When you’re at uni and after you graduate, you’ll probably be applying to lots of jobs and internships to help boost your career prospects. You’ve probably heard about the cliche skills to include on your CV, but what do employers actually want?
Some of the cliches are true, but there are others you probably didn’t know about. Having these skills will help you land a great job and feel competent while doing it.
Keep reading to find out what skills employers want from graduates.
Ability to Adapt
When you start a new job, you’re in a new environment, with new people, doing new tasks. These can be challenging at first, which is why you need the ability to adapt to new situations. Most jobs throw up changes that you need to be able to adapt to.
You need to be able to cope with challenging situations and work well under pressure. Being able to adapt to changes at work won’t just make you more hirable, but it will mean that you actually enjoy your job much more since you’ll know you can handle whatever happens.
Teamwork Skills
No matter what field you’re working in, at some point you will be required to work in part of a team. Having strong teamwork skills will help make you more hirable as it means you can work with people to help the company progress.
You need to be able to demonstrate this on your CV, so you should include group work experience at uni, any jobs you’ve had before, and talk about how you have successfully worked in a team before.
Awareness of Industry Trends
For any job that you interview for, you need to be able to show the employer that you have a keen interest and awareness of the industry. This will show that you’re serious about the job.
It will help you immensely to show them that you have an understanding of market trends, the business, and their competitors. You can demonstrate experience with this by getting experience with internship programmes, extra-curricular activities surrounding the industry (i.e. a blog). Also, be sure to actually keep up to date by following company social media and blogs.
Be Proactive
You can be great at the job at hand, but if you aren’t proactive, you won’t be a very desirable candidate. This means that you take the initiative to get things done instead of sitting around and wasting time.
You may finish your assigned task, but instead of waiting to be told what to do next, move onto another task you know needs to be done. Employers are always looking for people who don’t need their hand held throughout the job and can get their work done without needing to be told what to do each time.
Communication Skills
In your job, you’ll find that you have to communicate with people all of the time. Whether it be talking to clients, customers, or just your co-workers, you need to know how to communicate effectively.
Proving this on your CV isn’t always easy since it sounds like such a generic skill, but it is essential to any job. Try to highlight any customer service or client-facing experience you’ve had in the past. Even a project at uni can help you if you collaborated with other people to get the task done. Being able to communicate verbally and in writing is an essential skill for any job.
Do You Have The 5 Skills Employers Want In Their Graduate Recruits?
These skills will help you to land a good job and feel comfortable doing it, so do you have them? One way to improve these skills is to get involved with as much at university as you possibly can, and by taking part in things outside of class. Find a part-time job, join societies and continue to improve yourself – these will help you land your dream graduate job.
Want to know how to get a job as a student? Read our blog post for some great tips and tricks.
