I love geographic information systems. The visual creativity feeds my artistic side. The spatial analysis and complexity feed my science side. And all of this has massive cross-industry value.

But here is something you probably don’t want to hear.

No one cares how much you care about GIS, or how willing you are to learn… they care how much you can help them RIGHT NOW.

This is a case of “Knowing is the half the battle” Because if you don’t know this, you will be stuck spinning your wheels.

Don’t believe me? How about I give you a quick example.

Your car dies in the middle of the freeway. As you are pulled over to the side, a guy wearing a lion tamer outfit comes up with a spoon in hand and opens the hood.

He starts randomly poking around. You ask him “Are you a mechanic?”

“No, but I am really interested in being one” he replies.

Pipes get punctured (very sharp spoon), he hits the battery and ground a few times… sparks fly.

What the heck is this person doing? You stop him and say “You don’t look like a mechanic, you don’t act like a mechanic, and you certainly don’t have the skills of a mechanic… now get out of here”.

The guy may have been keen, the guy may even be nice, but you don’t need him.

This is the world. You have the skills to fix the problem, or you don’t.

To get there faster you have to start with step one.

Build the skills.

There are three components to building the skills. The first is through formal, online, or on the job education.

I would suggest formal education at a University or College. They SHOULD have up to date education standards and SHOULD have good instructors.

Online also works, and helps you learn self-discipline at the same time.

These types of learning are responding to a very specific demand. They want X, you do X. They need Y, you do Y.

This is an important step when it comes to GIS. Learning this way is a necessity. This is building the basic market skills GIS needs.

You need to know what a buffer is, what a datum is, what a projection is. There are a thousand concepts (roughly speaking… could be more… could be less) that you need to learn.

This learning process can take months or years. This is also the time where you focus your skill set and begin to engineer your success.

Find out what specific skills will be needed in the future, and what industries need them the most, and focus in.

Do this and the skills you have at the end will be unique and valuable.

You can take a college education and make it 100 times as valuable by actively focusing ahead of time.

Next.

Fail Win Fail Win or the Path of Iteration

Failure is good. Failure is normal. It is after failure that we find some of the best learning.

It is through this “Fail Win” iteration that you find out what works.

This is where you find gold that people really need for their GIS.

At this stage, find mentors in person, online or in literature.

This stage could be years in making.

Next

Teach What You Know

Something magical happens when you teach someone something you know.

A switch in your mind gets’ turned on and says “Holy crap… I need to know this before I tell someone else about it”. It is a responsibility switch. It is a switch that says “Don’t look like an idiot… do it right”.

Finally the last stage of Build the Skills.

Build

Purposely advance what you do, without permission, on your own, with your own ideas.

You have built your skills and understanding to the point where creativity takes over.

You no longer have to ask permission because you know what works and what doesn’t.

Not many people go to this point. It is the riskiest of all the skill steps.

But I will help you… se e how easy it is! (well… at brainstorm phase anyway)

GIS for arborists.

GIS for Automotive Experts

GIS for Entrepreneurs.

GIS for shoe repair.

You figure it out.

I love Geographic information systems. It is so versatile and applicable across many industries.

So why do so many people find it so hard to find a GIS Job?

I see people every day on LinkedIn or Twitter, who are frustrated with the job prospects in GIS. Many times the jobs are either basic, or seem out of reach.

Today I am going to teach you about a system I am developing I like to call “Engineering your Success”. This system will increase your hire-ability in GIS by a factor of 10.

I am going to show you what you need to start doing today to set up your life so that you can win in GIS.

GIS can be found in everyday activities that we take for granted. For instance, Google Maps!

Every time I get in the car to go somewhere I let Google Maps shows me the way. I can trust that it will route me around traffic, and more recently, show me locations of user identified speed cameras.

Perhaps there is moral dilemma (helping people avoid tickets!) but I think the Google Maps system brings more awareness and safety to commutes.

GIS is also used in urban planning, agriculture, geoscience, disaster management, environmental analysis, space exploration and the list goes on.

However, there is a HUGE problem with GIS:

GIS can be very easy and a TON of people are doing it.

GIS is drawing lines on a screen. GIS is “click-here-do-that”. GIS is making maps.

There is a low entry price to GIS (free in the case of QGIS), this means, it is not necessarily a career for most people.

A partial solution I like to talk about is “Code Everything”. I will leave this to a future post because I am going to give you a full solution here… “Engineer your Success”.

NOTE! I am working on this, so consider this 1.0, I will have more information to come!

Step 1 – Build the Skills

No matter how you look at it, you will need the “Click-here-do-that” knowledge of geographic information systems.

You need to understand the software, you need to understand what datum’s, projections, data types, tables, features, etc. are.

You can do this through formal education at university or college, but if you are really keen, you can learn on line.

Protip: You will be doing this skill-building… forever, you must learn to love it.

Step 2 – Build the Mindsets (version 1.0)

Mindsets will dictate your success. People who have irrational belief in themselves, somehow come out on top. Guess what… you have to do this.

