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Analysis of Skills Sought by Employers

of Bachelors-Level Geoscientists

Gregory Shafer, Karen Viskupic, Dept. of Geosciences, Boise State University, Boise, Idaho 83725, USA; Anne E. Egger, Dept. of
Geological Sciences, Central Washington University, Ellensburg, Washington 98926, USA

INTRODUCTION November 2020 from four online job search (2020). We coded a subsample of ads to
Bachelors-level geoscientists make up the engines: CareerBuilder.com; USAJobs.gov; establish interrater reliability among the
majority of the geoscience workforce, and CollegeRecruiter.com; Indeed.com. We lim- three co-authors; we had 90% or greater
positions for entry-level geoscientists are ited our analysis to ads that preferred a bach- agreement on all codes and Cohen’s Kappa
expected to grow rapidly over the next elor’s degree in geoscience or a related field value of 0.84.
decade, with some jobs anticipating upward and required less than five years of experi-
of 10% growth (National Center for O*NET ence. A total of 1,214 unique ads met these WHAT WE FOUND
Development, 2021). Are geoscience depart- criteria. Occupation names and industry sec- Fourteen skills occurred in a third or more
ments adequately preparing undergraduate tors, described in AGI’s 2018 Status of the of the 1,214 ads analyzed (Fig. 1), with four
students to succeed in these positions? Geoscience Workforce report (Wilson, of those—written communication, field
Answering this question requires exam- 2018), were assigned to each ad based on job skills, data collection, and computer skills—
ining the alignment of undergraduate pro- title and description of duties. The most com- occurring in more than half of the ads.
gram outcomes and workforce needs. The mon occupations in our sample were geolo- Several skill categories were represented by
results allow faculty to identify strengths gist, environmental scientist, and natural the most commonly occurring skills, but
and weaknesses in their programs with resource specialist, following a distribution seven of the most common skills were in
respect to workforce preparation (e.g., similar to the AGI report (Table 1). Data Skills and Communication. Three of
Viskupic et al., 2020). How well do we Ads were coded for 34 skills; many were the most common skills were emergent
know workforce needs? Vision and Change listed by Mosher and Keane (2021) and codes that were not identified by Mosher
in the Geosciences (Mosher and Keane, others emerged through multiple rounds of and Keane (2021): ability to drive, planning
2021) provides a list of competencies and coding ad subsamples. We defined the skills skills, and record keeping/documentation.
skills necessary for new graduates to suc- and organized them into categories (e.g., Two skills in Vision and Change in the
ceed in the workforce; the list was gener- data skills, communication skills) accord- Geosciences were rarely coded in any ads:
ated by academics (n ~200) and employers ing to the classification of Viskupic et al. systems thinking and managing uncertainty.
(n = 46) in a series of workshops. This list,
while comprehensive and insightful, repre- TABLE 1. PERCENT OCCUPATIONAL DISTRIBUTION BY INDUSTRY SECTOR
sents input from a relatively small sample of
geoscience employers and may overrepre- Industry sector Study sample 2018 AGI data
(%)
(%)
sent the petroleum industry (26% of indus- Professional, scientific, and technical services 39.0 35.9
try workshop participants), which has not Federal government 15.9 10.2
been a significant employer of bachelors- State government 9.4 14.2
level geoscientists (Gonzales and Keane, Construction 6.6 0.2
2021). Our goal was to characterize the Waste management and remediation services 4.5 1.5
skills sought by the full range of bachelors- Information services 4.0 0.0
Mining
3.8
0.7
level geoscience employers and how these Local government 3.6 8.7
skills are communicated to potential appli- Testing laboratories 2.0 N.D.
cants—with an eye toward providing infor- Utilities 1.9 1.5
mation that would allow academic leaders Computer systems and design 1.8 N.D.
1.7
Manufacturing
3.6
to examine the alignment between their Education* 1.5 13.4
programs and workforce needs. Oil and gas 1.5 7.6
Scientific research and development 1.2 N.D.
WHAT WE DID Finance and insurance 0.7 0.0
1.1
0.5
Transport and warehousing
We designed a systematic study to code Agriculture, forestry, fishing, and hunting 0.4 1.5
online geoscience job advertisements (here- N.D. = no data.
after referred to as “ads”) for workforce *Jobs in K–12 education are largely not advertised using the search engines included in this study and thus
skills. Ads were retrieved between May and are underrepresented in our data compared to the AGI data.
GSA Today, v. 32, https://doi.org/10.1130/GSATG510GW.1. CC-BY-NC.
34 GSA TODAY | February 2022