By Rosemary Boone, Senior Marketing Manager—Education, Esri

All too often, students begin thinking about transitioning to a GIS career in their final year or after graduation. The truth is that the strongest GIS professionals start laying the foundation years before earning their degrees.

In my career at Esri I get to interact with GIS students year-round and the most common question I get is “What more can I do to get a job in GIS?” and there is not a single answer for that.

The reality is that no single milestone guarantees a job after graduation. To stand out in a competitive job market, you need to take intentional steps each year of college/university that specifically help to:

  • Grow your professional network
  • Demonstrate your technical skills
  • Build leadership experience that shows initiative
  • Develop durable skills like confidence, public speaking, adaptability

A big misconception is landing a GIS job solely depends on earning a degree or mastering a technical skill. While those are very important, employers are looking for candidates who have shown initiative, curiosity, embracing the unknown, leadership, and active participation in the GIS community.

In this article I outline a four-year GIS career roadmap to be proactive in building your professional foundation. This career roadmap can be adapted to 4 semesters if you’re graduating in less than 4 years.

Year 1: Build a Foundation

When you’re first introduced to GIS, you will need to spend some time to build understanding of the fundamental capabilities of GIS. This means completing tutorials, experimenting with mapping projects, and asking lots of questions.

Build your GIS skills. Your first year is about exploration. Do all that you can to learn what GIS is capable of through Esri’s learning resources such as Esri Tutorials, Esri Academy, and Esri’s MOOC program. Be sure you’re able to get access to ArcGIS software either through your institution or ArcGIS Student Use License. Through developing your GIS skills, you’ll learn how GIS is being applied in various fields such as conservation, planning, health, business, data science, geosciences, and more.

These are great places to start your exploration:

Join an association, network, or community. Just as important as building your technical skills is integrating yourself into a professional community to help you start building professional habits. You can do this by joining an association or network centered around GIS where you will have the opportunity to meet professionals, learn about the latest GIS trends, and receive invites to webinars and local events. It’s more than just joining; it’s also about being actively engaged and finding ways to get involved in the community you are joining. Consider started with any of these:

  • Esri Young Professionals Network (YPN)
  • Geospatial Professionals Network (GPN)
  • American Association of Geographers (AAG)
  • The United States Geospatial Intelligence Foundation (USGIF)

Create your LinkedIn profile. LinkedIn may not be the social platform that you’re accustomed to using in your early academic career stages. However, at some point you will need to develop your LinkedIn presence if you want to have a competitive advantage while also staying current with GIS trends, events, and thought leaders.

Create your LinkedIn profile now so you can begin to:

  • Follow GIS thought leaders
  • Connect with GIS organizations
  • Begin to showcase your own GIS work

Year 2: Start Building Your Professional Story

By now you should have some technical experience and mapping projects under your belt. Instead of letting your projects disappear when the semester is over, start building your GIS portfolio of your work and sharing it on LinkedIn as you hit those project milestones.

This is another opportunity to start getting more involved in the associations and networks to begin building your digital footprint and physical presence in the GIS community. This means attending webinars and local in-person meetups, and engaging in ambassador and mentorship programs.

Here are some second-year goals to put on your radar:

Enhance Your GIS Portfolio. During your academic journey as a GIS student, as you create and contribute to projects and research, your GIS portfolio can showcase skills and projects that you can’t otherwise share on a resume. This not only can be used as a tool to stand out from others, it will serve as a reflection of your GIS experience and demonstrate your proficiency.

YPN Ambassador Program. A very “low hanging fruit” opportunity for you is to get involved in the YPN Ambassador Program. There are three ambassador options (1) Community (2) Content (3) Events. These involve engaging in professional discussions online (Community), authoring your own blog post (Content), and/or speaking at an event (Event). You can choose to go for one option or all three. Once you meet the ambassador criteria, apply to get your ambassador digital badge and certificate. Share your badge and certificate on your LinkedIn profile and GIS portfolio.

Stay active on LinkedIn. You’re going to notice that LinkedIn will come up a lot in this article, and for good reason. Your LinkedIn profile is going to be a living portfolio of your work and looked at by recruiters and future employers.

Use this to your advantage and start creating your digital footprint that leaves behind a trail of evidence that you’re an active participant in the GIS community. Here are ways to stay active on LinkedIn:

  • Post about GIS projects you’re working on
  • Share completed training/courses that made an impact
  • Share an article you found impactful that can benefit others
  • Comment on posts by people in your network
  • Post pictures of any GIS events you took part in

Attend local in-person events. It’s time to start getting yourself outside of the classroom environment to begin building your networking skills and grow your network. Networking is a skill that should be practiced, refined, and built over time.

Esri YPN has chapters across the United State based out of Esri regional offices that host in-person meetups at no cost. Join a YPN chapter near you through their website and check the Events page for upcoming meetups.

Check local GIS user groups for events as well as any of the associations you may have joined for any regional events that may occur.

