Careers counselling

Damjan’s sister Jana is thinking about how she can develop her career in the next couple of years. This reminded me of a a book called the Job Guide, which I used when I was 17 years old. Back in the day, I went through every single of the hundreds of job descriptions in the book, crossing out the jobs that didn’t appeal to me and highlighting the ones that might be okay.

I used it to confirm that I wouldn’t mind being an environmental engineer. Following this, I put in my application to the environmental engineering undergraduate course.

Having been reminded of this great resource, I wondered if it was still be published by the Australian Government. Indeed it is, and you can find it a handy new searchable e-version here.

The description of ‘environmental engineer‘ hasn’t changed from what I remember. It begins:

Environmental engineers are concerned with assessing and managing the effects of human and other activity on the natural and built environment. They apply their engineering knowledge and skills to such things as environmental impact assessment, natural resources management and pollution control…

Although this is the job I started out doing, I can’t say this is what I’m doing anymore. I spent some time looking through the Job Guide 2009, trying to find a description that matched my present job. There was no ‘sustainability engineer’ or ‘sustainability consultant’ or ‘consultant’. Is my job too new, too niche?

But finally, I found it in a unexpected place. My work matches closely to that described for an ‘urban and regional planner‘. In fact, the match is rather uncanny, considering I never studied urban planning.

Urban and regional planners develop policies and plans for the use of land and resources. They advise on the economic, environmental, social and cultural needs of particular localities or regions.

They also work on large-scale projects such as new suburbs, towns, industrial areas, commercial and retail developments, urban renewal projects and transportation links…

Planners work closely with professionals in other fields (e.g. surveying, architecture, engineering, environment and conservation, property development, community services and transport planning). There is a high level of public contact as planners spend a lot of time in meetings and discussions. Time is also spent on field visits, writing reports and performing research. Planners are also required to prepare documentation of decisions for independent review and are often called upon to appear as expert witnesses before appeal hearings.

That’s pretty much it exactly. I suppose I shouldn’t be too surprised, considering my department at work  is called ‘Planning Plus’.

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