only ever seen them in books. And there it was right from me flying towards me. And that moment just sparked this deep interest in what a birds, b barn owls. Specifically, this thing was stunning and beautiful. You know, and when I went to university, York just a few miles really from where I saw this barn owl, I then was actually working on this reserve as a volunteer. You know, as a student, I got to meet the site manager. He then became my best friend for three or four years. I lived with him I spent way more time out on the reserves than I did at university, getting to know the barn owls and more. I then studied the barn owls for my PhD so that bird that I saw when I was maybe 17 years old, four years later, I was kind of studying for my PhD and I studied them for five years, I think in total whilst at university.
Scarlet
I love it. Now I see your barn owl on the tree. I did not even notice it. But now I love I love it. I see the story.
Nick
I have to get an owl in there. Yeah, so that became really important to me. So I did my degree, did my PhD, studied barn owls and loved that, you know, and learnt a lot about them, decided academia wasn’t for me, and jumped ship and just sort of fell into ecological consultancy. So I was doing like impact assessments with people looking to do developments. It was relatively easy money. It was good training, all that sort of stuff. But it wasn’t quite right for me. I felt like I was working for the man, you know, rather than working for the cause, yeah, if you like for conservation. So I moved again, I then worked for 10 years in the charity sector, and in international conservation for an organisation called Birdlife International. So this was way closer to who I am and what I was interested in. I was writing news stories and press releases about birds and bird conservation efforts from across the globe. I then shifted from the UK and moved to the Pacific to Fiji with my wife and we lived out there for two three years. And I was designing developing conservation projects and programs and fundraising for my base as a fundraiser in the Pacific. Did that for a few years, had a blast, had a great time. And then six years ago decided, look, you know, I want to do my own thing. You know, I want to kind of take control my own destiny. I want to do something which creates impact in the world. And every year I always reflect I always self reflect like, what did I enjoy about this year, what was really crummy about this year, what’s more of, less of and how are things going and give myself like a mark out of 10 on career in life, which is, it works for me. And I could see things weren’t quite going where I wanted. So I decided to do my own thing. And through my career, I’ve been asked so many times by people and as I’m sure you have too actually, you know, how do I get a job in wildlife conservation? And I just felt, well, there’s no one answering that question out there holistically. There’s no one providing really good, insightful, honest, accurate, effective career support for the kind of army of people that deserve it in the world. So, you know, that’s where this idea of Conservation Careers was born. Well, let’s create a career advice service for these people. There’s more jobs available than ever before. There are also more people looking for them than ever before. So it’s as competitive if not increasingly competitive. Okay, so, we wanted to plug that gap. So six years ago, we started Conservation Careers, and I sort of did it as a side hustle, you know, an evening, a weekend and then a day a week, two days a week, and then it became full time after a couple years. We’re now employing another member of staff and we have other people that work for this like a freelance basis. So, you know, we’ve kind of found our niche and now our job is to help other people to find their niche, you know, within the industry.
Scarlet
When was this established?
Nick
So six years ago, I think is about right. I’m really bad when it comes to dates. I’m guessing it’s around 2014, 2013.
Scarlet
Yeah, you’ve been around for a while. That’s good. And so let’s talk about some of the services you provide because I’m looking at your website and gosh, I really wish that I had this when I graduated. You’ve got training, volunteer internships, you have help on your CV, which, in the United States, we call it resumes, you’ve got advice, you’ve got, you can do a job search of all the jobs that are available. Please go ahead and go in detail because I just love your site and I love everything that you’re providing us.