The following are my top 3 mindsets for success in GIS.

Learning and Growth mindset.

Technology changes, algorithms change, you must learn and grow as fast as you possibly can. If you do not learn and grow, you will be left behind.

There is no failure.

People get wrapped up in worrying about making mistakes. Most mistakes aren’t catastrophic, sometimes they are just funny. The sooner you recover from “failure”, the sooner you win.

Find the Need, Fill the Need.

People get generalized skill sets because they don’t know exactly what other people need. Generalized skills are good… to start. If you want to win at GIS, you ASK what people need.

You can start by asking your Boss exactly what they want… and then giving them exactly what they want. Because you are learning and growing, you will be able to take the requests to the next level, and because you do not believe in failure, you keep pushing forward with new technology and new ways of thinking. Once you fill a need, move on to the next… as fast as possible.

Step 3 – Build the reputation.

Two words. Social media.

Get on LinkedIn, Twitter, FB, or whatever new platform may arise.

Learn out loud. Show your journey. Celebrate your successes, help people with their failures.

Work out loud (if you can). Show results, celebrate victories.

Help out loud. Have a GIS solution you know people will love… SHARE it.

Become social media savvy.

Being unemployed sucks, especially if you have a family to support.

I know this well. When oil went into the toilet a few years ago, I lost my job.

Granted I hated that job (which is for another blog post) but jobs mean money.

I retrained in #GIS over the next year and acquired skills outside of oil and gas.

Geographic information systems is an amazing skill set to have. It can be used in all sorts of industries and can allow you to be self-employed.

But what happens if you just finish school and are unable to get a job? What happens if you lose your job and can’t find something?

There is some bad news, and two sets of good news.

The first good news is that knowing what the issue is is half the battle.

And there there is the… THE BAD NEWS!

Most people when they are unable to find a job do nothing. They wait. They send out resumes (which is good). They search the internet. Then… they start doing unproductive things.

Watch TV, use social media for outrage, eat too much, and get depressed. You may even start questioning your choice of career.

Here is something more depressing.

According to research people will have forgotten 50% of what they learned within 24 hours, and forget 90% within a month.

This means you if you are not actively using your education, you are going be forgetting what you have learned.

You are not keeping up with new technologies. You are not making new connections. You are falling behind.

But as promised, there is some good news!

I am going to give you a few very basic steps to not only keep your skills ready, but also make your 10 times more hire-able in the next 30 days.

These steps will only take you 1 to 2 hours a day. That means only watching one less TV show (best not to watch any till you are employed).

You can make the steps fun, or just check the off a list.

The list looks like this:

Read a single blog (Day 1)

This seemingly small activity will keep you informed about what is currently happening the world of GIS. The great thing about blogs is that many people are writing on some really great topics.

They are doing the hard work for you by researching topics and bringing the distilled information right to you.

Even better you can listen to podcasts as they do the same thing, and you can listen while you work out (which you should be doing).

Here is a list of blogs to start:

https://www.esri.com/about/newsroom/blog/

https://blog.attentive.ai/

Bigger list here: http://wiki.gis.com/wiki/index.php/List_of_GIS-related_Blogs

Here are some great podcasts:

https://mapscaping.com/blogs/the-mapscaping-podcast

https://www.esri.com/about/newsroom/podcast/

Bigger list here: https://www.gislounge.com/geospatial-podcasts-roundup/

Gather Open Data (Day 2)

Finding free data is both easy and a pain. I have searched for sites that have links to open GIS data, but I find more likely than not, the links are long since broken.

Pick your country and search.

Imagery however, I use the following.

USGS – https://earthexplorer.usgs.gov/

Free imagery. Not the best quality, but great for keeping your imagery analysis skills up.

Sentinels Scientific Data Hub – https://scihub.copernicus.eu/

This is a recent find for me, check out GisGeogrpahy’s link on how to access it.

https://gisgeography.com/how-to-download-sentinel-satellite-data/

You can easily find more, the data is out there.

Do some analysis (Day 3)

You did this before for money, you might as well do it now for your future. You can really show off you skills if you are good!

You can use QGIS for free or ArcGIS Pro for cheap. With Arc You get access to all the apps, all the training, and even ArcGIS online.

This is a ridiculously good purchase which I would suggest you do.

Here are some example analysis you can do:

Analyze the spatial statistics of roads in a region which are under threat of flooding.

Analyze the location of factories and population centers.

Look at population density statistics.

Create a Graphic (Day 4)

Geographic Information Systems is at its heart a visual medium. The beautiful thing about creating graphics for your GIS is that they can be simple.

In fact, the more simple and easy to understand your graphic, the better.

You want people to look at your analysis and say “I see! Those are the roads that are going to be most affected by flooding”.

Here is another free hint. In case you get stuck trying to figure out how to represent your analysis… copy what already works.

Did I say copy? I mean be inspired by.

Show your work (Day 5)

No one is going to know you just did the above steps if you don’t actually show your work.

Show your work is risky.

What you have done might suck.

What you have done might change the world.

You will never know if you don’t show your work.

