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[Naryar]

Here's my typical embark profile.

1 proficient miner/skilled mechanic/ novice building designer (BD is only mildly useful, you may get rid of it for more mechanic skill), which will be your main miner first. Problem with this is that both miner and mechanic are time intensive.
1 novice in miner, judge of intent, appraiser, pacifier, persuader, negotiator, and the 4 other skill points can be put on a rarely used job like engraver or jeweler
1 novice miner/ proficient mason/ adequate stoneworker/adequate engraver (or get rid of engraver and give skilled stoneworker, engraver isn't terribly useful and is very easily trained)
1 proficient grower/ competent brewer/ adequate cook which will do food related jobs until you get more farmers
1 metalworker, which you can either just make a proficient weapon- and armorsmith or share the jobs on the whole blacksmith job. I tend to use proficient weaponsmith and armorsmith.
1 proficient carpenter (good beds)/ adequate woodcutter (if outside wood, if then ignore it)/whatever other jobs you feel is useful. Bone carver is usually a good choice, wood crafter slightly less.
and the last dwarf you can use whatever you want. I usually get a ranger with proficient animal trainer or more rarely craftsdwarf.

I embark with the following creatures and items:
- 3 female dogs, 1 male dog : Good food/bone source and good early game defense. Will breed swiftly, generally resulting on me dropping 30 dogs into the volcano to appease the FPS god.
- 1 male cat : You can use more male cats if you want, but 1 is generally fine.
- Sometimes poultry, although it serves no practical use considering the abundance of food in DF2012
- 30-35 wood logs or somesuch, I tend to embark on low wood locations. If embarking on a forest, much less wood or no wood at all
- 31 of each booze, to maximize free barrels
- a few sand bags (free bags)
- Meat, around 20
- Plump helmets, around 20
- 3 copper picks
- 1 copper battle axe only if embarking on forests or sufficiently wooden biomes. If not, I find the large number of logs to be bought with the equivalent of one copper battle axe sufficient for the early game before I set up a metal industry. Plus, you don't need to cut anything with embarked wood.
- Iron anvil, lacking anvils is obnoxious when you are swimming in iron ore and are next to magma
- Pig tail, cave wheat, and sweet pod seeds. Don't need more than 5 each. I got plump helmets, I don't really need PH spawn. also, dimple cups are hilariously useless.

[Flying Fortress]

My favorite setup that has never ever failed me (I only change it when embarking on glaciers/evil regions) is just the quick start.  As soon as the game comes up I change one fisher dude to miner, change the other fisher guy to wood cutter, disable all their fishing skills and I'm good to go.  All the skills I need filled are easily trainable/supplied after 2 migrant waves.  As far as food/liquor goes once you get used to the game getting a surplus of plump helmets early on is extremely easy.  The whole planning carefully thing takes too long and is too annoying for me lol.

[wyldmage]

My personal preference rationale: 

• 1)  Miner doesn't overlap with Wood Cutter (due to inability to wield an axe and pick).
• 2)  Record Keeper doesn't overlap with your broker, so that he doesn't end up bogged down by updating records right when you want to trade.
• 3)  Grower is a full-time job once the farms are up and running (and until other growers arrive).  So minimal need for other points, Record Keeper is a perfect fit.
• 4)  Mining skill goes up fast as long as you have a dirt level or two to dig into first, so points are generally better spent elsewhere.
• 5)  Wood Cutter and Carpenter don't overlap so that you can optimize wood product production if needed.
• 6)  Other key jobs to have some points in:  Stone Crafter (early trade value), Weaponsmith (higher quality weapons early, and can never rely on migrant skills, plus this skill takes a while to raise)

Therefore:

• 1)  Dedicated leader dwarf.  Needs something to do early on though, so I manually enable his mining labor, and bring an extra pick for him.  Doesn't matter if he's slow to start, he'll learn fast.  Appraiser maxed due to impact on trading.  Other skills low, but existent.
  Persuader+2/Judge of Intent+2/Appraiser+5/Consoler+1
• 2)  Grower with Herbalist and Record Keeper.  Throw in Mechanic for crafting some early traps.
  Grower+5/Herbalist+1/Record Keeper+2/Mechanic+2
• 3)  Wood Cutter, with fighting skills
  Wood Cutter+5/Armor User+2/Axedwarf+3
• 4)  Carpenter/Weaponsmith.  Can easily stop making wood for the few times when you need to get a weapon finished up.  Also takes care of building design.
  Carpenter+5/Weaponsmith+4/Building Designer+1
• 5)  Starts out mining, then switches to crafting stone for initial trading.  Has brewing skills as well for the second year to make sure the booze always flows.
  Mining+3/Stone Crafting+4/Brewer+3
• 6)  Doctor dwarf.  Medic skills largely unneeded usually, but critical if someone gets hurt.  Therefore works well as a Miner (easy to lose the labor in mining to tend injuries).
  Mining+2/Wound Dresser+1/Diagnostician+4/Surgeon+1/Bone Doc+1/Suturer+1
• 7)  This dwarf fills the few roles still needed, with a point of mining skill to help out initially.  Job focuses in cooking once food industry is developed.
  Mining+1/Cook+5/Mason+2/Furnace Operator+2

I also make sure to enable Tanner, Butcher, Weaver, and Clothier.  Usually split between dwarves 6 and 7.

Most important stuff to bring with you:
Male cat.  To keep the rats out.  Female optional (usually a migrant will bring one sooner or later and cause headaches no matter what you do).
4 dogs (1 male, 3 female).  As others have said, these serves as expendable guards, and the 3 females get you some puppies ASAP.
Poultry.  Eggs are one of the simplest foods to set up properly, and baby birds show up fast enough to even create a meat farm.  1 male, 3-7 females.  Make sure to build 1-3 nest boxes early on and get them set up.
4 picks, 1 axe, anvil.  For initial equips and construction.
Lots of food and booze.
Some copper for making more tools out of early on (5-10 usually).
5 of each seed type except Plump Helmet and Dimple Cups.  And plump helmets as part of your food.

Optional:
1 ram and 1 ewe (or other shearable livestock), if you like being a farmer.

[wierd]

Dealing with cats is considerably easier in this latest series of releases, since dwarves only have bad thoughts about dead pets if they witness the death, or see the corpse.

This, combined with pen/pasture on cats, even "pets", and a walled in atom smashing unit, makes for effective "pet control".

I once had a dwarf with 60 cats telepathically joined to him, that I successfully liberated this way without inducing insanity.  Just make SURE nobody sees the smasher smash the cats. If any dwarf sees the smashing, it will make the telepathically linked dwarf go insane. Remember: walled in all around, and a locked door before smashing.  Perfectly safe that way.

[MasterShizzle]

Proficient Mining saves time, so 2 of those.
One proficient Mason
Wood cutter/Carpenter
2 proficient Growers
1 Brewer/Cook

I fill in hauling/mechanics/stonecrafting jobs as I go. Usually everything is covered by the first migrant wave (especially if I get a smith), then further waves get shoved into the peasantry.

As for supplies, I do:
3 female dogs and 1 male, then train them into war dogs after embark.
Anvil
1 gobbler and 6 turkey hens, for ridiculous food production
2 pigs, a boar and a sow
About 60 booze
About 40 assorted meats (you'll get lots more from butchering your pack animals you get with the wagon)
2 picks
1 training axe

I fill in the rest of the list with bituminous coal, which will almost fuel a decade of aggression, even without finding magma you can bring a boatload of coal and make Steel crap "the hard way" with minimal trouble.

[Sutremaine]

Appraiser maxed due to impact on trading.  Other skills low, but existent.
Persuader+2/Judge of Intent+2/Appraiser+5/Consoler+1

You really don't need Appraiser 5. Appraiser 1 is fine if you want to see your fortress value before the traders turn up, but as long as you make sure your broker is the first one to open the trade screen, they'll get a bunch of experience in the skill. Make sure you have wagon access though -- more goods = more XP, and you don't want a straggle of pack animals that leaves you a couple of XP short of Novice.

For my social dwarf I usually put one point in Judge of Intent and then split the rest between Negotiator and Persuader, but you could split the points between Consoler and Pacifier if you're confident you'll have enough trade goods to persuade even the most hard-hearted of traders. A socially-aware expedition leader is a great sponge for unhappy thoughts, though you have to pretty much force the two dwarves into the same room to get the meeting done. Attend Meeting / Conduct Meeting has a really low priority.

