Career Development Center

Career Development Center

SKILLS EMPLOYERS VALUE

Job Performance

"The new economy favors people with qualities like self-motivation, initiative, flexibility, ability to work with a team, and the capacity to learn and adapt to change."
-LAURENCE BOLDT

What skills and competencies do employers value? What attitudes, traits and characteristics would most employers like their employees to have? What is required of today's employees? What does it take to be a professional?

Transferrable Skills

Mistakes I Made at My First Job
College Habits That Don't Fly in the Workplace

Career Success: Tips to Excel in Your Career
Tactics for Getting Ahead at Work

Accepting Criticism in a Positive Way

Guide to Getting a Promotion

What Do Employers Really Want?

Competence - Ability to do the job well
Initiative - Working without constant direction or supervision
Dependability - Being there when needed
Reliability - Getting the job done
Efficiency - Being accurate and capable
Loyalty - Being trustworthy and honest
Maturity - Behaving as an adult, being stable and even-tempered, and maintaining composure
Communication - Ability to express oneself clearly and concisely through speaking and writing
Problem-Solving - Ability to address issues, generate options, settle uncertainties, make decisions
Cheerfulness - Being pleasant, optimistic and agreeable
Helpfulness - Willing to pitch in, serve or assist with a sense of urgency
Teamwork - Working together with others, being cooperative and unselfish
Perseverance - Determination and patience in carrying on with a tedious project
Responsibility - Taking care of duties, being accountable
Creativity - Being original, resourceful, imaginative, innovative
Enthusiasm - Being energetic, positive, self-motivated about work
Adaptability - Ability to adjust to new situations, being flexible

Skills Today's Employers Value Most

How Successful People Think

What Skills Lead to Success

Showing Professionalism in the Workplace
Habits of Employees That Get Promoted

How Prepared are Today's College Graduates?

Millennials in the Workplace

Job Growth

Professional development... getting ahead in your job... improving your skills... enhancing your job performance... making yourself more valuable to your organization... expanding your opportunities...

What are some ways you can contribute to your job growth? Here are some suggestions...

Be aware of changes and new developments in the organization. Document your accomplishments. Take some risks. Take on additional responsibilities and assignments. Think like a manager. Adopt a business perspective. Continue your learning, training and education. Cross train. Find a mentor. Continue to build a network of professional contacts. Be open to criticism and suggestions. Be positive, cooperative and supportive in your interactions with co-workers, colleagues and clients. Stay updated by reading professional literature and attending conferences. Stay active in your professional and community associations.

Also, ask yourself... Am I punctual? productive? focused? cost-conscious? cooperative? results-oriented? Do I save the company money? offer solutions to problems? take pride in my work? set goals? see value in what I'm doing? manage conflict in a mature and timely manner? refuse to be involved in office politics and company gossip?

Top Skills Employers Want in Today's Graduates

Skills for the Future Workforce
Strengthening Your Soft Skills

Keep Your Career Moving

Shocking Statistics: Millennial Challenges
Confused Millennial: Entering the Workforce

Feedback and Criticism

It's really difficult and uncomfortable to do, but learning to accept criticism makes us a better person. It's how we grow. We've got to realize that we can’t improve without critique.

We have to tell ourselves not to get defensive or angry the moment someone brings a piece of constructive criticism to us or when someone disagrees with us or contradicts us. It's important to hear alternate viewpoints and it's important to realize we might be wrong.

Instead of being defensive, we should be mindful and listen to what is being said. We shouldn't let our emotions get in the way of the message. We shouldn't take it personally. And we shouldn't act like we're being persecuted just because we're being evaluated or critiqued.

We can learn from our mistakes. And we can learn from people who are trying to help us correct our mistakes. We need to stop viewing mistakes as failures, but as opportunities to grow and improve.

We have to stop trying to justify ourselves and explain ourselves. For our own good, we need to be open to criticism and have a positive, healthy attitude about receiving negative feedback.

Transferrable Skills

Mistakes I Made at My First Job
College Habits That Don't Fly in the Workplace

Career Success: Tips to Excel in Your Career
Tactics for Getting Ahead at Work

Accepting Criticism in a Positive Way

Guide to Getting a Promotion

What Do Employers Really Want?