Social media is free. Post now. Post often.

DO IT.

Become social media savvy.

I was recently on twitter and I saw a quote that I am twisting to fit this blog post.

Self-promotion is hard. Being unknown is hard. Choose your hard.

No, this is not a black and white issue. You can be known without ever using social media. You could probably even go your entire GIS and geoscience career without ever using social media.

But social media is free, powerful, a little bit of a minefield and people use it everywhere, all the time.

In this post, I am going to talk about how you can automatically start harnessing social media to make yourself 10 times more hirable in the job market.

You will not only make yourself more hirable, but you will also learn to communicate better, learn to market yourself, and learn to public speak (if you go the video route).

Chances are you already spend (far too much) time on social media already.

According to studies, people spend 2 hours 23 minutes a day on social media sites.

This means people (YOU) are online a lot… and will be online A LOT MORE into the future.

Social media use varies between apps and platforms, but the numbers are telling.

Turns out by statistics, you are already poised to harness social media.

Social media has been good for me (so far).

I started my YouTube channel, Twitter account, and Instagram in 2015. Signing up was all a strategy to prove that YouTube could be used for Geoscience education.

8 years, 11000 subscribers, 100+ videos, 550,000+ views, and hundreds of posts later, social media has worked out for me.

While I am no PewdiePie or whoever else is on top of YouTube, my social media story is a success story (to a reasonable degree) and you can have success too.

You don’t have to jump in like I did and start creating videos. Videos are great, but they are also hard.

There are a few steps you can off with to get your online self-promotion started.

Sort out your crappy LinkedIn.

LinkedIn is a great tool to connect with professional people and allow companies to see who you are.

You are probably making serious mistakes on your LinkedIn that you need to fix TODAY.

First and foremost, you need a good profile picture. I ignore connection request if people do not have a picture.

Make sure your headline is interesting and relevant.

Here is a secret… you can use the picture for your Twitter / Facebook / Instagram… and you will have “brand recognition” doing this. Your face and headline are consistent across apps.

Check our more way to make a better LinkedIn account here.

Start a YouTube channel.

If you have research or work results you can share, create a video to show it off. Perhaps you have a topic you love to teach… make a video.

Perhaps you have a capstone project for school, or thesis, or a term projects… create a video of the results. Almost anything you have to give a presentation on… create a video for it.

Comment / Share / Like… just engage.

Engaging with people on your social media apps is the easiest way to start self-promoting.

The more you engage, the more you get a feel for what you will need to do for better self-promotion.

Become social media savvy.

I love geographic information systems. The endless possibilities in coding, the variety of visual designs, and the unlimited application in multiple industries are perfect for a creative person like me.

But it occurred to me…

Is GIS enough to get hired? Is having great GIS skills enough?

Answer: No… GIS is not enough... but it is a start!

This is not just because GIS is usually an “add-on” skill, but because things change.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, we will change jobs every 4 to 4.3 years.

That means whatever you are training in or doing now is not going to be what you are doing in 5 years, let alone 10.

This is only going to increase with the rise of the gig economy.

…not to mention the continual advancement of technology.

This includes anything you are trained in. GIS, Geoscience, Engineering.

It is important to understand this because as the old G.I.Joe public services announcement says.

Knowing that things change gives you the ability to plan to change faster.

Remember though… the following still applies!!!

Skill sets and “Click-here-do-that” are very important.

Being able to speak GIS and hold a professional conversation is important.

No matter how you look at it, you need the skills to be effective. You need the skills to get GIS done.

But here is something you need to know…

Skills are common and GIS is easy.

Like it or not, GIS could be considered the “Word Processing” or “Spread Sheeting” of your company. Need a map? Call Bob. Need a graph? Call Jane.

Everyone knows how to type in Word, everyone knows how to use Excel. They may not do either well, BUT they may do it well enough to get the job done.

What this means is that if you are not careful, you can easily be replaced, or they might not need you at all.

This comes back to what a GIS instructor once told me:

The “Shallow” is an aspect of the problem, more to do with how we represent GIS.

Luckily, there are some things you can do to ensure you stay competitive in GIS.

Be Obsessed with GIS, or be average

This idea comes from the marketing world of Grant Cardone. He talks about becoming obsessed at a skill to be the best in the world at it. He talks about sales… but it is applicable to GIS.

Being obsessed is figuring out how to be better.

Being obsessed is learning how to learn.

Being obsessed means that you will know the ideas inside out.

Being obsessed means you will keep up with trends to know what is coming next and know what to abandon quickly.

Being obsessed means doing the work that other people are not willing or able to do.

If you are going to learn something, go all in.

How can you be obsessed?

Listen to podcasts:

https://cng.fireside.fm/

https://www.esri.com/about/newsroom/podcast/

https://mapscaping.com/blogs/the-mapscaping-podcast

Attend online seminars.

Read Blogs.

https://www.gislounge.com

https://geographicinformationsuccess.com/blog

Watch Videos

https://www.youtube.com/drchrisgeoscience

https://www.youtube.com/RiccardoKlinger