[Lamiales]

I like getting a miner/broker.
the reason is my miners have all jobs other than mining disabled so they don't get distracted while mining. When the time comes to trade, i just disable mining on my broker and then he has no jobs left except trading (and sleeping, eating , taking a break, partying, getting scared by a badger etc...)

if i feel like trying hard i take professions that are hard to skill up like medical skills and weapon/armorsmithing.
And then everyone who doesnt have any skills that can be used in strange mood (goes for woodcutter, farmer, cook, doc, "leader dwarf", military dwarves...) gets 1 in weaponsmithing for them to mood in.

and to go even further you can use the dwarf therapist clone and give everyone their dream job. You will have to set priorities at some point though.
Do you want to have a strong military? take military dwarves.
Do you want to make bees your only food source? better bring a beekeeper.
Do you want to build a magma spewing soap dragon? 

in the end you can be fine with the standard embark or with some luck even on a terrifying tundra with just a pick.

[fourpotatoes]

My basic plan, embark plan is built on getting underground and establishing a secure food supply quickly. I skimp on the food I bring because I'm confident in my ability to get farms and herbalists running fast and because I need the embark points for other things. My secondary goals are to locate and exploit (if possible) the first cavern, secure an aboveground area and start building up my wood surplus against the day that hostile forces deny me the surface.

PRE-EMBARK:

• Fixed roles:
  
  • Medical dwarf: novice miner, novice diagnostician plus whatever additional skills I can afford. I won't put too many points into this because the skills tend to rust. I tend to have few casualties and my miners are usually well away from danger; if your play style is different, the miner/medic combo won't work so well.
  • Food logistics: as many points as possible into farming, with some points in cooking and brewing. I'll make this dwarf a novice marksdwarf and crossbowdwarf if I have the points, since it's good for self-defense.
  • Wood logistics: unless embarking in a treeless biome, this dwarf is a novice carpenter and woodcutter.
  • 1-3 miner/mason/mechanics: depending on available dwarfpower, these dwarves will each take at least two of these three roles. I won't usually buy Miner or Mason beyond novice because both train quickly; often I'll not put any points into those skills and just enable them after embark.
  • 1-2 security dwarves, doubling as jacks-of-all-trades: one with decent marksdwarf, crossbowdwarf, dodger and teacher skills as head of security, and another if I'm concerned about the area. If there's water, they may be novice swimmers. They should start with one civilian skill at novice, ideally one that takes them outside. Mason and Herbalist are good choices.
• Floating roles:
  
  • Broker: a suitable dwarf should be a novice judge of intent, since it makes trading so much easier and is annoying to train. For whatever reason, I usually end up choosing a miner or the fooddwarf; the wood logistics dwarf rarely ends up in this role. Perhaps working with wood makes them too elfy and their anti-tree fervor makes it seem as if they're compensating for something?
  • Manager / Leader: someone should have one level of record-keeping or organizing, if there are points to spare. The head security dwarf could be a good candidate, but should be reassigned later in the game if he or she stays in the military. The foodwarf or a miner can also take this role.

SUPPLIES:

• A minimum of one pick more than you have miners, possibly more picks than you have dwarves
• Two female and one male geese
• One axe, if you're not planning to use wooden training axes or to forge things immediately
• An anvil if you're not confident about getting one from the first caravan
• Metal bars if you want to forge things immediately - this can be a good way to conserve embark points but I usually don't bother
• A sand bag
• Pig tail and quarry bush (rock nut) seeds, and a smaller number of plump helmet seeds
• Raw plump helmets
• One each of as many cheap foods as I can get, for extra barrels
• Between 20 and 40 units of alcohol
• Two to three crossbows and quivers
• Stone, if I expect a difficult aquifer
• Pitchblende and graphite blocks, because I like to use them for my perpetual motion machines
• Miscellaneous medical supplies, buckets, ropes, etc

POST-EMBARK:

• Disable non-critical hauling for miners.
• Enable Architecture for all masons.
• Enable butchering and tanning for all non-miner/mason/mechanics.
• Enable all medical jobs but Recover Wounded for the chief medical dwarf.
• Enable woodcrafting, bone carving and stonecrafting for one of the jacks-of-all-trades.
• Set miners digging defensible temporary quarters and farm space.
• Cut wood and make a wooden training axe (as a spare), then two nest boxes for eggs.
• Make bolts to arm the marksdwarves.
• Anyone caught idling gets assigned Plant Gathering and is set to work boosting food stocks or given Masonry and ordered to build walls.
• The fooddwarf builds and plants a plot as soon as possible. Once this is in place, getting food is this dwarf's only job.
• The roles of non-miners and pre-farm fooddwarves are flexible, to be reassigned as needed.