Practical Abilities

What intellectual and practical abilities are desired by employers? According to Hart Research Associates, employers identified the following traits:

Ability to communicate effectively, orally and in writing (89%)
Critical thinking and analytical reasoning skills (81%)
Ability to analyze and solve complex problems (75%)
Teamwork skills and the ability to collaborate with others in diverse group settings (71%)
Ability to innovate and be creative (70%)
Ability to locate, organize, and evaluate information from multiple sources (68%)
Ability to work with numbers and understand statistics (63%)

(Source: Raising the Bar: Employers’ Views on College Learning in the Wake of the Economic Turndown)

Top Ten Employability Skills

Real World Tips for College Grads
Get Noticed and Get Ahead
Welcome to the Real World

How to Get a Promotion at Work
New Grad to New Job

Workplace Competencies

The changing workplace demands a change in the skills workers will now need to develop. A new set of expectations are now associated with the new world of work... Learning skills... Writing and speaking skills… Computation skills, Cognitive reasoning skills... Interpersonal skills... Critical thinking and problem solving skills... Leadership skills… Computer and technical skills. Also, the demands of the new workplace will require a greater multicultural understanding and competency in working with diverse populations.

Transferrable Skills

Mistakes I Made at My First Job
College Habits That Don't Fly in the Workplace

Career Success: Tips to Excel in Your Career
Tactics for Getting Ahead at Work

Accepting Criticism in a Positive Way
Guide to Getting a Promotion

What Do Employers Really Want?

Employer Feedback

When asked to rate what is most important in the traits possessed by candidates applying for professional positions, one typical employer provided this feedback. On a scale of 1 to 10, the following items were evaluated:

10   Work Ethic
8     Ability to Learn
8     Maturity
7     Communication Skills
6     Skills and Knowledge
5     Grades

Top Skills Employers Want in Today's Graduates

Skills for the Future Workforce
Strengthening Your Soft Skills

Keep Your Career Moving

Shocking Statistics: Millennial Challenges
Confused Millennial: Entering the Workforce

Poor Performance

Sometimes your progress and satisfaction are impeded by factors that are not within your control. These external blocks result from office politics, organizational inconsistencies, the firm’s financial constraints, layoffs, mergers, and other corporate activity outside of your control.

Otherwise, your progress and satisfaction are oftentimes impeded by factors that are completely within your control. These internal blocks originate from your own attitudes and actions. These examples of poor performance might lead to job stagnation, limited opportunities or termination.

Examples include excessive absences, frequently coming to work late. too much attention to outside interests and concerns, lack of initiative, disloyalty and dishonesty, irresponsibility, being negative and causing trouble, not being adaptable, carelessness, unwillingness to follow rules and laziness.

Skillset Trends

New labor market research has analyzed over 700 keywords from the job specifications of 30 common workplace roles (across three popular job sites), to reveal exactly what employers are looking for from candidates. The research highlights the crossover in skills and requirements across roles and industries, helping encourage those considering a career move, or just starting out in the job market by showing how qualified they may already be for a new aspirational career.

The top skills sought by employers are:

Communication skills (90 percent)
Relationship building (83 percent)
Organizational skills (63 percent)

Work well under pressure (63 percent)
Results driven (60 percent)
Time management (57 percent)
Team player (50 percent)
Analytical skills (47 percent)

Attention to detail (47 percent)

People skills (47 percent)

Self-motivated (47 percent)
Management skills (43 percent)

Leadership skills (43 percent)
Computer skills (40 percent)

Negotiating skills (40 percent)
Problem solving (37 percent)

Which Skills Do Employers Value Most

Reality of the Real World

Mindset of High Achievers

Rules to Follow to Get Ahead in Your Career

Fastest Ways to Get Ahead in Your Career
Professional Behavior at Work

Being Successful

"The swiftest way to triple your success is to double your investment in personal development."
-Robin Sharma

"We can't become what we need to be by remaining what we are."
-Oprah Winfrey

"Life's challenges are not supposed to paralyze you, they're supposed to help you discover who you are."
-Bernice Johnson Reagon

"The will to win, the desire to succeed, the urge to reach your full potential...these are the keys that will unlock the door to personal excellence."
-Confucius

"Take criticism seriously, but not personally. If there is truth or merit in the criticism, try to learn from it. Otherwise, let it roll right off you."
-Hillary Clinton

"If there is no struggle, there is no progress."
-Frederick Douglass

"Be not afraid of growing slowly; be afraid only of standing still."
-Chinese Proverb

"The tragedy in life doesn't lie in not reaching your goal. The tragedy lies in having no goal to reach."
-Benjamin Mays

"Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts."
-Winston Churchill