What would a real field work resume look like?

This week Dispatches from the Field is happy to welcome back Emily Williams, who polled some of her friends and colleagues on what their real fieldwork resume would say. Read more about Emily at the end of her post!

While every career on the planet probably has its own idiosyncrasies and oddities, some careers have more than most. I’d wager that many people in the science field could easily give Mike Rowe of Dirty Jobs a run for his money. From negotiating with a monkey over jungle space to place invertebrate light traps, to diving several meters through a slurry of whale poop, the pursuit of scientific knowledge doesn’t always occur in a shiny and bright ivory tower.

Many of the routine tasks we do and techniques we employ as field biologists would give pause to and cause discomfort for many. A majority of those same tasks and techniques, because of their nature, are not included in the carefully crafted methods sections of manuscripts, or the protocols of field manuals. Moreover, they are also usually not fit to appear on professional resumes or be discussed in detail during an interview.

I’ve often wondered what a field work resume would really look like, if we were to be completely honest about the skills we’ve gained from the myriad experiences we’ve had as field biologists. Most of us are well versed in eloquently stating our know-how working in “adverse conditions” such as extreme heat or cold, along with biting or stinging insects, alone and in remote conditions. Most of us, however, are not as versed in honestly detailing the unique skillsets we learn on the job.

In a scientifically inquisitive spirit, I posed this question to many of my friends, colleagues, and acquaintances: if you were to write your resume without having to be professional and could be completely honest about the tasks you did and conditions you lived in, what would you say?

I have compiled their answers here, written in traditional resume fashion.

THE REAL FIELD WORK RESUME

Excels at three-dimensional tetris, most notably in small vehicles
Demonstrated ability to use bandannas in a multitude of ways and for various purposes
Ability to control levels of teeth chattering when sitting for hours in blinds at -30°C
Ability to live in harmony with various groups of black flies and mosquitoes constantly in face and near body
Wrench in one hand, bucket in the other, topped off with a head-to-toe bug suit and muck boots. Just another day in detritus–filled, smelly, muddy paradise.
Ability to play beer hockey using water instead of beer
Ability to build drones out of foam, hot glue, bamboo skewers, and paint sticks, then proceed to fly them at large flocks of blackbirds on crop fields
Adaptable to fluctuating levels and availability of caffeine
Fondness for early mornings, late evenings, working at all hours of the day, and overtime
Skilled at pooping outdoors (you wouldn’t believe how many times this was listed!)
Skilled at peeing off of wooden platforms/boats/planes
Adept at constructing mist-net poles out of bamboo and liana vines

Our kitchen and food supply for 5 months. Getting crafty with potatoes, beans, and rice is a necessary on-the-job skill.

