Foresight Networks and Entry Level Jobs
Joining the professional associations we have just mentioned is the best way to find good entry level jobs in foresight.
There are also several free online professional networks in our field. Below are two free networks we particularly recommend.
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Foresight Education and Research Network (FERN), the folks behind this guide, provide resources, mentoring, and research opportunities to incoming foresight professionals. FERN is volunteer run. It hosts occasional workshops, a user-edited foresight resources directory at GlobalForesight.org, and Global Foresight and FERN discussion groups on LinkedIn.
- Reddit Futurology. At 10M “Futurists” (Q1 2017) and still growing, r/Futurology is the largest single platform for future-related news and discussion. Like most free platforms, it is a Wild West, and there is great variation in quality of the posts. Still, it deserves to be the home page of many entry level foresighters and futurists. Consider becoming a moderator there, as you’ll learn a lot about both curation and community management, in addition to gaining a broad education in possible, probable, and preferable futures.
Several of our leading primary foresight consultancies, like Decision Strategies International, Economist Intelligence Unit, Fraunhofer, Shaping Tomorrow, the Future Management Group, the Institute for Alternative Futures, the Institute for the Future, Kairos Future, The Futures Company, Z_punkt, and several of our professional associations including APF, WFS, and the Millennium Project, offer foresight entry level jobs and internships to qualified applicants.
For more on the great variety of entry level jobs that use foresight, see Chapter 3 (Career Options).
For more places where you can find entry level jobs and internships that use foresight, see Appendix 2 (Leaders).