Preparation is a distinct craft from collecting, with its own tool set and its own way of ruining a good specimen if done carelessly. These are the core skills the job actually requires.
Mechanical preparation
Removing rock matrix from around a fossil using air scribes (small pneumatic chisels), pin vacs, and hand tools. This is the bulk of most preparation work and the hardest to learn well, since it requires reading how the matrix and the fossil differ in hardness and working the boundary between them without damaging either.
Acid preparation
Some matrix types can be dissolved chemically rather than mechanically, which is faster and safer for delicate specimens but requires understanding which acid suits which rock and fossil chemistry, and strict safety practice around the chemicals themselves.
Consolidants and adhesives
Fragile or cracked bone needs stabilizing before or during preparation, using specific consolidant resins that penetrate and strengthen the fossil without discoloring it or interfering with future study. Choosing the wrong product can permanently affect a specimen's scientific and display value.
Molding and casting
Making silicone molds and resin casts of specimens, used to create study copies, replace missing parts in a mounted skeleton, or produce sellable reproductions without touching the original fossil.
Micro-preparation
Work under a microscope on very small or very fine specimens — teeth, microfossils, delicate skull sutures — using fine needles and precision tools. This is one of the more specialized, higher-paid preparation skills.
Documentation and provenance handling
Recording what was done to a specimen, and preserving the locality and stratigraphic data that came with it, since a fossil's scientific value depends heavily on that context surviving the preparation process intact.
How this is actually learned
Almost entirely hands-on, starting on low-value material under supervision. See how to become a fossil preparator for the typical path, and how long does it take to prepare a fossil for how these skills come together on a real specimen.