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Career Description

Plan, direct, or coordinate activities in such fields as life sciences, physical sciences, mathematics, statistics, and research and development in these fields.

What Job Titles Natural Sciences Managers Might Have

• Environmental Program Manager
• Natural Science Manager
• Senior Investigator
• Water Team Leader

What Natural Sciences Managers Do

• Confer with scientists, engineers, regulators, or others to plan or review projects or to provide technical assistance.
• Develop client relationships and communicate with clients to explain proposals, present research findings, establish specifications, or discuss project status.
• Plan or direct research, development, or production activities.
• Review project activities and prepare and review research, testing, or operational reports.
• Determine scientific or technical goals within broad outlines provided by top management and make detailed plans to accomplish these goals.
• Develop or implement policies, standards, or procedures for the architectural, scientific, or technical work performed to ensure regulatory compliance or operations enhancement.
• Hire, supervise, or evaluate engineers, technicians, researchers, or other staff.
• Design or coordinate successive phases of problem analysis, solution proposals, or testing.
• Recruit personnel or oversee the development or maintenance of staff competence.
• Prepare project proposals.
• Conduct own research in field of expertise.
• Prepare and administer budgets, approve and review expenditures, and prepare financial reports.
• Make presentations at professional meetings to further knowledge in the field.
• Develop innovative technology or train staff for its implementation.
• Provide for stewardship of plant or animal resources or habitats, studying land use, monitoring animal populations, or providing shelter, resources, or medical treatment for animals.
• Advise or assist in obtaining patents or meeting other legal requirements.

What Natural Sciences Managers Should Be Good At

• Oral Comprehension - The ability to listen to and understand information and ideas presented through spoken words and sentences.
• Written Comprehension - The ability to read and understand information and ideas presented in writing.
• Oral Expression - The ability to communicate information and ideas in speaking so others will understand.
• Written Expression - The ability to communicate information and ideas in writing so others will understand.
• Deductive Reasoning - The ability to apply general rules to specific problems to produce answers that make sense.
• Inductive Reasoning - The ability to combine pieces of information to form general rules or conclusions (includes finding a relationship among seemingly unrelated events).
• Speech Recognition - The ability to identify and understand the speech of another person.
• Speech Clarity - The ability to speak clearly so others can understand you.
• Information Ordering - The ability to arrange things or actions in a certain order or pattern according to a specific rule or set of rules (e.g., patterns of numbers, letters, words, pictures, mathematical operations).
• Problem Sensitivity - The ability to tell when something is wrong or is likely to go wrong. It does not involve solving the problem, only recognizing there is a problem.
• Near Vision - The ability to see details at close range (within a few feet of the observer).
• Category Flexibility - The ability to generate or use different sets of rules for combining or grouping things in different ways.

What Natural Sciences Managers Should Be Interested In

• Enterprising - Enterprising occupations frequently involve starting up and carrying out projects. These occupations can involve leading people and making many decisions. Sometimes they require risk taking and often deal with business.
• 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.

What Natural Sciences Managers Need to Learn

• 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.
• English Language - Knowledge of the structure and content of the English language including the meaning and spelling of words, rules of composition, and grammar.
• 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.
• Biology - Knowledge of plant and animal organisms, their tissues, cells, functions, interdependencies, and interactions with each other and the environment.
• Law and Government - Knowledge of laws, legal codes, court procedures, precedents, government regulations, executive orders, agency rules, and the democratic political process.
• Chemistry - Knowledge of the chemical composition, structure, and properties of substances and of the chemical processes and transformations that they undergo. This includes uses of chemicals and their interactions, danger signs, production techniques, and disposal methods.
• Computers and Electronics - Knowledge of circuit boards, processors, chips, electronic equipment, and computer hardware and software, including applications and programming.