Year 3: Build Professional & Real-World Experience

This is the year to translate your classroom experience into professional experience. This year will require being more proactive on your end to seek out internship, volunteer, and contribution opportunities. This is also a time to start presenting your work outside a classroom environment, develop public speaking skills, and engage with GIS professionals in a professional setting such as a conference.

Here’s what you can do in your third year to proactively build professional experience:

Secure an internship or student assistantship. Seek out an internship or leadership on campus or within a professional organization to build your professional experience. Esri has a 12-week paid summer internship where applications open every September and close in December. Although these internship opportunities can get quite competitive, there are other alternatives, such as internships in government agencies or businesses that use GIS.

You also can apply to be a student assistant at a conference where you work at the conference to gain behind-the-scenes experience. Esri has a student assistantship program where students can volunteer to work at an Esri conference in exchange for free attendance. This usually is a weeklong (or less in some cases) opportunity and can still be counted as work experience on your resume.

Publish content. Did you know you don’t have to be a New York Times bestselling author to publish your own article or blog post? Yes, it’s true! If there is a GIS topic, research project, or experience you know would be useful to share with others, write about it. In fact, the YPN Content Ambassador option requires you to publish an article to the YPN Blog.

It’s important to share knowledge with your community while also building your own credibility and presence in the GIS community. Don’t think for one second you aren’t qualified to publish an article or blog post, because you’re the expert in your own journey and the knowledge you’ve learned along the way can inspire someone else. Start finding mediums/platforms to publish your content, such as Esri Community, LinkedIn articles, and ArcGIS StoryMaps. Then link to your published work on your GIS portfolio and resume.

Attend or present at a conference. Often this is an overlooked opportunity that can really pay off in the end. Submit a paper or poster to present at a GIS-related conference or event related to your field of study. This will give you an opportunity to not only attend a conference to build your network and industry connections, you’ll gain experience presenting in a professional setting. The “call for papers” is typically open for a short amount of time, so there is some research to do on your end for that window of opportunity. Consider these conferences to present at in the future: American Association of Geographers (AAG), GIS Pro, Geological Society of America (GSA) Connects, Esri User Conference Map Gallery, and American Geophysical Union (AGU).

Remember that all the experience you gain this year should be documented in your LinkedIn as you hit these milestones. Share your progress with your network and that, in itself, will open doors.

Year 4: Prepare Your Transition from Student to Professional

Transitioning from student to professional requires a shift in mindset. You may have been focused on opportunities that will gain you experience, but now you will need to learn how to communicate your value in a way that makes you a competitive candidate in the workforce.

Polish your resume, GIS portfolio, and LinkedIn profile. Make sure that your resume, GIS portfolio and LinkedIn profile reflect your latest GIS projects, research, accomplishments, education, and general information about yourself. You’ll want to maintain a version of your resume that includes all your work experience, as well as tailor your resume for specific job applications.

Pro tip: Strengthen your resume by becoming a certified Emerging GIS Professional or GISP-E which includes successfully passing an exam.

Practice interviewing and telling your professional story. A lot of people struggle with “selling themselves” in their search for a GIS career. However, this is a skill that you need to develop to land a job. Practice interviewing in a way that demonstrates how you’ve solved problems, worked with a team, adapted, and used GIS to solve real-world problems.

Network intentionally. This is your opportunity to reach out and reconnect with professionals or mentors you met over the past several years at conferences, internships, and professional organizations. These relationships you’ve built over time will become some of your greatest career resources.

Seek out to attend additional conferences, meetups, and seminars with a different mindset in practicing telling your professional story and connecting with companies and professionals in the field you want to land a career in.

Join your local YPN Chapter as they host in-person meetups at Esri regional offices throughout the year.

Apply to positions that align with your goals. A common mistake I see students make is applying for every position they come across. While applying to more jobs may seem like a good way to increase your chances of getting hired, casting too wide a net can work against you. Recruiters may see a long list of unrelated applications as a sign that you don’t have a clear sense of your career goals or the type of work you’re interested in pursuing. Instead, focus on roles that align with your skills, interests, and career direction. Take it from Zak Etem in his article I Applied to Esri 64 Times Before Getting Hired and Here’s What I Learned.

Remember that there is no single milestone that will land you a job after you graduate. Each webinar you attend, connection you make, project you complete, blog post you publish collectively adds up to contribute to your success. This is why truly successful professionals build their careers one experience at a time.

If you follow the advice outlined in this article, by the time you graduate, you will have earned a:

  • Portfolio that demonstrates your technical skills and abilities
  • Professional support system you built through networking
  • Leadership experience that shows you took initiative
  • Presence in the GIS community who are familiar with your work

Don’t wait until months before you graduate to think about your GIS career, start early and the time and effort you invest will extend far beyond your first job.

Featured Articles is a special section of the AAG Newsletter where AAG sponsors highlight recent programs and activities of significance to geographers and members of the AAG.