[Noodz]

Some embark tips focused on getting your starting 7 safe, fed and drunk:

Embarking with around 20 dogs (about 1 male per 5 females) is expensive, but i find that it will provide your starting 7 with plenty of meat shields against the wildlife. They can also be butchered in a pinch for easy food, leather and bones. Build an early cage in preparation for the legion of puppies, you can butcher them or just let them grow and join the canine legion.

Turkeys are easy sources of food, just carve them a rock nest and they can supply you with plenty of eggs. They also provide plenty of meat given how little they cost.

Proeficient herbalists are amazing if your embark has plenty of vegetation, a single one can keep a still churning booze and provide you with plenty of seeds for surface crops.

Other than that, it's really up to what you want. I like embarking with one proeficient armorsmith and one proeficient weaponsmith (one each to better take advantage of moods) because it's a costly skill to train and very useful in the mid to late game.

[Reese]

It's different every time, but I usually go with the default stuff except I change it out to 16 of each type of booze available (minimum 60 booze) for the extra barrels.

I put one point in each of the skills that get used a lot for embark (mining, woodcutting, carpentry, masonry, etc) just so the related activities will already be enabled on some dwarfs and I don't have to deal with labor management yet

I put a good number of points into the relevant skills on my designated smith

max brewer on one dwarf
max grower on one dwarf, and that's all he'll have on him, and he will be my only grower; I've never run a fort long enough for his death by old age to be an issue

Then I will fill out whatever random materials I feel like, along with some dogs and birds I can use for eggs or meat- last fort I tried out the "bring ores to make bronze" in a heavily wooded area so I had plenty of charcoal for bronze gear- and then I struck a couple iron veins digging the first few levels of the fort *shrug*

[gestahl]

As long as you don't have to worry about the dead rising up to eat your brains, or have to get underground in the first week to avoid instant death, this works for me.
Change it up to suit your needs. Embarking on a wasteland? Bring more wood. Aquifer? more stone. You've got about 275 extra points to play with (I filled them up with sand for the profile, not for actual use)
edit: or add more metal ores and start a 7 member bronze military right off the bat. 10 each of copper/tin should make just enough bronze to arm and armor your starting 7.
[PROFILE]
   [TITLE:NO_RUSH]
   [SKILL:1:JUDGING_INTENT:1]
   [SKILL:1:APPRAISAL:1]
   [SKILL:1:ORGANIZATION:1]
   [SKILL:1:RECORD_KEEPING:1]
   [SKILL:2:MINING:5]
   [SKILL:3:MASONRY:5]
   [SKILL:4:MECHANICS:5]
   [SKILL:5:PLANT:5]
   [SKILL:6:BREWING:5]
   [SKILL:7:COOK:5]
   [ITEM:1:ANVIL:NONE:INORGANIC:IRON]
   [ITEM:21:DRINK:NONE:PLANT_MAT:GRASS_TAIL_PIG:DRINK]
   [ITEM:21:DRINK:NONE:PLANT_MAT:GRASS_WHEAT_CAVE:DRINK]
   [ITEM:21:DRINK:NONE:PLANT_MAT:POD_SWEET:DRINK]
   [ITEM:11:FISH:NONE:LOBSTER_CAVE:FEMALE]
   [ITEM:11:FISH:NONE:FISH_CAVE:FEMALE]
   [ITEM:11:MEAT:NONE:CREATURE_MAT:CHINCHILLA:MUSCLE]
   [ITEM:10:SEEDS:NONE:PLANT_MAT:GRASS_TAIL_PIG:SEED]
   [ITEM:10:SEEDS:NONE:PLANT_MAT:GRASS_WHEAT_CAVE:SEED]
   [ITEM:10:SEEDS:NONE:PLANT_MAT:POD_SWEET:SEED]
   [ITEM:10:SEEDS:NONE:PLANT_MAT:BUSH_QUARRY:SEED]
   [ITEM:10:SEEDS:NONE:PLANT_MAT:MUSHROOM_HELMET_PLUMP:SEED]
   [ITEM:21:PLANT:NONE:PLANT_MAT:MUSHROOM_HELMET_PLUMP:STRUCTURAL]
   [ITEM:1:WEAPON:ITEM_WEAPON_PICK:INORGANIC:COPPER]
   [ITEM:1:WEAPON:ITEM_WEAPON_AXE_TRAINING:PLANT_MAT:PALM:WOOD]
   [ITEM:5:THREAD:NONE:CREATURE_MAT:SPIDER_CAVE:SILK]
   [ITEM:10:WOOD:NONE:PLANT_MAT:TOWER_CAP:WOOD]
   [ITEM:9:BOULDER:NONE:INORGANIC:COAL_BITUMINOUS]
   [ITEM:8:BOULDER:NONE:INORGANIC:CASSITERITE]
   [ITEM:8:BOULDER:NONE:INORGANIC:TETRAHEDRITE]
   [ITEM:5:BOULDER:NONE:INORGANIC:ORTHOCLASE]
   [ITEM:289:POWDER_MISC:NONE:INORGANIC:SAND_RED]
   [PET:1:DOG:FEMALE:STANDARD]
   [PET:1:DOG:MALE:STANDARD]
   [PET:1:CAT:FEMALE:STANDARD]
   [PET:1:CAT:MALE:STANDARD]
   [PET:6:BIRD_TURKEY:FEMALE:STANDARD]
   [PET:1:BIRD_TURKEY:MALE:STANDARD]

