In October we started a mission to find out more about how word travels about careers in Arb.
One of the things that came up at APF in September was that there don't seem to be enough people coming into Arboriculture in general, so we decided to ask some questions. I made a couple of questionnaires, one on Arbtalk and one on Instagram, which was also shared on Facebook.
The sample isn't very large, just 50 people, but the findings were interesting...
The question asked was: How did you find out about a career in arb? And the possible answers were family/friend, careers advice, a stranger, the internet or 'other'.
The standout finding is, I think, that no one seems to hear about arb through careers advice and most people hear about it because they know someone who is in the industry.
Is this a problem or an opportunity? It's probably both.
Not everyone wants to work outdoors. Tree work can be physically tough and certainly requires the ability to cope with most weathers, whether from up a tree or underneath one. It makes sense that people who are in arb and enjoy it are the best ambassadors for it.
That said are we missing an opportunity to spread the word outside the world of trees?
How could we tell more young people about this career? And who should we even tell?
People can be so kind, and the arborists of Instagram are no exception. While we desperately encouraged people to answer our questionnaire one arborist, George Husher, jumped in and sent us the survey results from her dissertation in 2018. It's a huge piece of work, with respondents from all over the world, and throws up some interesting results.
One that particularly grabbed me was about roles prior to coming into arb:
Out of the 423 respondents 306 had worked in other roles before coming into arboriculture. That seems a very high number. It may be that the outdoor industries attract a higher proportion of transient workers, which is probably true, but if people can come into it at any time, then that's an opportunity too. Attracting the right people and creating a working environment which is likely to keep them interested in arboriculture could be part of the solution.
What do you think?
Do you have different insights or suggestions as to how we can promote arb careers together?
We'd love to have some open discussion around this and learn what we can do to help. Either catch us on Linkedin, Instagram or Arbtalk or email us at admin@ctcrecruitment.co.uk to share your views.
Thanks! Kate and Beccy
