Working for the Forestry Commission? Arb student needs help please!

[Arghshh]

Evening,

 

I'm new to this forum, there's some interesting info and I've enjoyed reading it!

 

Cutting to the chase - I'm a student doing the National Diploma in Forestry and Arb, I love the course and I love the work I (and we) do.

 

I am really interested in working for the Forestry Commission as a goal for when I finish the course, we have to do 240 hrs work experience soon and other lads on my course have rang around the Forestry Commission areas trying to get work ex placements with no success. I think it may be the way they are presenting themselves to prospective employers that is hindering success.

 

If you have any pointers with regard to work placement and getting on with the Forestry Commission in general I'd love to hear from you.

 

Regards

 

Ash

[chris cnc]

are you at houghall?

 

ps. post you exact location, might help:thumbup1:

[Arghshh]

Yes, I'm at Houghall.

 

Changed my location!

[chris cnc]

i finished the ND last year, glad to hear you're enjoying it!

 

the problem with the work experience, is that there are a lot of students going for the same placements at the same time. you may have to split your work experience 50/50 with two different employers, just to make the hours up.

[Arghshh]

Yea there is a lot of us on the course this year like, nobody (of the 3 people who have tried so far) has had any success with the Forestry Commission and I understand getting a foot in the door is extremely hard, I've looked at volunteering with them in the past but they never had any openings at our local sites.

[Arbgirl]

I think it can be more to do with FC employees having the time to take on work experience guys too. I get dozens of applications from students wanting to do work experience with me. Firstly they try to do all their hours within the summer holidays - which would tie one of my staff up for every hour of the working week (and some of their weekends!) - and they try to do all of it with one employer. With the recession I have less and less time and more work to do (both paper and practical hands on) - so I sadly do not have time for a work experience student. If students perhaps approached employers asking for one day per week or a half day maybe it would be possible to accomodate this. To be honest, I get so many letters that I bin them almost without reading them...as I cannot offer the number of hours that students seem to think we can! Make sure you are realistic about the amount of time and number of hours you expect from employers - spread the work placement over the academic year - dont try to do it in the summer hols as it is asing too much of employers who will (for H&S and insurance reasons) probably have to supervise you closely (at least until you have proved yourself). The FC may not even have insurance cover for student learners or anyone that their insurers would deem "qualified" to closely supervise a newly (NPTC) qualified student. Good luck with it! Its not easy and the market is flooded with work experience students. One last idea, have you tried asking face to face? Its easy to just delete emails and put letters in the bin. I think you might have more luck asking someone on a face to face personal level..

[Doug Blease]

Why are you ringing around? Has the art of CV/personal statement/covering letter gone for good?

 

What about private Woodland Consultants or organisations such as The Woodland Trust etc etc. The world does not start and end with the FC. You might gain much more knowledge from a slightly different angle. Then in the future you will have 'transferable skills' to take with you to the FC if you are still committed to working for them.

[Arghshh]

Why are you ringing around? Has the art of CV/personal statement/covering letter gone for good?

 

What about private Woodland Consultants or organisations such as The Woodland Trust etc etc

 

I think you might have more luck asking someone on a face to face personal level..

 

Doug, thanks for the advice, I have also used a cover letter with CV so the art of using them has not gone yet but possibly as Arbgirl says face to face could give better results.

 

Also Doug I appreciate your point regarding Woodland trust etc, I will look into this.

[Doug Blease]

Arghsh,

 

Sorry to just fire off a quick reply before. It reads a bit blunt and I didnt mean it to sound that way.

 

I am currently doing an Honours Degree, and this summer I have scored a summer placement.

 

The real advice I can give you is that you are possibly too late to get a decent summer placement as all the good ones are gone well in advance. The easiest way in is to get a rapport going with your local FC offices, i.e. voulnteering during term time, using personal communication as references when completing essays/reports. What I am saying is, get on speaking terms with them LONG before you apply for anything. That way its less of a cold call.

 

I woudnt wait for placements and work experience to be advertised. Get your CV etc in early, then follow up with a phone call - try and arrange a meeting with regards the direction of your education in relation to career prospects. That way your name is already at the top of the list for prospective placements.

 

Remember there are more people in Further/Higher Education than ever before, and jobs have decreased slightly in the last three years. So the competition is fierce.

Some of my fellow students are only just wondering why there are suddenly no summer placements around.....answer...they are all gone.

 

If I was you I would try UPM Tilhill, EuroForest, any land agents (Strutt and Parker, Bell Ingram, etc), Woodland Trust, National Trust, Natural England (is it still called that?), Private Estates, Chartered Foresters. THe list is endless and they are all involved in innovative woodland/land management.

 

Good Luck! Let us all know how you get on.

[scuff]

The FC not all its cracked up to be, but we wont go down that road, try large estates, forest managers etc.