Five and a half years ago I left a career as a freelance journalist and filmmaker, because I felt the urgency about stopping the environmental crisis and wanted to be part of the solution.

I left my career, my friends and my family in my home country, came to London to study a Master's in environmental politics and stayed here after graduating as I had met my British partner while I was studying.

After graduating, I thought I would be well placed to get a job as not only did I have the most up to date knowledge about my field from my studies, but also over 10 years of experience in media and communications as well as events and project management. I believed this combo was going to set me apart from most of my coursemates who had barely any other work experience at the time of graduation and were usually over 10 years younger than me. My dream was to become director of Greenpeace or get to a similar position where I could really influence the debate on the environmental crisis and contribute to solving the problem.

However now most of my British coursemates have good jobs in environmental policy or campaigning, and I've only managed to get short contracts in the sector or in health policy. I've managed to gather experience from quite a wide range of different policy and campaigns roles, but often in areas that I haven't been very passionate about. It's also been incredibly exhausting to have to search for a new job every 3 or 6 months, as I don't seem to be able to get any longer contracts, and often being unemployed in between these short stints. Most of the time I end up applying for jobs which I feel are well below my experience level, but still don't even get invited to interviews. And as I haven't even been invited to an interview, I can't ask for feedback so I have no clue whether the rejection was because they felt I was over-qualified or because they had even more experienced people applying for the same role. What's even more baffling is that I've had some people in senior positions in environmental organisations read my CV and applications and tell me they think they're very strong - but still I don't even get invited to interviews most of the time. I wonder to what degree my foreign name or the fact that I'm a woman plays a role, and whether I should start sending my applications using one of those gender-neutral British names in order to get noticed?

It's all been really disheartening, and having to experience so many rejections in such a short amount of time and not being able to get even close to where I want to get career-wise has really shattered my self confidence and I've started to dread the job hunt. I've just turned 40 so I don't have that long any more to achieve professionally what I was hoping to achieve (basically, contributing in a meaningful way to saving the world) and I feel I'm running out of time.

Until now my strategy has been to reply to job ads on job boards, but I feel it's not a strategy that works as it hasn't got me anywhere near to where I want to get over all these years. I'm wondering if I should just send speculative applications to the organisations that I would like to work for.

In that case - could anyone please advise me on how to go about it? Are there any good online resources available? How do I find out whom to send my application to? Or would someone be able to recommend a coach who could read my drafts and help me improve them? (I did work with a career coach last summer, but it was less practical and I feel at this point I need instead someone to read through my applications with a red pen and give me concrete advice on how to best market myself to prospective employers.)

I would massively appreciate all and any advice. Many thanks in advance and apologies for the long post.