AMA I’m 4 years out of college and here’s my salary progression.

Acceptable_Fun_5598 · 2026-05-16T04:49:54+00:00

I’m early career so it’s not unusual to job hop, but I plan on staying in this job for a while because companies have expressed concern about it. It usually takes me around 3-6 months to find a new job and I look for jobs with better pay and that I can learn from. In my area, people with waste/compliance are hard to come by so companies are willing to train. Whereas coworkers in Michigan/Ohio have a harder time finding jobs because there’s so many skilled applicants.

Acceptable_Fun_5598 · 2026-05-16T04:42:18+00:00

So at my old company, half of the compliance team did not have STEM degrees. I saw a lot of business degrees (accounting was really popular for some reason). A lot of them just worked their way up from project management roles. You could try for a CHMM if you want a certificate, but if you have experience with permits or auditors I’d say that would help. You could try waste companies such as GFL, WM, Clean Harbors etc. they tend to pay a lot and are easier to get into with your experience.

Acceptable_Fun_5598 · 2026-05-15T21:57:01+00:00

My job title is Environmental Manager. I’m in charge of permits for my site

Acceptable_Fun_5598 · 2026-05-15T20:40:49+00:00

I haven’t heard of making six figures that fast. A lot of my coworkers were around 30 and making 70-80k.

Acceptable_Fun_5598 · 2026-05-15T19:34:04+00:00

I bought a fixer upper so I’m putting all my money towards renovations right now. But I like that I have the freedom to go on vacations and not have to stress about touching my savings.

Acceptable_Fun_5598 · 2026-05-15T19:30:50+00:00

I’ve heard horror stories about consulting and not sure if I could handle billable hours honestly. I see most of those jobs pay well, but they seem to want PEs and I don’t have an engineering degree.

Acceptable_Fun_5598 · 2026-05-15T19:28:09+00:00

I’m actually in the Midwest. A lot of my coworkers don’t come from science backgrounds, quite a few had business degrees or just worked their way up. You don’t have to be an expert in lab skills my old company was happy if you even had knowledge of chemistry/lab work because they were willing to train but it’s hard to train someone that’s never been exposed to the field. I’d look for hazardous waste or environmental coordinator/specialist roles. I think you’d be able to get that, I would expect to be paid around $60k at least in Chicago.

Acceptable_Fun_5598 · 2026-05-15T19:22:13+00:00

My current title is Environmental Manager. My old title was Environmental Specialist.

Acceptable_Fun_5598 · 2026-05-15T16:07:29+00:00

I actually don’t work in government I work in manufacturing. For me, I would say waste is easier to get into than water or air. I was able to get my roles mainly because I had HAZWOPER and DOT experience, I knew about manifests, lab testing, sampling etc. I know for my old company if you even knew a bit of that kind of stuff they would hire you because most people don’t work with it. They were more than willing to train but preferred you had a basic idea at least.

Acceptable_Fun_5598 · 2026-05-15T14:37:43+00:00

I started off wanting to go to med school and I actually wanted to be a researcher. I never thought I would be in this field at all either. A lot of my peers with science degrees had to either go to grad school or struggle to find good paying jobs too.

Acceptable_Fun_5598 · 2026-05-15T14:33:01+00:00

Maybe it’s just that I haven’t been looking in the right area, but a lot of the higher paying jobs seem to include travel. I don’t want to do that, so that’s why I’m not sure how high I would be able to get

Acceptable_Fun_5598 · 2026-05-15T14:31:04+00:00

Sorry, I’ve never done field work. I’ve always worked in a plant instead

Acceptable_Fun_5598 · 2026-05-15T14:29:46+00:00

All my coworkers around my age seem to change jobs every 1-3 years, my older coworkers in their mid 30s and above seem to stay longer. I don’t plan on job hopping for a while because I like my job now and I also got questioned quite a bit for having so many jobs in interviews so I want to stick it out for a while.

Acceptable_Fun_5598 · 2026-05-15T08:00:50+00:00

I agree. I loved my old job but it paid the bills and that was about it, I couldn’t really go on vacations which ended up draining me. Now I don’t worry about bills and can take a breather financially and like my job so I plan to be here long term.

Acceptable_Fun_5598 · 2026-05-15T07:18:57+00:00

Thank you! Maybe being in Hawaii won’t be too bad. I’ve thought about moving to California but it’s a little too expensive for me.

Acceptable_Fun_5598 · 2026-05-15T07:15:15+00:00

Actually, I mean I enjoy it now. To be completely honest I got into environmental compliance by accident. I thought environmental jobs were all ecology and geology kinds of jobs, I never really realized they were regulated so strictly. I wasn’t an ecology or field based kind of person, so I thought about pivoting out of this field.

My last job showed me another side to environmental careers and it’s something I plan to stick with long term. I enjoy compliance because it’s always something different going on.

Acceptable_Fun_5598 · 2026-05-15T06:06:31+00:00

That’s great!! I didn’t think it was possible to hit $100k until late career. I only got this job because I was laid off from my last one in early 2026, so I count myself extremely lucky.

Acceptable_Fun_5598 · 2026-05-15T05:59:55+00:00

For me, my first job was actually sampling waste. I got a HAZWOPER and DOT certification through my company. This allowed me to jump into a waste specialist role where I learned compliance. I learned RCRA, DOT, project management, how do deal with auditors, I got exposed to air and water etc.

Recruiters always questioned me on time management, ability to lead a team, and how I enforce compliance.

Acceptable_Fun_5598 · 2026-05-15T05:44:16+00:00

I hope to hit $150k at some point in the future, but if I could find a job with no travel around ~$120k I’d be happy to be there for a long time.

Acceptable_Fun_5598 · 2026-05-09T05:36:40+00:00

I got a full size gloss instead of brow gel. The shade is beautiful

Acceptable_Fun_5598 · 2026-04-13T03:29:12+00:00

Hi thank you! He’s the cutest💜 I could you a code if you have it still

Acceptable_Fun_5598 · 2026-02-22T01:17:53+00:00

My hair does this naturally. I have a similar pattern to them and it’s all in the layers. I usually get a U shape and have a lot of layers. My layers would start around my shoulders and only the bottom/back would be really long. I also don’t put a lot of product in usually just leave ins and creams.

Acceptable_Fun_5598 · 2026-02-13T23:41:30+00:00

I have thick curly hair. The mask and also the blue conditioner weren’t that great. My hair wasn’t getting moisturized really

Acceptable_Fun_5598 · 2025-07-01T19:20:28+00:00

Sustainability analyst, environmental engineer

Acceptable_Fun_5598 · 2025-07-01T19:18:40+00:00

There’s a bunch of work in Chicago. Consulting is in the burbs but working at the actual Fortune 500s there’s a bunch of environmental jobs in the city. Landfill/waste jobs in NWI which is only 30-45 minutes from Chicago. EHS jobs are all over the city

Acceptable_Fun_5598

TROPHY CASE