6 Skills Every Employer Wants

Do you really need a degree to get a good job? Not exactly. Now job seekers need to realize that there's more to landing a job and advancing their careers than holding a degree – in fact, you just need the right skills.

Here are the top HARD skills you need to secure a job:

Writing

Whatever field you will be in, you cannot escape from writing. No we’re not talking about thesis like essays, just the ability to properly communicate your message in written form. A lot of work communication will be carried out online (specifically emails) so ideally, that means you need to have a decent grasp on your grammar skills.

Remember, emails or texts filled with typos and grammatical errors will reflect poorly on you, and poor tone can send the wrong message.

Project management

At one point in your work, you will probably encounter an opportunity to handle a project. Which is why project management skills are extremely important.

The ability to manage your task flow and complete assignments on time is part of project management. How to show you have that specific skills? Well, perhaps you have used project management software in the past or have completed a project early—these all show good project management.

Negotiation

There are many jobs that involve selling a product or service, purchasing stock or merchandise, brokering deals for production or transportation, establishing partnerships for advertising or investments and so on.

Ideally a successful negotiation is where you can make concessions that mean little to you, while giving something to the other party that means a lot to them. Your approach should foster goodwill, regardless of the differences in party interests.

Administrative

Administrative skills are qualities that help complete tasks related to managing a job. This might involve responsibilities such as filing paperwork, meeting with internal and external stakeholders, presenting important information, developing processes, answering employee questions and more.

Even if your job is not administrative in nature, it’s likely a part of your role. Administrative skills involve the things you do to manage your role: organizing, planning, scheduling, writing emails, managing files and etc. Employers want to know you’re able to take hold of the details.

Multilingual

Multilingualism is the use of more than one language by an individual. There are numerous social and cognitive advantages to being multilingual and all of these benefits stem from early and continued language exposure. Mandarin is one of the languages that get a lot of attention from employers nowadays.

Being multilingual is a great hard skill which can set you apart from your competition. Even if a role or company doesn’t initially have a need for a multilingual employee, they may look favorably on your ability. It is common to need someone with fluency in another language to help customers or clients, so play up this skill on your resume.

Adaptability

Adaptability is a skill that encompass a person's ability to adjust to changes in their environment. Being adaptable in your career can mean you are able to respond quickly to changing ideas, responsibilities, expectations, trends, strategies and other processes at work.

Being adaptable increases your chances of succeeding, as you will find yourself getting into different job roles. There are times we experience unexpected situations in life. Being adaptable ensures you stay afloat when adversities of life try to sink you down.

This means you should add a few of your most relevant skills listed above to your resume for whatever job you’re applying for. Such skills are universal and not associated with a particular job or industry—they’ll make you a stellar employee no matter what the job title is. 

Remember that typical "people" skills such as kind-heart, empathy and general social skills matter too, but those are really hard to prove on a resume (and rarely required by employers). So keep them in mind during your job search, because they might prove important in an interview but leave them out of your resume.