Running through everything I’ve done at BTCV would take a long time so I thought I’d just talk about the courses I’ve been on for now.
My interests lie in survey work and at the end of my time volunteering I plan on trying to get into this field. When I left university I got rejection after rejection for jobs.
I put it down to not having “Phase 1 habitat experience” which a lot of the jobs had in their advertisements. When I saw that BTCV ran a course on this I got signed up right away. It was brilliant, I got given a book which explained all you needed to do and had 2 days with a great instructor giving us lessons and taking us out to do a simple survey.
Around the same time I was on a course with the same instructor doing an Amphibians course which was focussing on Great Crested Newts which are considered endangered in the UK, that’s another CV building excercise as it can help get a licence for working with endangered species.
I’ve been on a fair few courses now and not only are they benefitting me but they can help out with what the group does as well. The first aid course for example will look excellent on a CV but it also means I can lead groups if we’re in a tight spot. Before that I did my MiDAS training which means I can drive the minibus. Luckily I passed the test as the following week I was the only one around who could drive the volunteers!
The interesting part of the BTCV run courses is that I’ve bumped into the same people on several different courses, it shows that other people have similar ideas about their careers. It’s not only VO’s that go on them either, other organisations send people along so if you’re feeling bold, you can find out about jobs from people and build up a contact list.
If you’re like me and hoping to build up a CV so that you have the experience that every job is banging on about then get in touch with Helen at our office (the Stirling office) and she’ll sort you out with the courses, she bends over backwards for the people on her courses.
To find out more information about BTCV Scotland Training click here