Nick
Thank you. Yeah, well, I’ll try not to make it a sales pitch as well. So jump in and have a look, you know. In terms of what we offer people, I guess we do like training opportunities, and support, I guess, would be the three ways I kind of organise things in my head. So training, you know, we can actually help to train people to become a wildlife conservationist. So it’s almost like a student or a job seeker or a career switcher, perhaps you know, people listening, they’re doing a job, they don’t love. They’re mid career and want to switch careers in. You know, we can we can help you to get clear about what are your career options, you know, what does the employment landscape look like, you know, and where might you personally fit in that. So what are you bringing to the party, to do some really deep self reflection, what you love doing, what are you great at doing and where you want to be. What causes are you interested in that sort of stuff. We’ve packaged that together as what we call it, the Conservation Careers Kick-starter. It’s our online training program, okay, which walks people through step by step from no knowledge right through to I have a clear career plan, and I know what I need to do in order to become successful and get hired. So that’s an online program. We running it in workshops here in the UK as well, post COVID, or whatever the new normal looks like, we’re producing workshops globally, too. So that’s one that’s got the training, you know, the training stuff. We then provide access to opportunities. So we have what we call the Conservation Careers Academy. So on the site, we list about 8000 plus jobs per year from across the globe, from the US, UK and everywhere in between, essentially. So as an academy member, it’s a monthly membership scheme, few dollars a month, essentially you get access to, you know, all the opportunities that we can kind of, we can find from across the globe into the site, and that includes internships, volunteering, and other things like that. And then yeah, like one to one support as well. So you know, we offer people if they want support with resume writing, or interview prep, or whatever it might be, we can do that too.
Scarlet
Which is so important.
Nick
It’s really important. It’s the bit where I hate to say it, so many people screw up, you know, and there’s so much opportunity for doing things better. And some small things can make a big difference, I think with people’s applications. So we kind of yeah, we provide, I mean, I should say we provide a huge amount for free as well. We’re not just like, you know a business where become a member or you know, subscriber whatever you know, we have so much we give away for free. We’ve got a free eBook, How to Apply for Conservation Job, which is 80 pages of free detailed advice about how to structure and write a cover letter, a resume, an application form, the step-by-step process, this is how to do it. It’s all there. It’s for free on the site. So if people are struggling at a particular stage, you know, we’ve got loads on. You know, we’ve spoken to over 500 conservationists with their career stories. We’ve got our podcasts too, yada, yada.
Scarlet
No, tell us about your podcast.
Nick
Okay. Well, yeah, we have Conservation Careers podcast, fortnightly episodes. And what we do is we interview professional conservationists. We talk to them about their careers. So I’m normally on the other side of this. I normally say, you know, what’s your job? What’s it like to do your job? Want to know, come and tell us, you know, what the good bits and bad bits to share with people? How did you get your job? So how did you get to where you are today? You know, what are the steps you’ve taken very similar to what I’ve just said, actually, about my career, if you like? You know, and what advice would you give other people who are looking to follow in your footsteps? And through that, we’re just looking to make the sector, you know, more transparent, open it up and for people to realise that it’s way bigger and way more diverse and I think than most people realise. When you think of conservation jobs, there’s probably a few big jobs in your mind. That’s pretty like the researcher studying maybe a charismatic species, maybe the marine biologist, and you know, then the science and research and you might kind of stretch out to like wardens and stuff like that. But there are so many jobs in between all that. Fundraising project program management, you know, policy, education, ecotourism. It’s a huge sector, it’s expanding. So we try and speak to people from across the sector, and just kind of paint a clear picture. This is what’s going on. And these are the people are working in it, and making it as diverse as we possibly can. We have a thing called celebrating diversity in conservation right now too. So we’re trying to get an interview from someone from every country and territory on the planet. So there’s give or take around about 200 countries or so. I don’t know quite how many we’ve covered now, but it must be 50 or 60 or something like that. So over the coming years, we want to interview someone from across the globe and really kind of share that advice and celebrate that.
Scarlet
Yeah, thank you so much for being mindful of that. And you know, as we are ending this, I’d like you to tell us a take home message.
