Entry-level career paths in the life sciences: generic skills in Dutch job postings

The importance of generic skills for life scientists is commonly recognised by employers, graduates, and higher education institutes. As it remains unclear which generic skills are relevant for different life sciences career paths, this study aims to give an overview to inform and inspire universiti...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:International journal of science education 2024-05, Vol.46 (8), p.795-814
Main Authors: van Ravenswaaij, Heleen, ter Meulen-de Jong, Sanne, de Kleijn, Renske A. M., Dilaver, Gonul, van der Schaaf, Marieke F., van Rijen, Harold V. M.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Biological Sciences
Career development
career paths
Career Pathways
Careers
Cluster analysis
Communication
Consultants
Generic skills
Higher education
Information technology
Job descriptions
Life sciences
life sciences graduates
Multivariate Analysis
Sales
Universities
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Summary:The importance of generic skills for life scientists is commonly recognised by employers, graduates, and higher education institutes. As it remains unclear which generic skills are relevant for different life sciences career paths, this study aims to give an overview to inform and inspire universities and students, by analysing 179 Dutch entry-level job postings. We deductively coded nine career paths, namely: life sciences industry, PhD-student, quality compliance, research-related, sales & business, communication/education, information technology, consultancy, and policy. We coded generic skills using an adapted categorisation consisting of 46 generic skills within four categories, which were: self, others, information, and tasks. The descriptive statistics and cluster analysis results showed that although language, communication, and collaboration were the most requested skills, differences in requested generic skills between career paths and cluster composition were observed as well. We concluded that although some generic skills are important in general, other generic skills are relevant for specific life sciences career paths. To educate skilled life scientists, universities should consider the flexible integration of these generic skills in their life sciences programmes.
ISSN:0950-0693
1464-5289
DOI:10.1080/09500693.2023.2259568