One sunny afternoon in May of 2013, I went on reddit.com (one of the largest social media sites on the internet) and created /r/geologycareers, a subreddit for professional geologists in any industry, and for those looking to become one. My hope was that it would become a place where geologists could collaborate, ask questions or seek career advice, anonymously.

Here's what happened next:

15,000 people joined

It's growth was gradual and organic; but over time it excelled to become one of the top 10,000 subreddits. Not bad, at least for a niche interest of a niche interest; and today it's certainly comparable in size to many of the oil and gas based linkedin groups.

It wasn't just Oil and Gas

People posted content or questions on all kinds of topics; mining, environmental, hydrogeology, it was all there, and they were all giving each other advice or compared jobs. To my mind, this makes for quite a unique community and I love reading about the stories and problems faced by geologists in other fields.

65 Career-based 'Ask me anything' posts were collected

Most impressively, one of the admins I recruited to the subreddit started asking different geologists to have interview-style posts where anyone could ask them questions about their geology-based career. There are as of this point in time a staggering 65 'AMA's, from geologists doing anything from oil and gas to environmental, mining, surveying and machine learning.

This is an incredible resource for younger people still thinking about what path they want to take in their careers, and I've seen the AMA's linked to in multiple unexpected places.

It was featured on Reddit's site-wide 'Careers Day'

Perhaps a high water mark of sorts; a few years ago Reddit had a 'careers day' where they featured all of the different subreddits that were focused on helping people find jobs. Reddit.com/r/jobs was the main community, but I was sincerely humbled that our little community was featured fairly prominently and many users posted that they wished their industry had something similar.

144 Geologists got jobs

One of the admins I appointed was a user who was hilariously keeping track of the 'I got a job!' posts in the subreddit, and in the sidebar the count currently stands at 144, which is amazing. The phrase 'We did it you guys!' became an in-joke and anytime anyone got hired we would all celebrate and congratulate them. I've seen multiple posts since it started where people found jobs, internships or otherwise as a direct result of other users they met through the subreddit, which was fantastic to see. Others would take the time to post incredibly insightful stories about how to succeed as a geologist.

We had a banner competition

Above every subreddit, you used to be able to upload a picture; so we ran a competition of sorts for users to upload their own geology-based image header. As this was around 2016, you can see that some of the entries had fairly dark humour...!

In the end the other mods and I decided on the second to last design; but with reddit's latest redesign these banners were no longer needed.

It became the largest anonymous geoscience forum on the internet

To my knowledge, it's the largest anonymous platform specifically for geoscience on the internet. Anyone could seek advice or knowledge without fear of peers and employers knowing about it. Sometimes someone would have trouble with a particular piece of software or need to convert something to a different format, and almost always there were other geologists willing to help or offer support. It became a great job hunting resource, with some users posting regular weekly updates on online geoscience jobs other users might want to apply for. At one point, someone volunteered to organise a Salary Survey. Sometimes, users just needed to moan, and /r/geologycareers was always there for them to vent to others who would understand.

Sometimes users would just post their best geology stories. Other times, users just wanted to talk about beer...!

In 2016 when redundancies were at their highest, you could see that it also became an important resource for those needing emotional support. I've seen more than a few posts from geologists who lost their jobs and needed to talk to others who understood their situation better than perhaps their friends and families might. Inevitably there were always plenty of other users who would offer their own career anecdotes and encouragement, and it was a very humbling and positive thing to see.

6 years later, it's still going strong

Even after many years I still see regular posts and users getting involved in anything from reviewing each other's CVs to organising meetups in various cities. The community continues to grow and function as a fantastic resource for anyone involved in geoscience; hopefully after reading this many people will be encouraged to also join and participate!











