Top 15 Job Boards for Responsible Careers

In my earlier post this week, I discussed how to transition from career success to career significance for professionals interested in responsible careers. Today, we will review data and trends that will enable you to identify responsible career opportunities that best align with your career significance goals. Opportunities that enable responsible professionals to successfully blend financial return with social impact and environmental responsibility are less visible than traditional roles in the business world.

Of course, our justmeans job board is a great way to start, along with my previous posts on responsible job opportunities in education, healthcare, renewable energy and sustainable food/agriculture. Beyond the responsible career opportunities advertised on our justmeans job board, there are a variety of socio-eco innovation (SEI) career paths, trendsand job boards that, as a responsible professional, you need to know about:

Responsible Careers #1 - Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR): Many responsible professionals equate getting business done better with working in CSR. Of course CSR opportunities are highly visible and therefore highly coveted positions, but CSR is not the only career path available to responsible professionals that want to get business done better. If you have a high tolerance for ambiguity, a lower tolerance for risk, and money and prestige are important to you, CSR opportunities might be the best responsible career fit for you. CSR job boards beyond our justmeansjob board include the Business for Social Responsibility (BSR) job board, the Net Impact job board (membership required), the SVN job listings and the lifeworth.com job board.

Responsible Careers #2 - Socially Responsible Businesses: If you want to work for businesses that have integrated social, environmental, and economic value creation into their DNA, CSR jobs are not for you. Instead, pursuing SEI job opportunities in responsible businesses will be a better fit. Apart from the well-known bigger socially responsible businesses such as Patagonia, Stonyfield Farms, and Seventh Generation, most social enterprises are smaller, and provide a growing number of responsible career opportunities that successfully blend financial return with social impact and environmental responsibility. As currently the bulk of new job creation is happening through smaller firms and start ups, you need to know about the responsible career options offered by social enterprises. Numerous models of social enterprises exist which makes finding smaller socially responsible businesses harder to find. However, hybrid business models such as Benefit Corporations (B Corps) and L3Cs are gaining momentum (and tax breaks) in the US. Our justmeansjob board has become a hub for social enterprise to post their responsible career opportunities. In addition, job boards such as the B Lab job board, the Care2Job Finder, the L3C Connect LinkedIn Group, the Social Edge job board, the GreenBiz job board (as well as the Net Impact job board) will enable you to identify responsible career opportunities in responsible businesses beyond CSR.

Responsible Careers #3 - Nonprofit: Donors increasingly want to know what impact their money is generating. Some social enterprises such as L3Cs can compete for Program Related Investments (PRIs) from foundations. These pressures are pushing nonprofit organizations to re-invent how they measure their impact. In addition,young nonprofit professionals are leaving the nonprofit sector, largely due to the lack of clear career advancement opportunities, and also due to the perceived lack of formal career training opportunities. Although new laws enable nonprofit professionals to have part or all of their student loans forgiven, the lower compensation packages in the nonprofit sector have always been a major reason why many nonprofit professionals leave the nonprofit sector. However, and as reported yesterday by Barbara Zaha in our justmeans social enterprise section, the nonprofit sector will need an influx of new manager in the upcoming years. Therefore, if you want to be part of this re-invention and have a knack to do more with almost nothing (or with Zilch as Nancy Lublin would say), responsible nonprofit careers might be a great responsible career fit for you. Beyond our justmeansjob board, you can find responsible career opportunities in nonprofits through idealist.org, cgcareers.org, change.org, , and careersforgood.org.

Are there other responsible career and job boards in these three categories that you would recommend? List them in the comment section below and I will update this list accordingly in future posts!