Narasimhan Santhanam of EAI – Climate Recruiter Interview – Clidemy Careers
Clidemy Careers is a new section at Clidemy where we post inputs and insights on career opportunities opening up in the fast growing climate action sector.
The Climate Recruiter Interview is one avenue through which we provide insights. In this series, we interact with startup founders, senior management and recruiters from climate tech firms to gain an understanding of the skills they are looking for and perspectives on how professionals from different sectors can transition to a climate tech career..
We are pleased to present the Climate Career Recruiter Interview with Narasimhan Santhanam, Co-Founder and Director at Energy Alternatives India, a leading business catalyst for the climate tech sector – clean energy, low carbon mobility, sustainable materials and clean environment.
EAI has been providing support to the Indian climate tech sector since 2008. Through our offerings in strategic & market intelligence, critical support for the climate startup & innovation ecosystem, and geo-focussed decarbonization implementation assistance, we hope to become a vital contributor to India’s climate action & sustainable growth.
Team Clidemy thanks Narasimhan for his insights.
CURRENT ROLES AND SKILLS
What types of climate technology or climate-related career opportunities are available at your firm?
We do a bunch of things in climate tech – management consulting (EAI), climate startup assistance (CLIMAFIX) and climate education (Clidemy).
As a result, we have a diverse number of career opportunities, prominent ones being:
=> Climate tech market intelligence & market research
=> Strategy consulting
=> B2B marketing for our consulting business
=> Client management / customer relationship for our startup assistance platform
=> Product management for the climate education platform
=> Content development & content management
What are the key skill sets you look for in the top three roles?
=> An excellent understanding, or at least appreciation, of the climate tech domain
=> Ability to understand market needs & strategic drivers
=> Marketing & client relationship
How can freshers starting off in a climate tech career gain an entry into companies such as yours?
We regularly offer internships in almost all the roles I have mentioned earlier. Some of the interns are college students just 18 years old. So that is one great way for freshers to start off with us.
Another, much less appreciated way, is to assist us during our events, workshops etc.
We regularly require young people to support us in marketing and organising events. These are great opportunities for youngsters with no background in climate tech to just get a whiff of climate tech within a day or two. If they do a good job of helping us, we provide more opportunities, internships, and sometimes even permanent roles.
What types of training and skill development do you provide for professionals in your firm?
I must confess that as a company with a startup mindset and one that is moving very fast on multiple fronts, we do not spend much time to providing structured training to many of our new recruits. Right now, most of them learn on the job – we give them brief, easy assignments to start with and graduate them to tougher ones as they go up the learning curve.
CLIMATE AS CAREER OPTION
Why do you think highly skilled professionals should choose climate technology as their career option?
I am not sure if all skilled professionals should aspire to work in climate tech.
Climate tech has its pros and cons.
But if someone wants to have a sense of purpose in his/her work, climate tech could be an excellent domain for them to consider – after all, what could be more purposeful than making an existential difference to our planet!
How can professionals with fundamental skills (e.g., electrical engineers, biochemistry professionals, excellent marketing professionals, etc.) but no experience in the climate tech field you are operating in transition into climate tech?
I have said this before in many conferences and I am saying this again: Climate tech is not new tech, most of climate tech are built on fundamental sciences, technologies and engineering, which are all tweaked to assist climate action.
Solar photovoltaics (PV), for instance, is physics, material sciences and power electronics bunched together.
Biofuels is either chemical engineering (bioduesel, ethanol), or biotech/microbiology (next gen biofuels such as algae fuels)
The list goes on.
For those working in the conventional engineering / science domains keen to transition to the climate tech sector related to their domain, the first recommendation is to read up a lot on what’s happening in that domain – especially in their country and city.
The next recommendation would be to attend conferences and networking events in these domains in and around the city.
Third would be to use LinkedIn in a smart manner.
Can all the above land you a proper climate tech job? Perhaps not. But they can put you on a path to a climate tech job, or give you an initial momentum in the form of internship, research projects and relevant contacts with professionals working in the sector.
