Top 12 Arborist Skills to Put on Your Resume

In arboriculture, your resume has to do more than list jobs. It should broadcast the skills that make your work safe, smart, and efficient. The twelve skills below—when described with real outcomes—signal expertise and care for trees, and help you stick in a hiring manager’s mind.

Arborist Skills

1. Tree Identification
2. Pruning Techniques
3. Chainsaw Proficiency
4. Climbing Skills
5. Rigging Knowledge
6. Pest Management
7. Soil Science
8. Tree Planting
9. Stump Grinding
10. Hazard Assessment
11. GIS Mapping
12. First Aid

1. Tree Identification

Tree identification is the practice of determining a tree’s species using field traits—leaves, buds, bark, flowers, fruit, overall form, and even smell or twig architecture. Correct IDs inform care, risk, and expectations.

Why It's Important

Species drive decisions. Right diagnosis, right pruning window, right soil needs, right pest threats. Accurate IDs keep work precise and prevent costly mistakes.

How to Improve Tree Identification Skills

Build a habit and a toolkit that work year-round.

1. Learn morphology: Study leaves, buds, bark, and seasonal changes. Use reputable dendrology guides and dichotomous keys.

2. Carry references: Field guides and ID apps help confirm hunches quickly in the field.

3. Practice in all seasons: Winter buds and bark, spring flowers, summer leaves, fall fruit—rotate your focus.

4. Take workshops: Short courses and local walks with botanists or experienced arborists sharpen your eye fast.

5. Seek peer verification: Compare notes with mentors, crews, and local naturalist groups.

Better IDs lead to better prescriptions—and fewer surprises aloft.

How to Display Tree Identification Skills on Your Resume

2. Pruning Techniques

Pruning is the selective removal of branches, buds, or roots to improve structure, health, and safety. Common approaches include cleaning, thinning, raising, and reduction.

Why It's Important

Smart cuts guide growth, reduce risk, and prevent future failures. Poor cuts create wounds, invite decay, and cost time later.

How to Improve Pruning Techniques Skills

Precision comes from biology, timing, and execution.

1. Understand tree biology: Know how trees compartmentalize decay and respond to pruning.

2. Define objectives: Safety, clearance, structure, health, or aesthetics—pick the goal first.

3. Time it right: Prune by species and season to limit stress and disease pressure.

4. Use correct techniques: Favor reduction over topping; place cuts at the branch collar; avoid flush cuts and stubs.

5. Sanitize tools: Clean and sharpen to speed cuts and reduce pathogens.

6. Keep learning: Follow current standards and attend skills workshops.

Good pruning protects trees now and sets them up for tomorrow.

How to Display Pruning Techniques Skills on Your Resume

3. Chainsaw Proficiency

Chainsaw proficiency blends safe handling, inspection, maintenance, and controlled cutting for limbing, bucking, and felling.

Why It's Important

It keeps people unhurt, work efficient, and wood where you intend it to go.

How to Improve Chainsaw Proficiency Skills

Safety first, technique always.

1. Train for safety: Master PPE, reactive forces, kickback zones, and escape routes.

2. Maintain the saw: Sharpen often, set correct chain tension, true the bar rails, and keep filters clean.

3. Refine cuts: Practice bore cuts, hinges, face cuts, and binds management in controlled settings.

4. Rehearse scenarios: Storm damage, sprung wood, and tight quarters require calm repetition.

5. Pursue credentials: Advanced courses and assessments reinforce safe habits and current best practices.

How to Display Chainsaw Proficiency Skills on Your Resume

4. Climbing Skills

Climbing skills cover safe ascent, work positioning, and movement in the canopy, including knots, friction management, and system inspection.

Why It's Important

Access enables everything else—precise pruning, inspections, and technical removals—without compromising safety.

How to Improve Climbing Skills Skills

Train your body and your systems.

1. Build capacity: Grip, core, shoulders, and hips—strength and mobility matter.

2. Practice systems: Work with moving rope systems (MRS, formerly DdRT) and stationary rope systems (SRS, often called SRT) to boost efficiency.