[Laserhead]

I usually don't bother with Miner or Woodcutter or Brewer or such things on embark. Miner trains quickly enough anyway, and they don't affect the quality of items.

My last embark (was in an evil region)

5 in Hammer, 5 in Shield - made him militia right off the bat, station at wagon. Brought along a copper hammer and shield for him. He'll get a bad thought about going off duty when he glitches back to a Peasant when you change his station order, so avoid doing that until ready to wall off. Then make him the Furnace Operator, or have him cut rock blocks or something until he gets a skill.
5 in Dodger, 5 in Teacher - made him a miner, disabled all others. Even though Teaching still isn't really useful I've always wanted it to be.
5 in Armor, 5 in Teacher - made him a miner, disabled all others. Yeah, I'm just going to say that my wife is a Teacher so there. These two will hand their picks to the first migrant wave and join the first one in the militia.
5 in Mason, 5 in Carpenter - This guy builds furniture. On a nicer embark he might also cut trees, but today he just hauls stuff into a hole as soon as the Miners start digging.
5 in Grower, 5 in Cook - I like to put Grower and Cook together. Sometimes I think that splitting these jobs up might be better, but I always end up putting them together in the end. On a nicer embark he might start out doing some plant gathering, but today he hauls.
5 in Weaponsmith, 3 in Appraiser, 2 in Judge of Intent - This guy is an all-rounder. Butchery, Tanning, Brewing, Wood Burning, Milking, Cheese Making, Furnace Operating, and some other stuff. He'll be assigned as Broker, Manager and Record Keeper in addition to that and hauling. I'll foist some of these jobs off onto migrants when they show up. It might seem like Armorer would be better than Weaponsmith, but I find I tend to get more migrant Armorers for some reason.
5 in Dyer, 5 in Clothier - This slot used to be like "Armorer / Blacksmith" or "Bowyer / Carpenter", but I wanted to pay more attention to the clothing industry this embark. I start him off as a third miner just to get underground quickly. In my last embark I had him di He'll get similar all-around labors as the last guy, as well as Weaving (although ideally I'll get a migrant to do that so he doesn't have to do the whole industry alone)

I embarked with cats, chickens, an anvil, three picks, copper hammer and shield, perhaps 40 plump helmets, 10 seeds of each other plant, maybe 10 wood and as much bituminous coal as I've got points left for.

I gave that third pick to either the furniture maker or the fashion designer, and had him dig a channel straight down from the wagon, which the two soldier miners met up with using a proper tunnel. That way the guys on the surface could just pit everything from the wagon right into the hole, and then floor it over.

[Caz]

Laborer: Miner/Woodcutter
Laborer: Miner/Woodcutter

I thought Mining and Woodcutting were 'either/or' labours? i.e you can't set them both at the same time on the same dwarf. Or did this change?