Common Top 5 Skills Employers Want|Boost Your Career and Increase Your Value
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Feeling like you don’t have enough to offer employers want to increase your value both personally and professionally. As a career coach and job search strategist, I’m often asked by my clients, what skills employers value most? What skills do they consider improving? And how about increasing their skill level? In this article, I’m going to talk about five of the top skills employers’ value most in every role and give you some tips on how to go about improving them.
As a former multi-department manager, I know what soft skills, I valued most in the people, I hired to work on my team, regardless of what their role was. As a former corporate recruiter, I noticed a pattern in requests from hiring managers on the core soft skills they wanted most in their team members. So, Today, I’m going to share five of the top valued skills most employers seek and tell you how can improve your skill level in each.
Skill # 1 Communication
Communication, just because you can read hear, and speak doesn’t mean you’re a good communicator, communication involves both verbal and non-verbal communication not only in yourself but, observing and adapting to the communication style of others. Nonverbal communication includes things like body posture and gestures, facial expressions, eye contact, and tone of voice. Verbal communication, on the other hand, is not just about speaking and hearing, it’s much more complex than that. In short, verbal communication involves engaging with others, empathizing and seeing things from someone else’s perspective, listening to others by giving your full attention, comprehending what they’re saying, and questions to clarify your understanding. As well as being able to clearly articulate the message that you are intending to convey through words tone, intonation, and volume.
Depending on your communication skills can help you avoid conflicts, promote compromise, help in making better decisions, and improve your overall social and emotional health. Improving your communication skills can not only benefit your personal life, friends, your spouse, family members, and children. It will improve your connections to others, build greater trust and respect Improve teamwork and problem-solving in the workplace. Do you see now, why excellent communication is a top skill wanted by employers? You can elevate your communication to skill level by taking a communications course or reading a book on communication. Like all things in life, you will improve by practicing what you’re learned so consider joining a club like Toastmasters to improve your public speaking, and leadership skills. Increasing your communication skills will also improve your interview skills and reduce your anxiety nerves and increase your confidence.
Skill # 2 Confidence
Confidence gives you the power to do what you want to do, and the ability to succeed, confidence is another one of those complex skills. Did you know that 85% of the world’s population are affected by low self-esteem, our self-confidence is impacted by how we were raised, our childhood and life experiences, cultural background, the world around us, our mental health, and even genetics play a part identifying why you lack confidence and extent to deep your lack of confidence is? Is important before you can determine the best way to work improving it, everyone’s solutions will be different based on their unique situation some solutions, may involve reflection reading a self-help book, on self-confidence, counseling, or therapies, or in some cases doctor prescribed medication. A recommended, self-help book is the self-confidence workbook a guide to overcoming self-doubt and improving self-esteem by Barbara Markway Ph.D. and Celia Ample.
For someone who lacks confidence mainly from being shy, a great strategy to improve your confidence, besides joining a toastmasters club as mentioned earlier, is to attend networking events to practice introducing yourself to others. You can start off slow by asking a friend to go with you, and set a personal goal for each event. Such as talking to two people, if you lack the ability to talk confidently about yourself such as in an interview then a professional career coach interview specialist or life skills coach can definitely help you with this.
Here is my hot tip on how to improve your confidence in the workplace or capabilities for a particular job, is to improve your skills with training or self-study. It’s so much easier to feel confident and speak well about yourself when you have recently completed a course that makes you current on a particular topic or skill. For some great resource information on free and low-cost online courses check out habit number three in my article 10 habits of highly successful job seekers.
Skill # 3 Listening
Although Listening is part of communication which I talked about in skill number one, listening is a very important part of communication and deserves to stand alone. Author and motivational speaker Simon Sinek once said something in a ted talks that I thought was absolutely brilliant when it comes to listing, and it hit me square in the face as someone who is very participatory and does a lot of talking ins group activities. He said, “be the last to speak” his reasons were two things being last gives everyone the feeling of being heard and the feeling that they have contributed, and number two you get the benefit of hearing what everyone else thinks before you render your opinion. He also says to ask questions, so that you can understand what others mean. Not just what they’re saying but why they have the opinion that they have. You must understand where someone’s coming from when they’re speaking. Practice being the last to speak it sounds easy right. Well, it’s not; try it the next time you’re in a conversation with someone or a group.
Skill # 4 Managing your time
Did you know the average person spends only 20 percent of their time doing what they love, what they’re passionate about? Time is irreplaceable; your time is your most valuable commodity, so value it. Is your life cluttered with stuff that stops you from being your best self if so, it’s time to evaluate and clear the clutter. Managing your time is not just about your personal life though, it’s a valuable skill to develop for the workplace. Catherine Gladwin wrote a book called the 20 rule, and although she wrote it primarily to teach small business owners how to stay sustainable and profitable. I got so many great tips on how to value and manage my time better, in both business and personal life.
When it comes to managing time in the workplace, what employers value most, Is your ability to be organized? Prioritize tasks wisely; be proficient by not procrastinating or wasting time and having the capability, and knowledge to get the job done right the first time, and if you’re a supervisor knowing how to delegate effectively.
Skill # 5 Mindset
Employers want to hire people with a positive attitude; would you want to work with someone who’s negative, or depressing. When you’re unemployed or when crappy things are happing in your personal work life, it can be hard to stay the positive day in and day out. But, the great thing when it comes to mindset is, you are 100% in control of what you are thinking. Focusing on the past will drag you into depression into could have, would have, should have, and regret so, try to live in the present moment the right here and right now. You can’t change the past, you can learn from it but you can’t change it so, don’t get stuck there and on the flip side don’t focus too much on the future because you aren’t there yet. It’s okay to have goals but, focusing too much on the future can increase your anxiety and worry. What if this happens? What if that happens? Take a breath and deal with it when you get there. I am so guilty of this so, it’s part of the mindset that I’m continually trying to work on for myself.
Living at the moment is where you have the greatest control and where you can feel the most comfortable, confident, and steer your ship. There’s a popular theory in the psychology community that 50% of your happiness is based on your genetics, 10% on your circumstances, and 40% of your happiness is determined by your actions and your inner state of mind. Your attitude or optimism, and the way you handle situations, professor martin Seligman is a renowned psychologist and author of many self-help books, he’s known in the scientific community for promoting his theories of positive psychological well-being and learned helplessness. As a part of his theory of well-being Selogman developed the Perma model which is even being introduced into workplaces, it stands for positive emotion’s engagement positive relationships meaning, and accomplishment. I’m sharing this because if, you struggle with depression anxiety, or mindset then you may want to check out some of Martin Seligman’s book or Google Perma model, there’s a ton of information on the internet.
My personal hot tip for you when it comes to mindset when you catch yourself wandering back into the trauma of your past or floating into the worry of the future or fixating on all the negative things happening in the world around you, stop yourself. Personally, I snap my fingers and say stop out loud then refocus on what’s right in front of me. It might sound silly, but it works for me. If, you’re eating a meal focus on the taste of the food and enjoy it, if you’re on a walking focus on the sounds around you listen to the birds, and the smell in the air. It starts with refocusing on those small things right in front of you in the present that will give you that small burst of happiness.
