Many job seekers consider themselves to be valuable candidates based only on the length of their work experience. The skills that a candidate possesses are also an important component of his resume. These qualities will help the employer understand how a person fits for a particular position and into the company. In addition, developing and specifying certain skills will greatly improve the quality of a resume. In this article, let’s take a closer look at the essential attributes of a modern employee.
What kind of skills do you need for a job?
Employers want to see two types of skills in their potential employees: hard and soft skills.
- Hard skills are professional skills that are usually required for a specific job and are acquired at a university or in specific courses. For example, for a translator of the Italian language, the necessary characteristics will be knowledge of the language, the ability to use certain translation programs, knowing Italian culture, having simultaneous translation skills, etc. Hard skills play a very important role in technical or financial work positions. Without a specific set of these skills, a candidate can easily be rejected as they are mandatory.
- Soft skills are additional skills and personal qualities of a person. They are universal for everyone and people of different professions can have them since they are qualities employers look for. People can master them throughout life, but there are also many different courses where everyone can learn the necessary knowledge and consolidate it in practice. We will talk about them in more detail because it is necessary to develop them because they play a huge role in career growth and give a lot of opportunities to candidates.
Related: Hard Skills vs. Soft Skills: What’s the Difference?
The Top 10 Important Job Skills
There are 10 skills employers look for. Certainly, there are a lot more of them, but it’s better to start with the most basic ones. Once you are sure that you have these, you can move on to others, more specific ones.
- Adaptability Skills
People with good adaptability are what employers look for first. Adaptability is a person’s skill to adequately respond to any changes and at the same time continue to work effectively. This attribute is usually found in leaders who are wanted in the labor market. But in any case, a flexible worker who continues to benefit the company even when things go wrong will always be valued by the employer.
- Communication Qualities
The ability to build high-quality communication with colleagues, boss and clients is a major skill in many professions. Good communication skills such as active listening, friendliness, confidence, and giving feedback will be essential when collaborating and will be the key to the success of the work projects.
- Critical Thinking
People with critical thinking can evaluate things and events more rationally and objectively. Such employees are also highly valued among employers because they can be very helpful in critical situations. In times of crisis, these employees can act less emotionally and make the right important decisions, which may, at some point, be decisive for the company.
- Emotional Intelligence
Emotional intelligence (EI) is another set of useful job skills. A person with these skills can understand, use and manage their feelings properly and to their advantage. Among the qualities are empathy, self-awareness, conflict management, emotional self-control, and others. Employees with a well-developed EI will only be a good addition to the team.
- Initiative
Initiative people are those who are always a little ahead. They do not miss the passing opportunities and do the work even before the reminders from their superiors. Such people have excellent self-management and are always ready to provide resources for colleagues and bosses.
- Motivation
Motivation is one of the qualities that every person will need throughout their career path. It is self-motivation that can help set goals and achieve them. If an employee does not have a sufficient level of motivation, after a while, they will simply lose interest in the work or burn out. The employer’s interest is also that the candidate is motivated enough to work in a particular position. The highest level of self-motivation usually brings higher professional results.
- Multitasking
Multitasking allows an employee to manage many tasks at once, by switching between them. A high level of such a skill allows one to focus on one thing while keeping several more in mind. Multitasking saves time and money by allowing people to complete more goals in a given time frame. However, it will take a long time before learning how to do the work quickly and efficiently.
- Organization Skills
Another important item on the employees’ skills list is employee organization. This skill set allows a person to properly manage their time and resources to achieve their goal. These qualities may include delegation, attention to detail, strategic planning, and time management. Organizational qualities are among the most important ones if a candidate wants to take a leadership position in a company. Therefore, recruiters will look at these characteristics of a person in the first place.
- Problem Solving
Problem-solving skills are usually common among those workers with critical thinking. In this case, it is assumed that a person can make good use of information and resources in order to accurately identify the problem and solve it as efficiently as possible. To make this possible, a person needs to be able to analyze, do research, and also be creative. In addition, it is necessary to be able to communicate effectively in order to involve colleagues in solving the problem.
- Teamwork
In almost any company, people will have to work as a team – whether they like it or not. Therefore, the ability to work in a team is already one of the basic skills that a candidate should have. Moreover, employers are always looking for good team players. To be one of them, the candidate must be an open-minded person who can deal with conflicts effectively. It is also important to be tolerant and respectful to your colleagues.
These soft skills on your resume will guarantee you a chance of success. However, you may realize that you already possess these qualities, but you cannot correctly present them. Then the best solution would be to use a resume service that specializes in exactly what you need.
Conclusion
As we have seen, skills play an important role in a high-quality resume, and in some cases are even more important than work experience. Most likely, many experienced candidates already possess several, and maybe even all, soft skills. The main task in this case is to understand this and correctly submit this information to a potential boss. If there are still any doubts and uncertainties, there is a LinkedIn profile writer that can be used as an assistant. With the knowledge gained, making a strong resume will be easy!