The American Geosciences Institute’s Workforce Program has recently launched AGI’s Geoscience Student Exit Survey and the Survey of the Geoscience Workforce in an effort to provide more detailed information about the career pathways of early career geoscientists from their undergraduate degree through their first five years in the workforce.

One of the greatest challenges faced by students and new graduates is the advice that they must take charge of their own career planning. This is ironic as new graduates are least prepared to understand the full spectrum of options and the potential pathways to meeting their personal goals. We will examine the rationale, tools, and utility of an approach aimed at assisting individuals in career planning nicknamed a "tube map." In particular, this approach has been used in support of geoscientist recruitment and career planning in major European energy companies.

Bridging the workforce supply gap is an increasing concern among the geoscience community as our current geoscience professionals approach retirement age. To ensure the sustainability of our future workforce, the American Geosciences Institute (AGI) developed a program called the Preparing our Workforce (POW) Initiative to discuss the diverse career opportunities with geoscience students.

Maintaining an adequate global supply of qualified geoscientists is a major challenge facing the profession. With global population expected to exceed 9 billion by midcentury, the demand for geoscience expertise is expected to dramatically increase if we are to provide to society the resource base, environmental quality, and resiliency to natural hazards that is required to meet future global demands. The American Geoscience Institute (AGI) has for the past 50 years tracked the supply of geoscientists and their various areas of specialty for the US.

A professional development workshop for underrepresented minority, future and early-career faculty in the geosciences was held in April of 2012. Twenty seven participants traveled to the Washington DC metro area and attended this 2.5 day workshop. Participants’ career levels ranged from early PhD students to Assistant Professors, and they had research interests spanning atmospheric sciences, hydrology, solid earth geoscience and geoscience education.

Most Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) disciplines have a direct recruiting method of high school science courses to supply their undergraduate majors. However, recruitment and retention of students into geoscience academic programs, who will be the future workforce, remains an important issue. The geoscience community is reaching a critical point in its ability to supply enough geoscientists to meet the current and near-future demand.

The American Geosciences Institute (AGI) decided to create the National Geoscience Student Exit Survey in order to identify the initial pathways into the workforce for these graduating students, as well as assess their preparedness for entering the workforce upon graduation.

Targeted recruitment and retention efforts for the geosciences have become increasingly important with the growing concerns about program visibility on campuses, and given that geoscience degree production remains low relative to the demand for new geoscience graduates. Furthermore, understanding the career trajectories of geoscience degree recipients is essential for proper occupational placement. A theoretical framework was developed by Houlton (2010) to focus recruitment and retention efforts.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics projects an overall 19 percent increase in all geoscience-related jobs between 2006 and 2016, which is 9 percent faster than the growth rate for all U.S. occupations. Since 1995, the number of geoscience graduate degrees conferred has averaged approximately 854 per year. As such, current and projected trends indicate that there are not enough geoscientists to meet existing and future demands for professionals in geoscience-employing industries.

Increased demands for resources and environmental activities, relative declines in college students entering technical fields, and expectations of growth commensurate with society as a whole challenge the competitiveness of the U.S. geoscience workforce. Because of prior business cycles, more than 50% of the workforce needed in natural resource industries in 10 years is currently not in the workforce. This issue is even more acute in government at all levels and in academic institutions.