The green economy has an extremely wide range of career opportunities.

A special guest blog posting from Carol McClelland, PhD, Founder and Executive Director of Green Career Central.

In fact, based on my research as I wrote Green Careers For Dummies, I discovered more than 50 industries and sectors making concerted efforts to make their business practices, products, and services greener, cleaner, and more sustainable.

Having so many green careers to choose from is both good and bad!

• The good news is that there are career opportunities available now or in the future in nearly every sector of the economy. Whether you have a scientific or non-technical background or you are an executive or a trade worker, there are green career options.

• The bad news is can be difficult to narrow down your focus. So many options, but not a lot of resources to research what’s entailed in each job.

The key to narrowing your green career focus is to identify what you are passionate about.

1. Take some time to remember how you feel when you are excited or intrigued by a topic. Knowing this feeling, and being able to spot it in the moment, is a crucial skill to have as you scan the green arena.
2. Whenever you notice you are drawn to a particular topic or a specific skill, record the details on a list of your favorites in a journal or in a computer file.
3. To discover topics you are interested in, scan green blogs, community college green class schedules, your local newspaper, the booths at a green festival or Earth Day event, books on sustainability, or conversations you have with others about green topics.
4. To identify skills you enjoy, think about the projects you’ve worked. What tasks did you do that you thoroughly enjoyed? Don’t limit yourself to work-related tasks; consider hobbies, community work, personal projects you do at home as well. One way to tell you’ve identified a skill is that it ends in "-ing”. Think designing landscapes, building furniture, writing reports, consulting, marketing products, engineering software, etc.
5. To scan another category of ideas, think of the process you enjoy. You may find that you are engaged by a collection of tasks that you repeat on a number of different projects. For instance, a videographer may love every stage of planning, writing, shooting, and editing a video. Although each individual skill could be added to their list of favorites, knowing there’s an entire collection of skills you like to use can be a valuable clue to your green career.
6. Don’t hyper focus on one or two interests right away. Give yourself some time to explore the green arena. Allow your excitement and enthusiasm to guide you to new topics and opportunities.
7. When you have a healthy list of interests, take a look at your entire list to see what themes and trends you see. When you see clusters of interests, explore that industry to see where you can apply your skills, experience, and education.

If you would like more guidance on this process of identifying your green career focus, check out chapters 4-6 of Green Careers For Dummies, where you’ll find even more detailed guidance on each of these steps.