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[schlake]

Reading other threads, I get the feeling that possibly the only skills needed are gorwing and harvesting.  Everything else can be slowly learned if the dwarves don't die of soberness or hunger.  Adding in mining makes the digging go faster, but isn't really required as there will be plenty of digging to train people up.

Are there any other skills that might be considered essential to an embark beyond growing and harvesting?

[Pyrite]

By that standard, growing and harvesting can be learned in time too.

If I was gonna pick just a few skills to have at decent levels though, it would be mining and herbalism, as digging out your first few rooms and filling them with plants to eat or brew is essential to your early survival.

[schlake]

I was just reading about the danger of starving to death before anyone learns to harvest, which is why I listed them as essential.

[Pyrite]

It is if you're in a biome that doesn't have plentiful aboveground fruits and nuts and such just sitting there for the taking.

Suffice it to say, you need an early food-procurement skill that is compatible with the biome you're embarking on. It could just as easily be fishing, hunting, or military skills.

Mining likewise can be replaced by carpentry if you'd rather build wooden aboveground structures like a human.

[Sutremaine]

Harvesting isn't a skill.

If you have enough seeds, you can do without Grower skill early game. An individual dwarf takes a while to plant one seed, but you have seven of the buggers and they don't need a plot each. Set aside a week or whatever to get the seeds in the ground, and use the wagon animals while you wait for the harvest. You could also skip food plants entirely and bring some animals to eat. Turkeys are good. They're large enough to be meaty, but not large enough to produce a bunch of organ hauling jobs.

[PatrikLundell]

Unless you're embarking to a quirky environment, no starting skills are required (I reserve all points for goods, in particular animals), as everything can be learned from the ground up. Also, as I use Dwarf Therapist to figure out who is suitable for which tasks and DT isn't available pre embark, I wait with job assignment until I reach the embark site and let them learn from scratch.
Herbalism is used to gather wild plants, while growing/farming is used for planting. Harvesting farmed plants trains growing/farming, but AFAIK the skill comes into play only at planting, where the skill determines the probability for a good yield.

[ptb_ptb]

In a typical embark the only skill I can't do without is Appraisal. Just because it bugs me when I don't know how good a deal I'm getting at the trade depot.

[Sutremaine]

It used to be that whoever was doing the 'trade at depot' job would get a huge chunk of Appraiser XP the first time the trade screen was opened. Has that changed?

Do you make sure your broker does the trading, or do you let any dwarf do it?

[Naryar]

Mining is essential unless you live like an elf.

Carpentry isn't but is pretty necessary.

Weaponsmithing isn't but is hilariously useful once you have some ore and make some large serrated discs to buy the entirety of the first dwarven caravan.

Appraiser is essential as well. (novice is fine though)

Grower you can do without but it's a chore not to have a proficient grower already.

[ptb_ptb]

It used to be that whoever was doing the 'trade at depot' job would get a huge chunk of Appraiser XP the first time the trade screen was opened. Has that changed?

I don't think so. But that only gives you the prices for the next time, doesn't it?

Do you make sure your broker does the trading, or do you let any dwarf do it?

Any dwarf. But that doesn't make any difference to me. As long as you have a broker with a little bit of appraiser skill everything will have prices on it.

Mining is essential unless you live like an elf.

Mining is essential, but you don't need to give it as a starting skill. Hand somedwarf a pickaxe and they'll soon get the hang of it.

[Sutremaine]

No, the sudden Appraisal XP is good for the very first caravan. The skill gain happens as the trade screen is opened.

[Pirate Santa]

Price display is determined by your Broker's Appraisal skill only.

For the first caravan:
Set anyone may trade, request trader.
Dwarf arrives, open trade screen, dwarf picks up a couple levels in Appraisal.
Close trade screen, appoint that dwarf Broker.
You can now view prices for goods, regardless of who is actually doing the trading.

[Mushroo]

(Unless I am doing some kind of challenge embark) I always just choose "Play Now" and go with the default miner/carpenter/fisherdwarf etc.

The reason being that starting skills become completely irrelevant once summer arrives and migrants begin to appear.

[§k]

I make every one having a novice civilian skill, the physically weakest one (who will be the leader) novice consoler, and every one but miner novice crosbowman. And Id have an ectra miner who won't do mining after embark. He will be the melee dwarf before some migrants arrive and replace him.