Nick
I think I’ll share a message of optimism. Yeah, it’s interesting, as you know, Conservation Careers sort of set it up and then a few years ago, we sort of sat down, myself and my colleague, and we sort of thought, you know, what are the kind of the core principles that we have, you know, at the heart of who we are and what we do, and it reflects who we are individually, like me, Nick, you know, and the business too. And we really very quickly came to them, it was so easy. It’s like, collaborative, we work with others to create impact in the world. And I think it was really important. We’re talking about that actually before we started recording. You know, conservation is a small world, you know, we have to work together to economise on our scale and make the most of it. And it’s really easy to reach out, make friends, make connections. So collaboration is super key. Openness was another one that we centred on really quickly, just be open to things say, yes, you know, yeah, and be supportive, you know, encourage another one. And this is really key when I want to focus on really is like, just to be optimistic, you know, I think you have to be optimistic in this world, otherwise, we shut down and we stop, you know, and now is not the time to shut down and stop, now’s the time to kind of double down, you know, really make more impact and COVID. I mean, we’re recording, you know, I don’t know, whatever stage we are, but you know, it’s pretty bad still around the globe, you know, and possibly getting worse, I hope not. But, you know, it’s September 3rd 2020. COVID, still a big deal right now, and people are really struggling, having a tough time. You know, and quite rightly, we’re focusing on human health, we’re focusing on, you know, economies as well and making sure that things are stable for the future. But I just sense this is a huge opportunity to conserve the environment to really kind of turn things around. People are more mindful than ever, about nature, about the importance of nature in our lives. When we were locked down here in the UK, you couldn’t go very far from home, you couldn’t do anything but exercise, or go shopping, and then you’re in your house. So certainly people out on the footpaths and in the local most people that never normally would do this, and just enjoying the quiet roads, the silence skies, you know, and it’s just, I’ve never seen so many cuckoos before, you know, things like that. And I think a lot of people really felt that connection and the importance that that brought us as humans, as individuals. I think people are more aware of it than ever before one. Number two, I think global leaders have got the message now and have got the message increasingly over recent years that biodiversity, wildlife, nature, whatever you want to call it is important. People care about it. Votes, you know, are going in that direction. And leaders now just want to know what it is they need to do. You know and I’ve spoken to quite a few CEOs of the big conservation organisations, WWF, Fauna and Flora international, Birdlife and others. And the message comes through when they’re having these discussions with business leaders and politicians, they say to them, that we know we need to do something, what do we need to do, and the Greta Thunbergs of the world have shown us, there’s a huge upwelling arising of kind of, you know, of change that I think can happen rapidly. And I think then the final bit of the optimism of the COVID piece for me is geez, look at the change and the scale of change that global governments can make almost overnight, when we have a really huge challenge that we’re all facing, you know, together, and that’s COVID. So, you know, COVID locked down huge financial, you know, settlements to support, you know, companies and people and, just the change has been unbelievable this year that governments have managed to do. Why can’t we do something for biodiversity loss? Why can’t we do something for climate change? You know, we there were no flights for two or three months around the globe. What’s going to happen for Co2, you know, and why aren’t we doing something of a similar order? You know, whilst trying to preserve jobs and everything else. But why aren’t we doing something like that now? Because we know governments can do it, you know, we know when their back’s to the wall they can make huge changes. So come on, let’s do it. So let’s do it for nature now. You know, because that is just as important to our long term health. And, yeah, now the time is right. So I think my message is a waffly about optimism.
Scarlet
Yeah and I love your message. And so Nick, if we want to ask you advice before we go and this is a play on words for all my listeners, this will be very easy for you to remember Nick’s name. It is Nick Askew and it’s fantastic because we have to ask you for advice. It’s perfect. So Nick, where do we go if we want to ask you something?
Nick
You want to ask me so genuinely, I’ve never realised that my name was Askew in terms of ask you and so you spotted it. So that’s going to be used again, rapidly. If people want to get in touch with me or find out more, I mean, come to our website conservation-careers.com. You’ll get us there. Yeah, we have a podcast called Conservation Careers Podcasts, you know, every fortnight that’s really fun. We have a free training program too, on the site, which you can find through the site, or if you want to a short URL, and how to get a conservation job.com would take you to a kind of free video training series where we talk you through the key principles of how to get a job and conservation, you know, and give you some things to do that’s going to make a difference for you. So those are the best places, but you’ll find us everywhere. You’ll find us on Twitter, Facebook, Insta, LinkedIn, wherever.
Scarlet
Yeah. Excellent. Well, thank you so much for being on the show. I appreciate, honour and respect everything that you are doing for us. Thank you. And for my listeners, thank you so much for joining in. I really hope you enjoyed this episode. I enjoyed it. I really think that you should go ahead and check out this website because I really wish that I had this type of guidance when I was looking for careers in my fields, especially coming right out of graduate school. But again, thank you so much for joining me. I appreciate, honour you and respect you. Namaste.
Nick
Thank you so much, Ashley. It’s been really nice to be on the podcast. Yeah, I appreciate you too. Just as my clock goes ping as well. I apologise for that. But it’s the modern world. I might have to be mindful when you get drawn to stuff like that, but I’ve had so much fun. Yeah. And I’m looking forward to having you on our podcast soon. So yeah, we’ll listen out for that.
Scarlet
Thank you.