3. Drill safety: Pre-climb inspections, backups, friction savers, and emergency procedures should be second nature.

4. Learn from pros: Workshops, mentorship, and peer feedback accelerate progress.

5. Record and review: Video your climbs to spot wasted motion and refine technique.

6. Practice often: Different species, structures, and site constraints keep skills sharp.

How to Display Climbing Skills Skills on Your Resume

5. Rigging Knowledge

Rigging is the controlled movement of wood using ropes, friction devices, pulleys, and anchors to protect targets and crews.

Why It's Important

In tight drop zones, rigging turns risky chaos into predictable, low-impact work.

How to Improve Rigging Knowledge Skills

Physics plus practice.

1. Master fundamentals: Knots, rope construction, bend radius, pulley efficiency, and safe working loads.

2. Plan systems: Choose anchors, redirects, and friction to manage forces and swing paths.

3. Practice progressively: Start light, add complexity—speed lines, negative rigging, floating anchors.

4. Follow standards: Work to recognized safety standards and job briefings.

5. Study case work: Read incident reports and technique breakdowns to avoid repeated mistakes.

6. Train in-person: Hands-on workshops and team drills build timing and trust.

How to Display Rigging Knowledge Skills on Your Resume

6. Pest Management

Pest management means identifying, monitoring, and controlling insects, diseases, and other stressors using environmentally responsible methods that prioritize tree health.

Why It's Important

Unchecked pests reduce vigor, invite hazards, and shorten a tree’s useful life. Targeted management preserves canopy and budgets.

How to Improve Pest Management Skills

Think systems, not silver bullets.

1. Adopt IPM: Scout, identify accurately, set thresholds, and use the least disruptive controls first.

2. Boost vigor: Right tree, right place, proper watering, mulching, and pruning reduce susceptibility.

3. Use biological allies: Encourage predators and beneficial microbes when feasible.

4. Apply chemicals judiciously: Targeted products, correct timing, and label compliance as a last resort.

5. Stay current: Track local pest alerts, resistance patterns, and updated protocols.

How to Display Pest Management Skills on Your Resume

7. Soil Science

Soil science for arborists focuses on texture, structure, organic matter, moisture, aeration, pH, nutrients, and biology—the underground engine driving tree health.

Why It's Important

Roots live in the soil you inherit or rebuild. Understanding it means you can fix problems at the source, not just the canopy.

How to Improve Soil Science Skills

Treat soil as a living system.

1. Test routinely: Lab analysis for pH, nutrients, salts, and organic matter guides precise amendments.

2. Add organic matter: Compost and proper mulching improve structure, moisture, and microbial life.

3. Water wisely: Deep, infrequent irrigation matched to soil and species—avoid waterlogging.

4. Protect the root zone: Limit compaction, expand mulch rings, and avoid grade changes.

5. Aerate where needed: Mitigate compaction with air tools or vertical mulching without shredding roots.

6. Fertilize by need: Address proven deficiencies; skip blanket feeding.

7. Adjust pH carefully: Lime or sulfur only with data and patience.

8. Control erosion: Groundcovers, mulch, and stabilization keep soil where roots can reach it.

9. Foster biology: Encourage beneficial organisms; align with IPM principles.

10. Keep learning: Follow soil science research and attend workshops.

How to Display Soil Science Skills on Your Resume

8. Tree Planting

Tree planting spans species selection, placement, and establishment, with an eye on long-term performance and maintenance.

Why It's Important

Good planting decisions ripple for decades—healthier canopies, fewer conflicts, and lower lifetime costs.

How to Improve Tree Planting Skills

Preparation beats correction.

1. Assess the site: Soil, light, wind, utilities, space above and below—know the constraints.

2. Select for fit: Match species and cultivar to climate, soil, and use case.

3. Expose the root flare: Plant at or just above grade; correct circling roots at planting.

4. Prepare wisely: Backfill with native soil; avoid over-amendment that traps roots.

5. Mulch properly: 2–4 inches, donut not volcano, and keep it off the trunk.

6. Water on schedule: Deep, consistent watering through establishment—especially the first two years.

7. Stake only if needed: Remove supports within a year to encourage taper and strength.

8. Prune lightly: Remove broken or dead wood early; structure later once established.

How to Display Tree Planting Skills on Your Resume

9. Stump Grinding

Stump grinding removes stumps and major roots by chipping wood below grade, clearing space without excavation.

