Find out the top 10 core skills you need to master as a toxicologist and what hard skills you need to know to succeed in this job.
A Toxicologist is liable for investigating and identifying toxins like chemicals, biological substances, and radiation to evaluate the potential risks and harmful effects posed by them both to the environmental and living organism.
The essential functions for this post are designing, organizing and undertaking controlled experiments and trials, devising and testing hypotheses, using appropriate analytical procedures to identify and quantify toxins, techniques to identify and quantify toxins, analyzing and interpreting data, giving proof in the court of law when need be, carrying out field studies, reading relevant literature, writing reports, reviews and papers, assisting in establishing regulations to protect humans, animals and the environment, performing risks assessments to determine the likelihood of harmful effects, managing laboratories.
Core Skills Required to be a Toxicologist
Core skills describe a set of non-technical abilities, knowledge, and understanding that form the basis for successful participation in the workplace. Core skills enable employees to efficiently and professionally navigate the world of work and interact with others, as well as adapt and think critically to solve problems.
Core skills are often tagged onto job descriptions to find or attract employees with specific essential core values that enable the company to remain competitive, build relationships, and improve productivity.
A toxicologist should master the following 10 core skills to fulfill her job properly.
Urgency:
Urgency is the speed that drives businesses fast in order to keep them from disconnecting from what they are aiming to achieve but pursue it with a sense of urgency.
A Toxicologist needs to create a sense of urgency in the business by helping the staff see the need for change by taking advantage of the presented opportunities or by dealing with any issue that is holding them back.
Giving Feedback:
Giving Feedback is one of the most powerful tools to develop employees and improve performance through honest feedback of the work done best and areas that need improvement.
A Toxicologist should be skilled in giving out both praise and criticism in a wise way to occasionally show workers where they need to improve and providing them with an observer's insight into the progress of their performance.
Appearance and Grooming:
Appearance and Grooming are the way one presents themselves in a professional environment or the workplace with the aim of gaining positive impression and respect as well.
A Toxicologist must be an example in proper grooming and professional appearance while ensuring all the workmates adhere to the basic guidelines presented for good grooming in the workplace that represents the company wherever they go.
Cooperation with colleagues:
Cooperation is the process of working with groups or teams for a common mutual benefit as opposed to working in competition or for selfish ambition.
A Toxicologist should learn the art of creating a mutually beneficial exchange among the employees that dwells much on cooperation for the same mutual benefit with adequate resources for all to use rather than creating a spirit of competition.
Handling Stress:
Handling Stress is the skill to balance the requirements of the job and your abilities or available resources in performing it.
A Toxicologist needs to creatively learn how to schedule work according to the abilities of different individuals to ensure a balance that will not put an unsustainable level of pressure on the employees and cause them to accumulate work related stress.
Practical Thinking:
Practical Thinking is the skill to think creatively about projects or work that requires your full attention to be completed and to bring great results.
A Toxicologist must ensure the decisions he makes are well sought after using professional characteristics for employees with high-level responsibilities to feel included and to allow growth for everyone in a constantly changing world that requires creativity.
Results Orientation:
Results Orientation is knowing and focusing on outstanding results and working hard to achieve them because they are significant.
A Toxicologist must understand and make it clear to the employees how important results are and the competitive and results driven market that the company is facing while encouraging them to remain focused on the results that every project bears without fail.
Self-Discipline and Sense of Duty:
Self-Discipline and Sense of Duty is an active effort which helps in developing set ways for your thoughts, actions, and habits empowering your to stick to your decisions.
A Toxicologist needs to learn the secret of fostering the development of self-discipline amongst the employees by clearly defining the expectations, staying in sync with the work related events and propagate result yielding ideas that employees suggest.
Diversity Awareness:
Diversity Awareness is the understanding that people are different and unique in their particular way and respecting their uniqueness.
A Toxicologist ought to successfully identify the various types of diversity presented in his company to be able to benefit from these individual differences in the hope of improving the success of his team and encourage the team members to become aware of these qualities and use them appropriately.
Research:
Research is the ability to stay updated on the latest trends in different fields as per your concern or the concern of your company or business.
A Toxicologist ought to stay up to date on the latest trends in hiring, leading, retention, technology and much more by using the newest research methods that allow him to make better decisions and improve productivity.
Hard Skills Required to be a Toxicologist
Hard skills are job-specific skill sets, or expertise, that are teachable and whose presence can be tested through exams. While core skills are more difficult to quantify and less tangible, hard skills are quantifiable and more defined.
Hard skills are usually listed on an applicant's resume to help recruiters know the applicant's qualifications for the applied position. A recruiter, therefore, needs to review the applicant's resume and education to find out if he/she has the knowledge necessary to get the job done.
A toxicologist should have a good command of the following hard skills to succeed in her job.