Getting Parks Jobs

Starting a Career in Parks & Gardens                                        How Do I get a Job when Competition is so Strong? 

There are plenty of people who have certificates and cannot get work. The answer is not so much to get a certificate; but to give employers a reason to separate you out from the crowd. You need is to distinguish yourself from all the others with different knowledge and skills.

1^st The first and most important thing is to develop a very strong plant knowledge.  You need to be able to identify at least 250 different plants, and preferably a lot more than that. A course will get you started, but if you really want to stand out, you should look beyond just doing the course, and take the following opportunities to learn plants as well:

-Go to garden shows, visit botanic gardens, nurseries, open gardens etc.

Do this in every spare moment you have.

-Borrow books or videos from the library on plants and read them.

-Watch gardening videos and TV shows.

-Photograph plants and build a collection of named photos (if you have a digital camera)

2^ndShow you have passion and initiative by getting involved on a voluntary basis. Volunteer to work on working bees at schools, parks, or anywhere involving treeplanting, landscaping or anything to do with horticulture or environmental management. Contact the local council and see if they can point you in the right direction, to start.

3^rdNetwork… make friends/contacts who are involved with parks, gardens or plants. Join a garden club, native plant club, bird club, friends of the zoo or botanic gardens or anything like that.

4^th Get a solid foundation in horticultural practice and in horticultural science. Many of the courses elsewhere still teach the practice; but the science has been weakened due to funding cuts, and some (not all) employers are not impressed. If you have stronger scientific knowledge, that will help you.

5^thDon’t wait for jobs to be advertised…most are not. Visit workplaces and knock on the door asking for work. Offer your services as a volunteer. This will impress some employers, and can sometimes lead to paid work.

Having said all of this; there are several of our courses which would make a good starting point.

Option 1. Certificate in Horticulture

This is more comprehensive than the other options below; but is also more cost and more time. It is up to 700 hours of work).

 This option also offers the opportunity to choose a specialisation in the3 second half of the course (There is no need to choose your stream studies though until you complete the first half).

Option 2. RHS Certificate 2 in Horticulture

This isn’t a nature park course, but it is highly prestigious internationally, shorter (perhaps realistically 150 hours) and is far stronger on science and plant identification than most TAFE certificates these days. 

Option 3. Horticulture I

This is only a single subject, but we do find a lot of students get work after having only done this one subject…largely because it is so strong in the plant identification and foundation science which employers appreciate.