Inventive when coming up with >10 ways to eat lentils and beans
Demonstrated ability using gorilla tape to keep capuchins from accessing food stores
Demonstrated ability problem solving with ridding housing of resident bats without causing harm to anyone involved
Skilled at intuitively cutting onions to crew’s preferences
Fluent in sweet-talking foxes who have taken up residence on archaeological sites
Have perfected excavation of the 30 cm diameter multi-utility hole
Well versed in the art of extracting ticks from myself and others
Home for 5 months. No running water, no electricity, no soft, comfy bed.
Competent at estimating the size of mouse population adjacent to field cot using 5-gallon peanut butter traps. Reduction in population estimates were used to determine the likelihood of contracting Hanta Virus or risk of rattlesnake bites
Adept at turning PB & J into three months of delicious cuisine
Knows exactly what sending electricity through water feels like going through the human body (e.g., too many falls in streams when electrofishing)
Skilled at identifying animals on dark forested roads using eye shine (i.e., whip-poor-will lifeguard certification)
Amateur tight-rope (downed slash pine) walker
Skilled at handling animals under various amounts of fecal matter
Skilled at rolling up broken tape measures
Adept at maintaining top hiking pace while removing and stowing jacket with backpack still attached
Used to being damp 24/7
The nature of field work is that often, things do not go as planned. In this case, not only did the main field site burn down (not on purpose), but the second main field site then did, and then the ALTERNATE field site (third time’s a charm, right?!) also went ablaze. Bye bye, data! How does this translate to a transferable skill? –Skilled at having no expectations and being adaptable to anything goes.
Adept at sharing living quarters with rodents, both living and deceased
Adept at dealing with exposure to permanent fish smell
Possesses indestructible gut biota due to frequent consumption of unrefrigerated leftovers
Development of diverse and unique personal hygiene techniques
Demonstrated ability to work under pressure while being excreted upon and repeatedly smacked in the head by thousands of screaming birds
Demonstrated ability to extract a variety of broken down or barely-running trucks from remote locations, in all weather conditions
Adept at splinting the legs of songbirds injured in mist-nets
Adept at getting chainsaw stuck, then guarding stuck chainsaw through the night, while waiting for back up
Skilled at getting stuck chainsaws unstuck
Skilled at coordinated movement through tall, stabby marsh vegetation, as well as extrication from potholes in said marsh
Skilled at running towards mist-nets in tall vegetation while waving long sticks
Proficient at hurling profanities at butterflies and their predators
Experienced at doing public outreach activities in youth hostels while feeding butterflies in the common areas
Skilled at shaving fox necks (may be transferable to human haircuts)
Adept at advanced choreography in tussock habitat
Proficient at scaring eagles from landfills
Well versed in identifying birds at 40 mph
Proficient at endurance swabbing of goose throats and cloacas
Skilled at chasing cattle from camp and study sites
Devising a plan to avert an imminent cow invasion of unsuspecting and innocent grassland bird nests .
Adept at persuading police officers to not perform arrest while searching for injured birds
Well versed at rendering human fat tissue for stable isotope analysis
Experienced at playing cat and mouse around a tree with a pissed off moose that wants nothing more than to squash you into humanoid jelly
Skilled at running from one end of boat to the other to remove stuck boat from underwater stump
Adept at removing rotting fish from net and eating lunch immediately thereafter
Proficient of walking 10+ miles on the beach trying to outrun a thunderstorm (while noting as many birds as possible)
Skilled at writing legible numbers on mammals with a small paint brush and black hair dye
Inventive in turning found trash into boat identification symbols
Experience accidentally tasting what digested fish Long Island Sound had to offer Common Terns at least once for four summers
Well versed in using ice cream to prevent field crew mutinies
Experienced at at politely nodding while listening to wide-ranging, uncomfortably long diatribes about “the government” from every hiker/commercial fisherman/rancher you meet
Proficient at staying zen through thousands of insect bites
Ah, the joys of field work: insect bites on every part of your body.
Skilled at spotting road-killed hummingbirds at ~65 mph
Highly adept at avoiding trampling by large bovines
Skilled at tracking down falcon pellets from ~20 m away
Skilled at wrestling and wrangling 30 lb condors in pitch black, cramped enclosures with minimal personal bloodshed
Effective at removal of multiple rigs stuck in sand pits, snow banks, and mud hollows, both independently and with a partner
Adept at securing >50 lb carcasses to the ground in under 2 min per body, under cover of night in all weather conditions
Experienced at piercing wings and attaching “wing-bling” ID tags to patagials of >300 vultures with a flinch reaction of <5%

I give huge thanks to all of the people who contributed to the above list, which is not exhaustive. These bullet points do not even scratch the surface of the unique and varied skillsets field biologists acquire over their careers.

Job recruiting websites always stress how resumes must showcase maximum wow factor. If any of the above were included on a resume, they would do more than drop a few jaws.

If you were to be completely honest, what would your resume look like?

Emily Williams works as an Avian Ecologist at Denali National Park and Preserve. Emily’s research focuses on the behavior, migration, and ecology of birds. While she now works among the boreal forests of Alaska chasing Gray Jays, she has been lucky to work with many taxa among different ecosystems worldwide.