The Top Five Non-technical Skills That Employers Are Looking For

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Screenshot from Richard's presentation (Richard Dodd)

On 13 January 2021 Richard Dodd from Wildwood Ecology gave an excellent presentation on The Top Five Non-technical Skills That Employers Are Looking For - Identifying and developing the right skillset and mindset for a career as an ecologist.

Richards started by giving some background on how he entered the sector and what he now does. Going on to discuss the 5 skills he thinks are important:

Communication is key – this means being able to listen, interpret information and provide feedback in written and verbal forms.
Time management – being able to prioritise and concentrate on specific tasks without distractions. Richard also talks about habit formation – this allows time to be broken up in to distinct chunks.
Project management – everyone has managed a project in their home life – draw on that experience to demonstrate your skills on a CV. How do you prioritise your time to solve a problem?
Problem solving – again you will have had to solve many problems in your everyday life. Richard gives an example and how he resolved the problem.
Leadership is the final skill – a leader inspires & empowers people to get things done.

Richard went on to discuss the differences between fixed and growth mindsets and provided some advice about CV’s and interview techniques. Questions were answered and Richard is still able to access the comments on the video for a few more days if anyone has further questions.

As well as being an ecological consultancy, Wildwood Ecology run the Ecology Training Academy - courses are designed to help aspiring new ecologists throughout their ecological career.