LinkedIn career expert Blair Heitmann spoke about the top skills someone would need in order to make it big in their careers.
Contents
Beyond traditional parameters
He noted that more companies are shifting from traditional qualifiers like degrees and years of experience to skills-based hiring to ensure that the most qualified person occupies a certain role.
Technical skills are the main criteria hiring managers consider in a candidate.
Soft skills are also looked at such as multi-tasking and problem-solving.
An overwhelming majority of employers ? 93% ? say soft skills play a critical role in their hiring decisions.
Top skills in demand
LinkedIn has identified several top skills employers are looking for lately.
They were picked out of more than three-quarters of paid jobs posted globally over the last three months on the portal.
- Customer Service
- Sales
- Accounting
- Business Development
- Marketing
- Leadership
- Communication
- Digital Marketing
- Sales Management
- Problem Solving
Being future-ready
However, the skills employers seek out are always changing.
For example, the most in-demand job skills have changed by 25% since 2015 with hard skills including customer service and sales and soft skills like leadership and communication rising to the top.
That percentage is expected to double in the next five years.
Building knowledge base
It should be understood that job-seekers need not include each skill on this list in their application to be successful in their search.
But it would be wise to arm oneself with as many skills through online courses as possible, particularly the ones in-demand within the industries you are interested in.
Knowledge can also be gained from studying job descriptions, reading companies’ career pages or setting up networking calls with people in those fields and asking them which skills they’ve found to be most helpful in their position.
Explain usage of skills
The next step is to mention examples of putting these skills into practice during an interview, for example how mastering a skill helped a difficult problem at work, or how certain skills have helped excel at the duties of the role you’re up for.
Heitmann sums it up, saying that in today’s day and age one must have a growth mindset, be willing to learn and evolve over the course of one’s career since companies no longer expect employees to do one set thing.
Having the aforementioned qualities will help job seekers become a marketable, competitive candidate for the rest of their professional life.
Comments are closed, but trackbacks and pingbacks are open.