Top 10 Skills Employers Look for in Higher Education Graduates

Tired of endless rejections from jobs and agonizing waiting times? Not anymore. In a secret treasure box overlooked by most graduates lie employability skills.

Your academic expertise and specialised knowledge will no doubt be your ticket, but they merely set you on the journey. It is the unspoken soft skills, though indispensable, that will set you above others and eventually carve out a path toward career success.

Think of it this way: technical skills are the engine that makes one move forward, but it is finesse in handling the steering wheel – your soft skills – that makes all the difference between sailing smoothly or crashing and burning. Master these, and you will, therefore, nail not only your dream job but also that rocketing earning potential and career growth.

Now, are you ready to become indispensable to any employer? Let’s now get into exactly those very essential skills.

Top 10 Skills Employers Look for in Higher Education Graduates

1. Positive Learning Attitude: You might be taking it lightly but every employer wants someone who has a positive outlook for every situation. This ensures a healthy environment at the workplace and better productivity. Moreover, a learning attitude shows you will be up for new challenges and will be ready to take the initiative in order to explore different areas and give your best.

2. Work Ethics: Analysing how committed you are towards your work, your loyalty to the organisation’s goals and your personal ethics adds points to your professionalism. From junior to senior-level job roles, maintaining work ethics is very important. You necessarily do not need to add it to your resume but, the recruiter will judge you during your interview, so it is better to be prepared with your answers and highlight your skills.

3. Appreciating Diversity and Inclusion: Recognising diversity in the workplace especially is appreciated. There are assessments which reveal how an individual considers different aspects of diversity and inclusion. In fact, if a company is following this practice, you should feel secure.

4. Resilience: Setbacks are part and parcel of every business. Understanding this, employers look for candidates who are able to deal with setbacks. Recruiters evaluate how well you coped with stressful situations in the past and what is your immediate reaction or whether are you able to manage the team.

5. Research Skills: Irrespective of the industry, research is required everywhere. Certain tasks require strategy and a proper plan of action. For this, you will have to find relevant information from multiple resources. Here, research skills are applied, how you analyse, interpret and report the findings matters a lot.

6. Adaptability: The market is dynamic, so, to stay competitive companies have to adapt to new technologies and approaches. That is why, employers prefer those candidates who are able to adapt to new situations with ease. In addition to this, every company has a different environment, and whether you will be able to adapt to the new workplace speaks about your leadership and team management skills.

7. Organisational Skills: An employee who is organised and plans his daily tasks is obviously more desirable. Such candidates are preferred for every position irrespective of the industry.

8. Basic Computer Skills: Even science professionals sometimes have to use Excel sheets and some software. Therefore, having a basic computer and technical skills can give you an edge over others in non-technical fields.

9. Problem-Solving Skills: It is the ability to manage stressful and challenging situations at work efficiently and positively. This is especially important if you are applying to a large organisation or a multinational corporation. You can add common problem-solving skills to your resume and mention instances in your cover letter or interview.

10. Teamwork: The most common and basic necessity to work in any organisation is the capability of working in a team. Regardless of the job title, if you are not a team player, you will not be able to deliver the desired results. Therefore, every employer looks for a team player for almost every open position. To highlight your teamwork skills you can use the words, collaboration, honesty, responsibility and communication.

Examples of Some Essential Soft Skills

• Active Listening

• Presentation Skill

• Coaching and Mentoring

• Strategic Thinking

• Conflict Resolution

• Collaboration

• Accountability

• Brainstorming

• Planning

• Goal-Setting

• Flexibility

• Growth Mindset

• Critical Thinking

• Open Mindedness

• Negotiation

• Empathy

• Emotional Intelligence

Bottom Line

From collaboration to adaptability, communication and problem-solving skills, these skills play a huge role when applying for job roles. Read the job description thoroughly and understand which skills will be required for this position and how can you present yourself. Try to give references from the past to add credibility to your profile. Apart from this, you can also diversify your skill set with in-demand technical skills such as basic coding, data analysis, content marketing, social media handling and blog writing. So next time when you begin your search don’t let it haunt you and make sure to showcase skills which every employer looks for in a candidate.