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Often times with my friends in real life I like to discuss economics, career futures, politics, and policy with them. We are both much more on the metaphorical "soft" side of things in academia. Meaning we are both doing an MPA (actually I just finished mine this past May). Part of these conversations are careers and future opportunities along with earning potential. As you may have guessed by the title my focus/actual aim is to get into emergency management. For those of you who are unfamiliar with what it is emergency managers do and how they differentiate from emergency responders, I have provided brief definitions of the profession below:

"Emergency management (or disaster management) is the discipline of dealing with and avoiding both natural and manmade disasters. It involves preparedness, response and recovery in order to lessen the impact of disasters. It may also involve preparedness training by private citizens, as by FEMA in the United States. All aspects of emergency management deal with the processes used to protect populations or organizations from the consequences of disasters, wars and acts of terrorism. Emergency management doesn't necessarily avert or eliminate the threats themselves, although the study and prediction of the threats is an important part of the field." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_Management).

"As a profession[u]

Emergency managers are trained in a wide variety of disciplines that support them throughout the emergency life-cycle. Professional emergency managers can focus on government and community preparedness (Continuity of Operations/Continuity of Government Planning), or private business preparedness (Business Continuity Management Planning). Training is provided by local, state, federal and private organizations and ranges from public information and media relations to high-level incident command and tactical skills such as studying a terrorist bombing site or controlling an emergency scene." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_Management).

So in short, emergency managers are different from emergency responders in that they are thinking on a strategic level, involved in risk/threat analysis (emergency planning), and basically being the guy behind the curtain pulling all the levers to facilitate an effective response. I would like to also state that the field of emergency management is probably (by my guess) about 50% operational and 50% supportive. By that I mean I'd guess half or so of people in this field are actual disaster managers, while the other half are all conducting some form of supportive activity (emergency preparedness IMO is the busiest of all the 4 phases).

That in short is a summary of this job field. For more information I'd direct you to primary documents such as the 1988 Stafford Act, the National Response Framework (NRF), National Incident Management System (NIMS), and Incident Command System (part of NIMS but a specific portion of it). These documents are by no means comprehensive but should give everyone a clear grasp on the subject matter for the next part of the discussion.
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*Deep breath*

Okay now that that is all done here is the crux of my post. As you may well know our type of economy demands skilled labor. The definition of skilled labor may vary but it really comes down to "hard" skills and "soft" skills. I imagine hard skills to be things that you just can't possibly perform after studying it for about a few hours or 1 or 2 days. This means things like being a doctor, being an attorney, being an engineer, being a physicist.........these are all "hard" concrete skills that can't be replicated by some other guy who is dabbling.

"Soft" skills, which in my opinion become less marketable in times of economic downturn (reference: since 2007) are things such as art, philosophy, politics, even economics. The reason why I class these as "soft" is because anyone can sit down at the table and start getting involved. To me this damages the integrity of something that is classed as a "skill".

So, what I am getting at is.......do you think emergency management would be classed as a "hard" skill or a "soft" skill? My own answer to this is I call it "semi-hard". The reason is you can learn it after a few weeks of on the job training, but it is not something intuitive that is open to everyone. However, it is not as restrictive as engineering for example. I'd say it gets the "semi-hard" title because while it is not a technical skill........you must still be trained in it and it has a practically eternal functionality within the context of human society. What are your guys' opinions?


On a side note: What do you all think of Epidemiology? (I"m considering a second master's degree: MPH and I think I want Epidemiology as my focus). You can obviously see the synergy between disaster management/planning with Epidemiology, no?

I think most government planning and management jobs are semi-hard as you've put it. You can't drop RIGHT into them, but they don't require some specific knowledge for the most part.

 Rented Tritium wrote:
I think most government planning and management jobs are semi-hard as you've put it. You can't drop RIGHT into them, but they don't require some specific knowledge for the most part.