This way, you may get the meat of a giant coati, or save the fort from a coupl of alligators.

[Chaosegg]

Reading other threads, I get the feeling that possibly the only skills needed are gorwing and harvesting.  Everything else can be slowly learned if the dwarves don't die of soberness or hunger.  Adding in mining makes the digging go faster, but isn't really required as there will be plenty of digging to train people up.

Are there any other skills that might be considered essential to an embark beyond growing and harvesting?

Training considerations
Some skills are harder to gain experience in than others - requiring valuable resources or taking an extended period of time, and thus inconvenient to train from scratch. Investing in some of these skills for your initial dwarves can make those industries much less painful to start. For example, metal-related skills generally eat metal bars, and thus the less time you spend training metal workers up to a decent level, the faster they'll be churning out high-quality items and the fewer raw materials (bars and fuel) they'll waste in training. On the other hand, despite its importance, skills like mining train relatively quickly and barring extenuating circumstances (expected need to accomplish particular digging projects in the first month or you'll get mauled by a Giant for example) there's little need to actually invest your starting skills in it - they can learn on the job.

Above is a relevant quote from this starting build page on the wiki.
Also possibly of use would be this Embark page bit

This section and the paragraph before it is also quite informative.
Specifically:
" typical recommended leader/broker takes 1/1/1/1/1 in appraiser/judge of intent/negotiator/+2 social skills"
and as for the rest, it really depends on your play style and preference.

Here follows a starting skills analysis in my own words, based on my own thoughts & prefs,
of which are most important and why:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

carpenter - beds, barrels, bins, wheelbarrows, stepladders, buckets, shields if your carpenter is more skilled than, and you have more wood than, your leatherworker (leather shields are lightest and just as effective as other materials, but leather is generally far more precious a resource than wood since you need leather to make quivers, armor etc.)

mason - blocks for building stuff faster & prettier (including other masonry items), chairs, tables, doors, cabinets, chests (coffers), armor stands, weapon stands
most things a mason does can be done by some other person, carpenter/metalworker, but stone is almost always very cheap/available and fast.

weapon/armor smiths - making metal items requires many steps in time and materials (mining, smelting, fuel production, and finally crafting) This is the most obvious and imperative need for maxing out the starting skill level that I can think of for "normal fortress players"

metal crafting / blacksmithing - also somewhat difficult to train, if slightly less important to most forts, I max these skills too.

Leatherworking - quivers, backpacks, cloaks, hoods, shields*, waterskins*
*(*wood shields & metal flasks might be easier unless you have tons of leather

Herbalist / grower - I read somewhere a skilled one of these will more often harvest the maximum stack of 5 instead of lesser amounts in the same amount of time... this is logically more efficient to have more starting skill in.

other important skills which don't need much if any starting points in my opinion:

wood working/crafting - practice bolts, nest boxes, hives

Furnace operator - really nice to have the smelters work faster. Bring one unit of fuel (coke) to get you started quickly,
and also bring large amounts of bit. coal, or lignite on embark if you have the choice! 50+ for coal is what I do.
Then when you get there and find you do not have plenty of it on-site it you can  say "thank god"... and if you do, then oh well since it was cheap.
otherwise your poor trees will suffer greatly. 

stone working/crafting - nest boxes, hives

wood cutting - cant hurt to give this dwarf some military skills if he's likely to be outside/alone and in greater danger

mining - learn on the job mostly but get at least 2-3 dwarfs to be miners ASAP imo

brewing - super important but can be easily learned on the job if you bring enough at embark (80~ish units?)

I may have forgotten something but since this is likely already in TLDR territory I will try to wrap it up.

This list of item melting returns may be handy also
Specific items that appear to have good (1 bar or more***) return for melting include:
battle axes, picks, cages, anvils, trap components, shields, mail shirts, leggings, greaves, breastplates, instruments,
and lots of furniture, minecarts and wheelbarrows if you can find those items in metal.
***I honestly have no idea how fractions of a bar of metal work when melting items down, so I am wary of recommending that activity.
and bedroom design pictures (personally I favor the High density single floor housing for "the people", and Decentralized living for "nobles"...
but admittedly I'm relatively lazy about getting my initial bedrooms up and running quickly.

as I use Dwarf Therapist to figure out who is suitable for which tasks and DT isn't available pre embark

actually it does work pre-embark.
At least for me using version 28 with memory layouts for 40.19