UK: How to take your social conscience into big business

If you dream of taking your social conscience into big business, then a career in corporate social responsibility (CSR) could be for you. But what exactly is involved and how do you go about getting in?

Claire Brine, International Community Affairs Manager at DSG International, knows first hand what it is like to work to make business more ethical.

"CSR is exciting because it is the most ethical job you can get within a business," she says. "You get the perks of working for a business and the feel good factor of doing something that has a lot of meaning. For someone getting into it now there will be more opportunities as it becomes more mainstream in the future."

What?s involved?
Departments like Claire?s work to oversee the whole of remit of corporate social responsibility for an organisation. "That involves looking at the company?s environmental impact, the education of our customers and our ethical supply chain policy," explains Claire. "Our work involves quite a wide variety of projects and encompasses a lot of different stakeholders – MPs, external NGOs, investors, the media, customers and employees."

For Claire, the opportunity to interact with people across the business is one of the key attractions of CSR. ?What I have always really enjoyed about CSR is that it is quite high profile within the organisation,? says Claire. ?This means that I get to engage with a lot more senior people than if worked at my level in a different area of the business.?

Fabian Pattberg, CSR Executive at E.ON UK agrees, ?Working in CSR involves being proactive in your engagement with everyone around the business. It?s about being persistent and having conviction about what you do. We are bombarded by so many issues like climate change and there are two kinds of people, those who decide to take action and those who say I can?t hear anymore about it. By working in CSR you can do something to change things."

How much good?
The first question for anyone considering a career in CSR has to be ?just how much difference can I make?? With more and more organisations realising the benefits of acting responsibly, how do you differentiate between good PR and a CSR department committed to social change?

"The most ethical thing to do is to find out where the CSR department is located within a company," advises Gideon Burrows, Founder of website Ethicalcareers.org. "If CSR is located within marketing then it is very clear that the approach of that company is all about winning hearts and minds rather than changing company practices. If the CSR department is located at the senior management level, then you know that they are taking it seriously."

Claire also has advice for graduates hoping to find substance beneath the spin. "You can get quite a lot from a companies annual report," she says. "Even at interview stage if you dig a little bit deeper you will get to know whether a company is ethical or not."

Getting in
Armed with the knowledge you need to find a truly committed company how can you go about getting your foot in the door? "In the last year or so there have been numerous recruitment companies coming up like Acre Resources and Bright Green Talent," says Fabian. "In total there are around ten rather good recruitment companies which deal with CSR jobs."

Recruitment agencies are one way in, but you may also find that honing your networking skills is vital when it comes to securing that first job. As Fabian explains; "Networking and getting to know people is very important. I started by becoming a member of a Yahoo news group called CSR Blokes which has around 2500 members worldwide. I began posting there and looking for internships. It is quite tough to get a good CSR job if you don?t have CSR related experience. Many jobs start as internships and so that is a really good place to begin."

Claire also has some final words of advice for those looking to get their first foot on the CSR ladder. "If you have the opportunity during your degree I would try to look at topics like environment, sustainability and supply chain," she says. "If you can?t do that then my advice would be to get lots of voluntary experience and then aim for a first job working for an NGO or government-funded organisation."

More info:
www.prospects.ac.uk