So, you mean that a skilled woodcutter or fisher is higher in priority than a skilled mechanic or carpenter? I guess I don't really understand what affects the priority of a given job. The discussion, I assume, will mostly be centered on reasoning behind the priority assessment. To be fair, I haven't ran a fort that had a significant fish industry in quite some time, so perhaps the skill allocation is useful. Still, I'd always prefer a skilled carpenter to a skilled lumberjack on arrival at a site. Not hard to train the latter, nor does the level change the end product.
This.
Woodcutting, Mining, Fishing, Plant Gathering etc are all very easily trainable, you can achieve high levels (even Legendary) within a season or two tops on those.
What I start with:
Everyone gets 1 Swimming
Leader: 1 in most Social/Leadership skills
Doctor: a spread in the Medical skills
2 Hunters: Marksdwarf, Wrestler, Hammerdwarf 1, Ambusher 2
Everyone else: Axedwarf, Shield, Wrestling 1
When I get there I then prioritze based on what is available. Generally I split the dwarfs into three groups, Miners, Woodcutters, and Farmers.
Miners dig, Woodcutters cut wood, Farmers gather plants. Once the first few rooms are dug out, a few workshops get built (Carpentry, Masonry, Craftsdwarf, Brewery, Kitchen, etc) to get the basics going. At this point the starting 7 and any migrants get even further specialized.
And the checklist typically stays in my head; I've never been in the habit of using the "notes" document I created the handful of times I bothered to create it.
Whereas I do keep to a strictly controlled list of how many Dwarfs I need doing what and only the jobs I need tend to get filled. Though I will put skilled migrants to work in their fields of expertise, unless their skils are far poorer than those already doing the job and there are no positions open.