SR jobseekers want to know where the jobs are. Once again we present our analysis of the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) jobs market. To identify trends and opportunities, I have logged all CSR-related jobs from the 2 most prominent sources over the past 17 months. See below for the key findings.
Thank you,
Ellen Weinreb
1. Number of Positions: total of 457 positions were listed over 17 months, with 50% positions listed in the UK and 40% listed in the US. The source of the data was the CSR Chicks listserv and BSR’s job posting website. Both are publicly available. This list is not meant to be exhaustive. See the methodology section for more information about data.
2. CSR positions doubled in 2004 vs. 2005: BSR listed twice as many positions from Jan to May in 2004 vs. 2005. CSRChicks listed over twice as many (134%) positions in the same period. This data could suggest the growth of CSR in general however it is still too early to make this finding conclusive. See the distribution chart below for the updward trend in job postings.
3. Eight Categories: To better understand the types of positions listed, the 457 CSR jobs listings were categorized into 8 categories with the number of jobs per category identified in parentheses.
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Internal to business- CSR positions within a company (126)
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CSR Association such as BSR or Accountability that companies belong to (96)
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NGO- Nonprofit aiming to increase CSR (74)
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Management Consulting firm (29)
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Boutique Consulting firm (non-management consulting)(58)
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Socially responsible investing (SRI) financial services firm or nonprofit (41)
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Research or Academic institution (18)
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Public Sector Multilateral (15)
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all jobs are related to corporate social responsibility
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no entry-level administrative jobs were included
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volunteer positions were not posted however internship positions and short term positions were included
4. Slow market in August and December: It is not a myth that December and August are slow months as indicated in the distribution chart below.
5. Industry Breakdown of Internal CSR Jobs:
Of the 126 Internal CSR jobs, an industry breakdown shows that most jobs were listed in the consumer products (31) and apparel (27) industries as shown in the chart below. Twenty-six positions were found in small social responsibility business such as Stoneyfield Yogurt or Neal’s Yard remedies.
6. Skills Breakdown for Internal Jobs: 87% of the consumer products industry positions and 70% of the apparel industry postings were monitoring and compliance related positions. Of the 126 internal jobs, 47 were monitoring and compliance positions, 23 were general CSR positions, and 15 were community affairs/philanthropy related.
7. Salary: 81 job postings included salary information with a large majority posted thru CSRChicks with positions located in London. The following chart indicates the average salaries for each of the 8 categories.
| Salary ($’000s) | No. of listings | |
| Association | $56.5 | 24 |
| NGO | $58.1 | 20 |
| Internal | $54.2 | 12 |
| SRI | $60.7 | 10 |
| Boutique | $44.2 | 9 |
| Research | $64.6 | 3 |
| MgtCnslt | $65.6 | 2 |
| Public/Mltlr | $57.2 | 1 |
| Average: 56.2 | Total: 81 |
8. Top Employers: Top employers were Business for Social Responsibility (19), Wal-Mart (15), Business in the Community (14), Forum for the Future (12), Walt Disney (10) and AccountAbility (10).
From Jan 1, 2004 thru May 01, 2005), Ellen Weinreb Social Responsibility Consulting collected CSR job listings. The source of the data was 1) Business for Social Responsibility’s (BSR) CSR job (http://www.bsr.org/Jobs/csr/index.cfm) listings 2) CSRChicks (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/csr-chicks/), a Yahoo Groups listserv serving over 2500 individuals primarily located in the UK. The two sources are the most preeminent sources for CSR jobs but is not exhaustive. More CSR job listings can be found via the Resources page at www.ellenweinreb.com. The data collected included the name of the organization, the position, the source of the data, the country location of the position, and a category identification. There were 457 social responsibility jobs identified using the following criteria: