Foresters
Skills & Knowledge
Most Important Skills for Foresters
- Making Decisions—Considering the relative costs and benefits of potential actions to choose the most appropriate one.
- Monitoring Performance—Monitoring/Assessing performance of yourself, other individuals, or organizations to make improvements or take corrective action.
- Understanding a System or Organization—Determining how a system should work and how changes in conditions, operations, and the environment will affect outcomes.
- Thinking Critically—Using logic and reasoning to identify the strengths and weaknesses of alternative solutions, conclusions or approaches to problems.
- Coordinating with Others—Adjusting actions in relation to others' actions.
- Solving Complex Problems—Identifying complex problems and reviewing related information to develop and evaluate options and implement solutions.
- Writing—Communicating effectively in writing as appropriate for the needs of the audience.
- Reading—Understanding written sentences and paragraphs in work related documents.
- Evaluating a System or Organization—Identifying measures or indicators of system performance and the actions needed to improve or correct performance, relative to the goals of the system.
- Listening—Giving full attention to what other people are saying, taking time to understand the points being made, asking questions as appropriate, and not interrupting at inappropriate times.
Most Important Knowledge Areas for Foresters
- Customer and Personal Service—Knowledge of principles and processes for providing customer and personal services. This includes customer needs assessment, meeting quality standards for services, and evaluation of customer satisfaction.
- Mathematics—Knowledge of arithmetic, algebra, geometry, calculus, statistics, and their applications.
- Geography—Knowledge of principles and methods for describing the features of land, sea, and air masses, including their physical characteristics, locations, interrelationships, and distribution of plant, animal, and human life.
- Computers and Electronics—Knowledge of circuit boards, processors, chips, electronic equipment, and computer hardware and software, including applications and programming.
- Clerical—Knowledge of administrative and clerical procedures and systems such as word processing, managing files and records, stenography and transcription, designing forms, and other office procedures and terminology.
- English Language—Knowledge of the structure and content of the English language including the meaning and spelling of words, rules of composition, and grammar.
- Biology—Knowledge of plant and animal organisms, their tissues, cells, functions, interdependencies, and interactions with each other and the environment.
- Administration and Management—Knowledge of business and management principles involved in strategic planning, resource allocation, human resources modeling, leadership technique, production methods, and coordination of people and resources.
- Law and Government—Knowledge of laws, legal codes, court procedures, precedents, government regulations, executive orders, agency rules, and the democratic political process.
- Education and Training—Knowledge of principles and methods for curriculum and training design, teaching and instruction for individuals and groups, and the measurement of training effects.
Interests
Different careers may be a good fit for your personality or interests. This career is:
- Realistic—Realistic occupations frequently involve work activities that include practical, hands-on problems and solutions. They often deal with plants, animals, and real-world materials like wood, tools, and machinery. Many of the occupations require working outside, and do not involve a lot of paperwork or working closely with others.
- Investigative—Investigative occupations frequently involve working with ideas, and require an extensive amount of thinking. These occupations can involve searching for facts and figuring out problems mentally.
Learn more about your interests. Take the MnCareers Interest Assessment.
Describe Your Skills
People who have worked in this career typically perform the following tasks.
These statements can help a prospective employer understand what you can do, on a resume or during an interview.
- Collecting information from different sources.
- Identifying information by categorizing, comparing, or detecting changes in circumstances or events.
- Organizing, planning, and prioritizing work.
- Communicating with supervisors, co-workers, or people that work under you.
- Documenting or recording information.
- Using computers.
- Creating and maintaining interpersonal relationships.
- Making decisions or solving problems.
Careers that Use Similar Skills
The following careers use skills, knowledge, and abilities that are similar to those used for Foresters.
View more careers in the Agriculture, Food, and Natural Resources cluster
View more careers in the Natural Resources Systems pathway

This page includes information from the O*NET 24.2 Database by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA). Used under the CC BY 4.0 license. O*NET® is a trademark of USDOL/ETA.
Source: You can learn about our data sources in the About Us section.