Skills which are important

Job hunting. Study and training. Plan your career Talk to a career expert Start to plan or change your career Get ideas for your career How to get ideas for your career Skills employers are looking for Work experience options How to get work experience Types of work arrangements and hours Building a portfolio career Working for yourself Vocational education and training Make a career decision Act on your career plans.

Home Plan your career Get ideas for your career Skills employers are looking for. Skills employers are looking for The skills employers most want you to have. What's on this page? Employability skills in demand My employability skills — exercise Skills employers are looking for — video Find out more Next steps. These are the skills employers say make them want to hire you. Employability skills in demand Employability skills are the skills, qualities and attitudes that employers say are essential for their workplace.

The seven essential employability skills Here are the seven essential employability skills with examples: 1. Positive attitude Being calm and cheerful when things go wrong. Communication You can listen and say information clearly when you speak or write. Teamwork You help out when it gets busy at work.

Self-management You get to work on time every day. Willingness to learn You want to learn new things to improve your skills. Thinking skills problem solving and decision making You try and solve problems or can see where something won't work.

Resilience You get an angry customer but you keep calm, keep working and laugh about it later. My employability skills — exercise Employers want you to have all of the seven employability skills, but you'll find that you are better at some of the skills than others.

Try this exercise 1. By helping you face challenges and difficulties, resilience also enables you to handle stress more positively. At the heart of being agile is shifting gears when the context calls for it and responding accordingly to the needs of your workplace, clients or industry trends. Our projects have become more complex, so the ability to work effectively as part of a team has also grown in importance.

Given the increasingly global nature of work, your ability to collaborate, share knowledge and contribute to teams that can capitalize on a diversity of thinking and perspective in ways that everyone can benefit and drive to the shared outcomes is critical.

Advancing in y our career is not just based on what you do. Whether you're needing to explain your value when you are being considered for a promotion, presenting as part of a team project, or speaking on stage, you need to be able to communicate well and convey strong, persuasive ideas.

We live in an era of tweets and sound bites, but good written communication skills still matter when it comes to your career.

Whether you are sending professional emails, communicating with a client, trying to deliver a coherent business plan, or anything in between, you should be able to communicate quickly, accurately and effectively. The ability to empathize with others, or see things from their perspective by understanding their emotions and reactions, is a fundamental part of how we interact with one another. Communicating genuinely and authentically with others is vital because even in instances when you disagree with your coworkers on elements of a work project, for example, empathy allows you to demonstrate to others that they are seen and heard.

Problem-solving skills refer to the ability to manage challenging situations at work productively and positively. This is especially important for employees who work in a large organization or as part of a team, but they are often considered essential skills for nearly all occupations. Common problem-solving skills to include on your resume are communication, decision making and research skills.

Open-mindedness is an important skill for anyone who is entering into a new position. Even if you have held the same position at a previous company, the new company you work for may do things differently. Being open-minded to learning a new way of performing your duties and being willing to learn and try new things is essential for job candidates. A strong work ethic is another excellent skill to highlight when applying for jobs.

Employers want employees who they can trust to perform their duties and meet deadlines without having to micro-manage them. Having a great work ethic ensures you can complete your tasks and manage your work effectively even when no one is regularly checking your progress. Employers look for an applicant's skills in a few different places, with the most important places being resumes, cover letters and interviews.

Here are factors to keep in mind when highlighting your skills in each of these settings:. The best place to highlight your top skills is in the "Skills" section on your resume. You can list your skills in a bulleted format and include a brief description or provide examples for each. You can also incorporate mentions of these skills throughout the experience section of your resume in the descriptions of your job duties.

Your cover letter should include mention of two to three of your most marketable skills as they relate to the job you are applying for. Include these skills in the body of your cover letter as well as an example for each of how you have used these skills in your previous work experience.

A job interview is a great time to openly talk about your marketable skills with the employer. During the interview, provide examples of how you have used your skills in the past. Teamwork You'll need to prove that you're a team player but also have the ability to manage and delegate to others and take on responsibility. Read more about teamwork 4. Negotiation and persuasion This is about being able to set out what you want to achieve and how, but also being able to understand where the other person is coming from so that you can both get what you want or need and feel positive about it.

Problem solving You need to display an ability to take a logical and analytical approach to solving problems and resolving issues. Read more about problem solving 6. Leadership You may not be a manager straight away, but graduates need to show potential to motivate teams and other colleagues that may work for them. Read more about leadership skills 7. Organisation This is about showing that you can prioritise, work efficiently and productively, and manage your time well.

Read more about time management 8. Perseverance and motivation Employers want people to have a bit of get-up-and-go. Ability to work under pressure This is about keeping calm in a crisis and not becoming too overwhelmed or stressed. Read more about how to answer questions about handling stress at interview Confidence In the workplace you need to strike the balance of being confident in yourself but not arrogant, but also have confidence in your colleagues and the company you work for.

Managing ambiguity Our advice explains what is meant by managing ambiguity and why it is a particularly important skill in complex, fast-changing environments, such as the retail sector.

Read more about managing ambiguity Resilience Graduate employers look for resilience in their recruits because it enables employees to cope with change, problems and stress.

Read more about resilience Analytical skills Analytical skills enable you to work with different kinds of information, see patterns and trends and draw meaningful conclusions. Read more about analytical skills Enterprise and entrepreneurial skills Spotting gaps in the market, suggesting ways to improve processes, or coming up with new ideas are all signs of an entrepreneurial approach.

Read more about enterprise skills IT skills The best way to demonstrate your IT skills to employers is to show that you have been able to use them to achieve something, and you can demonstrate this with examples from your studies, extracurricular activities or work experience.

How to describe your skills on your CV Here are three tips to help you write your CV in a way that showcases your skills. When you are giving details of the skills you developed in a job, internship or work experience placement, reflect the competencies listed in the job description and give examples of the most relevant skills first.

Use confident language to describe your skills, for example, by drawing attention to awards or praise employers have given you. Spotlight organisations. Kraft Heinz Company.