Thanks for the response. I don't mean to pick on you but I will use your post as an example. I should've stated the diversity of disaster management. By this I mean its applicability across all sectors. The reason why I chose this is because it is NOT just government jobs. While the public sector is the metaphorical glue that holds emergency planning and response together.......it is just the center-piece of the equation, not the equation itself. Many areas of the private sector have disaster managers/planners either by choice or by law. The two primary industries that come to mind here are health care (hospitals) and utility companies. These companies all have disaster planners/managers that interface with their government counter-parts. Also, much of the private sector have their own unrelated disaster managers that they refer to as "Business Continuity Manager".

Grndhog89 wrote:

 Rented Tritium wrote:
I think most government planning and management jobs are semi-hard as you've put it. You can't drop RIGHT into them, but they don't require some specific knowledge for the most part.

Thanks for the response. I don't mean to pick on you but I will use your post as an example. I should've stated the diversity of disaster management. By this I mean its applicability across all sectors. The reason why I chose this is because it is NOT just government jobs. While the public sector is the metaphorical glue that holds emergency planning and response together.......it is just the center-piece of the equation, not the equation itself. Many areas of the private sector have disaster managers/planners either by choice or by law. The two primary industries that come to mind here are health care (hospitals) and utility companies. These companies all have disaster planners/managers that interface with their government counter-parts. Also, much of the private sector have their own unrelated disaster managers that they refer to as "Business Continuity Manager".

Disaster prevention and recovery is what I do
Its very much a hard skill, I get mooks all the time that cant do what they should be able to, its a subtle mix of not caring and not panicking and good planning.

@Grundz:

Really? Care if I pester you as a fledgling version/aspirant of what you do?

Grndhog89 wrote:
@Grundz:

Really? Care if I pester you as a fledgling version/aspirant of what you do?

sure
Honestly the main thing I look for is just the right amount of apathy, funny but true
If you dont care enough i'll end up firing you, if you care too much you'll end up trying to overachieve and not stick to the plan, or panic.

So what do you do exactly? Do you work in a local or state emergency management agency? Or for FEMA? Or as a disaster planner for a private company?

Grndhog89 wrote:
So what do you do exactly? Do you work in a local or state emergency management agency? Or for FEMA? Or as a disaster planner for a private company?

Private company, I went from IT disaster recovery to something more general, PM me

Become a Health / Fire / ect. Inspector if you want to get some experience and a foot in the door. It's basically the same thing except you don't really have to worry about crisis management. Become a Wildland Firefighter if you want to get familiar with the ICS. You;ll learn some real world crisis management skills there too.

Crisis Management however, is DEFINITELY a hard skill. In fact its so sought after that many employers will actively seek you out if they know you have it.

It's why Veterans have a leg up on most job searches of equally qualified individuals. Keeping your head in a crisis situation makes the difference between an employee and his/her supervisor.

Here's the thing, that used to be the only and conventional way to get into this field. As it is evolving there is an actual proper academic and management track that has developed. It is really becoming a field of its own rather than an offshoot for longtime firefighters or military. I'd actually make the argument that having a former first responder as an emergency manger is a detriment. They focus too much on the operations phase of things and would likely be less prone to unified command.

My point being is.......there is a hard cleavage line developing between emergency manager (someone at a macro level/strategic view of things) and an emergency responder (your assets, boots on the ground).

As for real world experience.......I was going to be a volunteer firefighter but none of that jived with my graduate school schedule at the time. In lieu of that I did Community Emergency Response Team II. It essentially did the same thing for me, made me an auxiliary responder, and had me actually practice the ICS that I've studied so often. However, that experience only goes so far as to helping me as an emergency manager to account for those snags when conducting a preparedness exercise.

Addendum: I also mentioned in my OP that emergency management really does boil down to the guys who are actual emergency managers, and the guys who are doing R&D, helping with preparedness, and doing support in general.

Want to throw in in a solid grasp of Logistics. All aspect of Logistics.