Clara, I agree. To be marketable in the workplace you must have skills that are in demand in the workplace. Its that simple. Too many students graduate without marketable skills. Marketability for grad school does not equal marketability for a job out of the BS. You want to get a job in ecological field? Here are the skills I recommend: 1. GIS 2. statistics 3. public administration 4. env/wildlife/fisheries policy & law 5. Any and all instrumentation involving chemistry, molecular biology and micro.
Why? Everything uses GIS today. Statistics are just plain required. If you are working in the public sector, PA will prepare you for what you actually do most of the time...paperwork. policy and law is mostly what you will be doing paperwork on (permits and permitting issues!) instrumentation may pick you up a research tech post. Also, if you go into the private sector, every one of those areas is highly marketable. If you have none of them, you are going to have a rougher time. Again, this is coming out of a BS. Ideally, you better have Wildlife + Wildlife Techniques if going into a wildlife field or Fisheries + fisheries techniques if going into a fish field. You might check the respective certification programs. Anything ecotox will help too. Malcolm On Sat, Feb 16, 2013 at 5:31 PM, Clara B. Jones <[email protected]> wrote: > 1. ...assuming that your summary is an accurate reflection of the > *CB*article... > 2. ...i am shocked that there is no mention of actual skills...most of the > traits you mention might be categorized as "intangible"...you need these > skills to be a car salesman...not to impugn car sales-persons... > 3. ...IMO, an applicant has a better edge if s/he brings something > transferrable [marketable!] to the table that no-one else brings to the > table... > 4. ...often this "something" is one or more quantitative skill... > 5. ...or, skill in a fundamental or "hot" area of research w long-term > potential... > 6. ...or, a grant... > 7. ...i am somewhat exercised by your post because, IMO, too many young, > especially, female, applicants don't bring much to the table that others > don't already know or that cannot be readily duplicated or that is mostly > generalist-oriented... > 8. ...early-career applicants need to bring something "with legs"...as my > Grandmother Jackson used to say...in other words, bring something to the > table that can go somewhere [that the department and the college/university > and the field want to go]... > 9. ...clara b. jones > > On Sat, Feb 16, 2013 at 1:38 PM, Helen Bothwell <[email protected]>wrote: > >> In a recent publication in Conservation Biology, Blickley et al. (2012) >> analayzed what skills are necessary for graduate students to be >> competitive in >> the job market. We discuss these in the Early Career Ecologists blog and >> hope >> that many of you will find this useful: >> >> http://earlycareerecologists.wordpress.com/2013/02/12/a-graduate-students- >> guide-to-necessary-skills-for-landing-a-job/<http://earlycareerecologists.wordpress.com/2013/02/12/a-graduate-students-guide-to-necessary-skills-for-landing-a-job/> >> > > > > -- > Clara B. Jones > Director > Mammals and Phenogroups (MaPs) > Twitter: http://twitter.com/cbjones1943 > Cell: -828-279-4429 > Blog Profile: http://www.blogger.com/profile/09089578792549394529 > Brief CV: > http://vertebratesocialbehavior.blogspot.com/2012/10/clara-b-jones-brief-cv.html > > > > "Where no estimate of error of any kind can be made, generalizations about > populations from sample data are worthless." Ferguson, 1959 -- Malcolm L. McCallum Department of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry School of Biological Sciences University of Missouri at Kansas City Managing Editor, Herpetological Conservation and Biology "Peer pressure is designed to contain anyone with a sense of drive" - Allan Nation 1880's: "There's lots of good fish in the sea" W.S. Gilbert 1990's: Many fish stocks depleted due to overfishing, habitat loss, and pollution. 2000: Marine reserves, ecosystem restoration, and pollution reduction MAY help restore populations. 2022: Soylent Green is People! The Seven Blunders of the World (Mohandas Gandhi) Wealth w/o work Pleasure w/o conscience Knowledge w/o character Commerce w/o morality Science w/o humanity Worship w/o sacrifice Politics w/o principle Confidentiality Notice: This e-mail message, including any attachments, is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential and privileged information. Any unauthorized review, use, disclosure or distribution is prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender by reply e-mail and destroy all copies of the original message.
