GIS Job Search

For my internship, I had to spend some time looking at job postings to check out the options and see what kinds of GIS skills postings list. I looked in a few different places at potential jobs. First, I just searched Google for "GIS Archaeology jobs." I got quite a few postings, but unsurprisingly, most of the postings were for GIS positions in the private sector at CRM or environmental firms. I did find a few positions with States - Florida and California are apparently looking for archaeologists that explicitly have GIS skills and experience. I also found what I'm sure is a lot of people's dream job - archaeologist at Gettysburg. This position required a lot of GIS skills. Alas, I'm just not a big enough Civil War buff so it's all lost on me.

From the USA Jobs website, I searched for GIS related jobs and found quite a few with multiple agencies. A lot of the positions were focused more on natural resources, or on infrastructure and planning. I did see a few archaeology jobs including another with the NPS in Alaska and a few with the BLM in California. These positions required specialized experience to be hired on at a higher GS rank, some of which could include knowledge of GPS and GIS systems to record archaeological resources and maintain databases of the known resources. 

While I was searching, I found plenty of blogs and organizational websites discussing how important GIS skills are in the field. It's interesting to see it hyped up but not see it listed out in very many job postings. I searched for just "archaeology jobs" and of course found a ton of other positions. Most of these job postings do not explicitly list GIS but include tasks that will involve collecting and analyzing spatial data. Maps are a crucial part of any archaeological endeavor, but I think the field is still catching up to the technology. It will be interesting to see if these things get included in future job postings, or remain vague tasks that employers assume potential employees have some experience with.