How can companies in the climate tech domain attract top-notch talents who are currently are more interested in working in high growth, high paying careers such as finance & infotech?
I don’t know.
One thing I know is that I will not recruit hotshots from another industry who has no passion for climate tech. This fellow will not last and will waste my time.
Conversely, I would look for talented people keen on making a difference – this fellow will last much longer and it will an enriching win-win for all
Most climate tech jobs appear to be engineering oriented. What types of non-engineering career options are opening up in climate technology?
Plenty.
I will need to write a few dozen pages to do justice to this question.
Because climate will be a part of almost everything in future.
Even accountants will need to understand some aspects of climate action – carbon credits, for instance.
A bus driver will need to learn how to drive and maintain an electric bus.
A musician might want to learn more about climate in order to incorporate elements into her future songs because there might be a big demand from the audience for such inclusions.
And economists better dust up their knowledge on climate – most economic analyses in future will likely include at least some elements of climate
CAREER GROWTH IN CLIMATE TECH
Are salaries and incentives in the climate tech sector as good as the conventional engineering & industrial sectors?
I’m not sure.
The salaries we pay are good, perhaps a bit below market salaries, but not too low.
Mine is a small firm, so what we pay here might hardly be indicative of what large firms pay.
But if I were allowed to make a guess, climate tech salaries will most likely be similar or even better than those in conventional engineering sectors, but significantly less than hotshot sectors such as fintech, AI/analytics etc.
Can professionals expect career growth in climate tech that are similar to those in other attractive career domains – finance, tech, analytics etc.?
I doubt it.
Climate tech is engineering, nuts and bolts, down to earth stuff.
Except in the intersection of climate tech & digital, most roles in climate tech will be more similar to roles in engineering, manufacturing & infrastructure sectors than service sectors such as finance & digital.
My feeling is, the career growth trajectory for climate tech professionals will be somewhere between that for the conventional engineering sector and those in the high flying sectors such as fintech, analytics etc.
FUTURE TRENDS
As climate efforts become far more prevalent and widespread, the demand for talent could fast outstrip supply. What can be done to increase the climate tech talent pool?
Many companies in niche sectors are already feeling the pinch – they are unable to get enough people with the right skills.
This is true not just for the manufacturing sector, but also services sectors such as HR, finance, academics etc.
What can be done to fill this gap?
Not an easy question to answer, but perhaps efforts such as the one we have initiated (Clidemy), if scaled massively, could help.
Do you foresee new career opportunities opening up in your domain and in your company in the near future?
Be my guest, ladies and gentlemen keen on working on climate careers.
As a decade-old firm with a startup mentality, we are undertaking efforts in multiple dimensions in the climate tech field.
If you are passionate about doing something purposeful in life, are willing to work hard, and have excellent research or people skills, I see openings in the following new areas in the near future in Clidemy
- Communications for the climate action domain – say, a PR person who can do climate communications damn well
- Multimedia content creators for climate – as we move towards making hundreds, or even thousands, of videos for climate education, I foresee demand for people with excellent content and multimedia content creation abilities
- Course organizers – We plan to do many offline and online courses at Clidemy, the climate academy. We need professionals who can effectively design, organize and administer these courses in many cities in India, and for countries online.
OTHERS
Are there fundamental differences between climate tech jobs and jobs in other fields?
The key distinction between a climate tech job and a job in a just-for-money field is that while you also make a difference in the former, you only make money in the latter.
But then, many people do a job only for money.
I doubt they will ever appreciate the difference
If you are presented with two candidates, one with good functional skills but high passion for the climate tech sector, and another with exceptional functional skills but not much passion for the climate tech sector, which of the two will you choose, if you are allowed to choose only one?
Don’t waste time with folks who bring just talent and no passion. They are perhaps no good for most industries, and super certainly not for climate tech.
India has too many talented people. Surely there will be people who have both talent and passion,
Hire them. Reward them.
They will ensure they take your company places.
