New Free Course: Finding a Job, Networking, and Diversifying from Solar for Women

The solar industry isn’t always an easy space to break into. For women looking to join the trades, the path can feel even less straightforward. Solar for Women, a nonprofit dedicated to empowering women and nonbinary individuals in the solar trades, recently hosted a live webinar to address exactly that. That conversation is now available as a free course on HeatSpring.

Finding a Job, Networking, and Diversifying is a one-hour session featuring three experienced professionals who have each built meaningful careers in solar – from talent acquisition to operations and maintenance to workforce development. They share concrete strategies for job seekers at different stages: how to write a resume that actually gets read, how to network even if networking terrifies you, and how to leverage transferable skills to open doors in a field you may be new to.

What you’ll hear in this course:

Janet Gomez, Director of Talent Acquisition at Freedom Forever, brings 15 years of recruiting experience and eight of those specifically in residential solar. She walks through what hiring managers are actually looking for. Spoiler alert: it’s not just a list of skills. She covers how to quantify your experience on a resume, how to tailor your application so it clears automated screening systems, and why the best job opportunities often never get posted publicly.

Erika Symmonds, a workforce development professional and Solar for Women advisor, tackles networking, including for people who find it uncomfortable. Her approach is grounded and practical. She suggests carrying a few open-ended questions in your back pocket, listening more than you talk, and recognizing that connecting with people doesn’t have to look like “networking” at all. She also makes the case for building your network before you need it.

Kate Collardson, co-founder of Solar Service of Colorado, shares how she’s moved through more than a dozen different roles over a 20-year career – installer, designer, trainer, program manager, and now O&M company founder. Her advice centers on identifying what you genuinely enjoy doing, finding gaps where you can contribute, and getting trained and certified in areas that matter to you. She also makes a compelling case for operations and maintenance as one of the strongest entry points into the industry right now.

The Q&A portion of the session covers questions that came directly from attendees, including how to break in at the entry-level, what certifications make the biggest difference on a resume, how to navigate job sites where you’re often the only woman, and how skills from completely different fields can transfer into solar roles.

This course is free and available to start immediately. It’s the first in a series of three webinars Solar for Women is producing in Spring 2026. Two more sessions are coming, and they’ll be available on HeatSpring after each live event wraps up.

Enroll for free here!