Find out the top 10 core skills you need to master as a research biologist and what hard skills you need to know to succeed in this job.
A Research Biologist is responsible for researching plants and animals related to a particular natural habitat. This position conducts its research on land, air, water, plants, animals and bird behavior in the natural ecosystems.
The primary duties of this post include collecting specimens and tracking the movements of aquatic and land animals, studying the environmental degradation due to the industrial development and global warming, working as the advocates for the environment, observing plant interactions with the environment, studying the behavior of wild animals, conducting research, recording data and analyzing data in their respective fields, draw conclusions based on their analyses, making recommendations or government agencies based on their findings, conducting census of endangered animal species, observing behavior patterns and interactions, trap and tranquilize wild animals like bears and moose to record their sex.
Core Skills Required to be a Research Biologist
Core skills describe a set of non-technical abilities, knowledge, and understanding that form the basis for successful participation in the workplace. Core skills enable employees to efficiently and professionally navigate the world of work and interact with others, as well as adapt and think critically to solve problems.
Core skills are often tagged onto job descriptions to find or attract employees with specific essential core values that enable the company to remain competitive, build relationships, and improve productivity.
A research biologist should master the following 10 core skills to fulfill her job properly.
Dealing with Difficult People:
Dealing with Difficult People is learning how to tactfully calm down an obnoxious person who is either verbally attacking you or stealthily criticizing you or your professional contribution.
A Research Biologist must learn how to combat and tone the demanding customers or staff who are competing for power, privilege or spotlight which defy logic not with fights but with the truth and more listening skills as well as lots of patience.
Giving Feedback:
Giving Feedback is one of the most powerful tools to develop employees and improve performance through honest feedback of the work done best and areas that need improvement.
A Research Biologist should be skilled in giving out both praise and criticism in a wise way to occasionally show workers where they need to improve and providing them with an observer's insight into the progress of their performance.
Strategic Planning:
Strategic Planning is organizational management activity that is used to set priorities, focus energy and resources, strengthen operations while guaranteeing that employees and other stakeholders are working towards common goals.
A Research Biologist should be liable to develop the systematic tools to be used in the organization's processes that coordinate and align resources and actions with the mission, vision, and strategy throughout the organization.
Adaptability:
Adaptability is the ability to cope with and adapt to unexpected situations in any environment and staying connected with a great attitude.
A Research Biologist must shape the workplace with leadership skills that allow employees to adapt to the provided atmosphere and be able to give their best in the workplace while growing in their ability to become the best employees.
Competitiveness:
Competitiveness is the skill of being able to compete as a team or a company with other enterprises in the same line of entrepreneurship and emerging as the winner.
A Research Biologist needs creativity in setting the pace for the organization on the policies and factors that determine the level of productivity of their enterprise against their competitors leading to the growth of the business and the income.
Empathy:
Empathy is the understanding of another person's condition from their perspective by placing yourself in their shoes and feeling what they are feeling.
A Research Biologist ought to practice empathy with his staff by learning to be a good listener and understanding what his employees are going through and choosing to feel it with them through the use of imagination and accommodate them.
Following Directions:
Following Directions is the skill of carefully considering the given instructions and following them closely without fail.
A Research Biologist must ensure that his workers are paying attention and listening to instructions provided as well as taking careful steps in doing what they are supposed to do and understand what it means to the business and bring satisfaction to their superiors.
Realistic Goal Setting:
Realistic Goal Setting is the skill to hone in the specific actions that we need to perform to accomplish everything we aspire to live.
A Research Biologist should invest his time in planning and set both short and long-term goals that stretch and initiates the growth in every employee causing each to perform at his level best bringing in real benefit to their life and the business as well.
Business Ethics:
Business Ethics is the ability to learn what is right and wrong in the world of business and choosing to do what is right at all times.
A Research Biologist must emulate good business ethic that is essential for the long-term success of an organization by implementing an ethical program that will foster a thriving entrepreneurial culture while increasing profitability and personal maturity.
Technology Savvy:
Technology Savvy is the introduction of the digital technology in the workplace as a strategy to make tasks run swiftly against doing them manually.
A Research Biologist must ensure that the technology he introduces to the workplace integrated seamlessly with the workflow and empowers the users rather than complicates and damages the workflow making sure the employees are well prepared and not overwhelmed with the technology.
Hard Skills Required to be a Research Biologist
Hard skills are job-specific skill sets, or expertise, that are teachable and whose presence can be tested through exams. While core skills are more difficult to quantify and less tangible, hard skills are quantifiable and more defined.
Hard skills are usually listed on an applicant's resume to help recruiters know the applicant's qualifications for the applied position. A recruiter, therefore, needs to review the applicant's resume and education to find out if he/she has the knowledge necessary to get the job done.
A research biologist should have a good command of the following hard skills to succeed in her job.