An Honest Conversation about Early Career Professions in Meteorology:
If you look at the Department of Labor statistics on meteorological jobs, you’d see a pretty common thread. Meteorologists on average earn $92,000 a year, with job opportunities existing in government, media, consulting, and research. There’s a forecasted job growth of 12% into 2026 which beats the national average of 7%. There are even articles about meteorology employment stating that it’s one of a few majors with near 100% employment.
Students with a passion for meteorology go to school seeing these reports, with high hopes of turning it into a career. Yet, when talking with friends and colleagues who have entered the workforce, many feel that the numbers aren’t telling the whole story. The reality is that many young meteorology professionals with whom I’ve interacted are frustrated. Here are some of the stories on why:
Hard-knock Life for Broadcasters:
Many begin their broadcast careers in school having to do a year at a station as non-paid interns to make tapes in hopes of getting a weekend meteorology position at a small market. Broadcasters who do earn such a position enter the market at a salary of $22-$30k a year. Life is very difficult financially due to student loan debt and low pay for the first 5 years of a career. Online programs are flooding the market with nontraditional atmospheric science majors who want to pursue broadcast meteorology, creating competitive woes for traditional meteorology majors. From a lifestyle standpoint, working in broadcast forces early-career graduates to keep on the move to advance into larger markets, adding the strain of relocation to the financial struggle. Broadcasters are typically signed to a contract salary, and often work extreme hours because of it. Long hours, low pay in the first five years, steep competition, and relocation are often realities for which many don’t feel prepared when they enter the career path.
Higher Education Only:
For the last year and a half I’ve kept an eye on my alma mater’s “alumni job email list.” A vast majority of jobs posted require an upper-level education. I’ve estimated that 80% require a master’s degree or higher, 40% require a PhD or higher. Many folks I know in the National Weather Service (NWS) have commented that several hundred applicants apply for one intern position, several with Ph.D.’s, for a job that’s at a GS-7 salary ($35,359.00 — $45,970.00). Thus, undergraduates have to take on more debt to get an advanced degree if they want to enter the National Weather Service to remain competitive. Even on a higher-education career path, many meet the reality that Ph.D. graduates vastly outpace the number of tenure-track professor positions. Many opt into postdocs or into the workforce at a pay scale that used to be for undergraduates. The result is lower-paying jobs that are more temporary, resulting in financial strain given the amount of educational loans.
Government research positions remain elusive due to inconsistent funding opportunities, and the ones that do secure those positions, find a culture that stifles advancement opportunities in favor of time spent and job security.
Federal Jobs Aren’t so Stable:
Many enter public service, especially the NWS, as a calling since it involves rotating shifts to create their own forecasts . Upon entering, many young professionals discover a shift from the job expectations they learned in school. These recent government employees have discovered that there’s more emphasis being placed on uniformity and messaging in their responsibilities, compared to traditional forecasting. Many cite as evidence the emphasis on days 3–5 being a super model blend vs. a forecaster hand editing inputs. Also, there’s an urge for shift leaders to delegate social media to the millennials, especially during active weather.
Beyond job responsibilities being unstable, the overall organizational and advancement structure is found to be a point of instability. NWS employees have gotten furloughed and constantly dogged by talks of consolidation in recent years. Once inside the NWS, many find a culture that is confusing on how offices select candidates to advance to higher forecaster and leadership positions. Many have described how hard it is to gather feedback to advance, and often get conflicting advice on how to improve their application materials. In a job that values security and stableness , there’s an enormous amount of instability occurring in job roles, structure (the threats of consolidation of offices), and in advancement with the NWS.
Private Sector?
Besides state-level jobs, environmental groups or private weather companies, very little is ever discussed when it comes to the private sector. In fact, many joke that “they’re in it for the money, not the science”, in essence minimalizing the private sector as a lesser career choice than academia or public service. How can professors, advisers, and graduate students speak about private career experience when it’s not something they’ve personally done? Usually the discussion on private sector in school focuses on bringing in local after-work speakers, and those are usually from private weather companies or environmental organizations. The result is minimal exposure to the broader work opportunities, despite some students wanting to apply their STEM degree outside of meteorology.
Change: Difficult but Necessary for Universities:
Never before have speed and change been more needed in higher education in meteorology to prepare their alumni. The private sector is identifying skillsets and is hiring individuals for those skillsets, even if they weren’t taught at a traditional college program. So much of a meteorologist’s academic career is about finding a “safe” job in meteorology, that many graduates don’t get comfortable with risk. There’s a feeling that besides broadcast, NWS, research, and academia, there aren’t any jobs because candidates are looking for jobs with “meteorologist” in the title. We lack the curiosity to think about how the innate skillsets of meteorology graduates apply to jobs that don’t have the title of “meteorologist” or even involve meteorology. The ones who do land traditional meteorology jobs often face struggles to find opportunities to advance.
The job market has drastically changed over the last five years, and the reality many of us are facing is a lot less rosy than the Department of Labor Statistics has painted for traditional career paths. The degree itself equips graduates with much-needed skills in the workforce but in nontraditional areas. Universities need to address the reality of these factors that more young professionals can adapt to the changes in the job market. One way to identify how universities can change is to perform exit interviews at the time of graduation, to find out how many graduates have positions, where, and for what skillsets. Another is to have interviews with nontraditional career professionals to identify skillsets that set them apart, and then have advisers talk about those skillsets with current students. Another idea is to welcome private sector graduates, including those who aren’t meteorologists, to come and mentor students or speak. My hope is that universities can adapt at a rapid pace to the five-year swing in the market. Without guidance on the new job market changes provided by the universities, young professionals will continue to struggle to find opportunities and to find the right fit for their career aims.