Why It's Important

It eliminates trip hazards, curbs pest harborage, and opens ground for replanting or hardscape.

How to Improve Stump Grinding Skills

Efficiency rides on setup and teeth.

1. Match the machine: Pick a grinder sized to the stump and access limits.

2. Keep teeth sharp: Sharp cutters speed work and reduce vibration and fuel use.

3. Use a methodical pattern: Work the perimeter first, then sweep in controlled, shallow passes.

4. Wear proper PPE: Eye, ear, head, hand, and leg protection—no exceptions.

5. Maintain routinely: Inspect belts, hydraulics, bearings, and guards; fix small issues early.

6. Verify undergrounds: Confirm utilities and hidden obstacles before grinding deeper roots.

How to Display Stump Grinding Skills on Your Resume

10. Hazard Assessment

Hazard assessment evaluates tree condition, site factors, and targets to determine risk and the actions needed to reduce it.

Why It's Important

It protects people, property, and crews—and guides pruning, mitigation, or removals with evidence, not guesses.

How to Improve Hazard Assessment Skills

Be systematic and documented.

1. Invest in training: Study tree biology, defects, and assessment methods; pursue recognized credentials.

2. Use appropriate tools: From mallets and probes to resistance devices and drones, choose tools that match the question.

3. Follow a protocol: Standardize inspections, note site factors, and rate likelihood and consequences.

4. Apply risk frameworks: Use structured approaches to communicate risk and justify recommendations.

5. Mitigate decisively: Pruning, cabling/bracing, targets management, or removal—select the least invasive effective option.

6. Monitor and record: Schedule re-inspections and keep clear, dated reports.

7. Engage stakeholders: Explain findings plainly and encourage reporting of changes or concerns.

How to Display Hazard Assessment Skills on Your Resume

11. GIS Mapping

GIS mapping uses spatial data to inventory trees, analyze conditions, plan work, and report outcomes clearly.

Why It's Important

It turns scattered notes into maps and metrics managers can act on—health trends, planting gaps, risk clusters, and equity insights.

How to Improve GIS Mapping Skills

Accuracy in, clarity out.

1. Tighten data quality: Standardize fields, use high-accuracy collection, and validate locations and attributes.

2. Expand analysis: Model canopy change, heat islands, pest spread, and planting suitability with spatial tools.

3. Adopt mobile GIS: Collect and update inventories in the field with platforms like ArcGIS Field Maps or QField.

4. Elevate visuals: Create legible symbology, clear labels, and concise dashboards for stakeholders.

5. Keep learning: Join GIS and urban forestry communities to trade workflows and templates.

How to Display GIS Mapping Skills on Your Resume

12. First Aid

First aid is immediate care for injuries and sudden illness—bleeding control, fractures, heat stress, and life-support basics—until advanced help takes over.

Why It's Important

Tree work has sharp tools, heights, and weather. Quick, competent response can prevent escalation and save lives.

How to Improve First Aid Skills

Prepare for the environment you work in.

1. Get certified: Complete First Aid with CPR/AED; refresh on schedule.

2. Add wilderness modules: For remote work, Wilderness First Aid trains you to manage prolonged care and evacuation decisions.

3. Drill trauma care: Bleeding control (including tourniquets), splinting, burns, eye injuries, and shock management.

4. Stay updated: Follow current resuscitation and first aid guidelines.

5. Practice routinely: Short, regular simulations with your crew beat once-a-year cram sessions.

6. Carry the right kit: Stock bleeding control, splints, eye wash, and environmental protections; inspect before every job.

7. Mind mental health: Learn to support colleagues after incidents; stress first aid matters too.

How to Display First Aid Skills on Your Resume