What are employability skills?

Simply put, it is the attributes that make you suitable for employment and thrive in a workplace.

And possessing employability skills is a must if you are looking for a job!

So what are the employability skills that can land you your dream job?

Read on to know all about employability skills, why they are important, and how to improve these skills.

Get a clear insight into the following FAQs around employability skills:

• What does employability skills mean?
• Why are employability skills important?
• What are the top skills to put on resume?
• How to improve employability skills?

What Are Employability Skills?

To get the answer to that, you need to first understand that every professional needs to possess some kind of expertise and specialization that keeps them apart from the rest.

Once you get a clear grasp of those skills, you will be able to make out what all employability skills are required and how important they are to land a job.

Now coming to the point, employment skills are transferable skills that define you as a professional who can tackle any kind of task assigned to you in a job.

Employability skills are those competencies that come to you naturally or which you have gained over the years of professional experience, training, education, or practices.

The top 10 employability skills list are discussed below:

Leadership Skills for Employability

A good leader can help the team grow while ensuring that everyone in the team is contributing positively and maintaining a healthy work environment. You must have patience, practice active listening, and show the potential to give and receive feedback.

Communication Skills for Employability

Communication is the key to ensuring smooth functioning in any workplace. Transmitting and receiving accurate information among the team is essential to ensure efficient workflow at all times.

Ensure that you build strong communication with your colleagues to experience a hassle-free work environment. Highlighting your communication skills in your resume can help you stand out from the rest during job applications.

Also Read: What are the Different Types of Communication Skills?

Teamwork Skills for Employability

To accomplish something in the workplace, it is very important to endorse teamwork. An individual cannot achieve as much as a team working on deliverables, projects, assignments, or any other tasks.

Showing that you are a team player on your resume can give you a major advantage during job applications as it can make the recruiters recognize you as an efficient applicant.

Adaptability Skills for Employability

The ability to adapt to any situation is a must-have trait for every professional.

Given the chance, one should be ever ready to learn new things and adapt to any new initiatives implemented in the workplace. When exposed to new things and opportunities, try to adapt to the situation.

Self Management Skills for Employability

Being able to manage one's time and productivity daily is a must. Prioritizing various tasks and using your time accordingly can help you grow professionally as it can help you polish your management skills.

Self-management can help you focus on your work and enhance your productivity.

Reliability Skills for Employability

A reliable professional is priceless because they produce consistent results, and one can rely on them for anything. Being reliable in the workplace can help you win others' trust and allow them to have confidence in your ability to complete your tasks with ease.

Being a reliable applicant and showcasing the same on your resume will also help you in gaining the trust of recruiters and build their confidence in your potential.

Multitasking Skills for Employability

Multitasking, when done right, can save you and the company time and money. Picking tasks that can easily be handled together or back and forth can enhance your deliverables. A professional who can multitask while maintaining a high quality of work is a gem for any recruiter or employer.

Also Read: What are multitasking skills?

Strategic Thinking Skills for Employability

A quick mind and the ability to use critical thinking in the workplace can help you stay a step ahead at all times. Strategizing plans by analyzing various factors can help in producing the desired result and avoiding issues that may hinder the plan.

Issue Resolution Skills for Employability

One of the most important skills of an efficient professional in any field is identifying issues and providing suitable solutions. Assessing the issue and mitigating risks to resolve them enables you to dodge costly and operational problems.

Resilience Skills for Employability

The workplace can be quite stressful, hence being resilient can give you the benefit of handling stress positively. There is no guarantee that every day would be perfect, so it is a smart thing to be resilient and bounce back from any unexpected mishaps or inevitable circumstances at the workplace.

These employment skills are a combination of those attributes that every recruiter looks for in an applicant and makes one employable.

Importance of Employability Skills

As a professional, you should be flexible in coordinating with team members to meet customers' and clients' needs.

Additionally, you would be required to make decisions, resolve issues, and find suitable solutions in various situations in the workplace.

To fulfill such expectations, you ought to be skilled in areas where you need to exhibit skills such as communication, leadership, resilience, and more that come under employability skills.

For example, if a company needs a software developer, then the recruiter would look for someone skilled in different coding languages, data structures, and algorithms.

Now, along with the mentioned technical skills, one needs to possess employability skills such as teamwork, communication, strategic thinking, etc. to coordinate with team members and complete the task at hand.

Therefore, it is very important for every professional to possess employability skills, whether you are seeking a job or you are already employed to grow in your career.

Also Read: What to add to your resume skills section?

How to Showcase Your Employability Skills

There are different ways to showcase your employability skills and likewise, you need to know how, when, and where to showcase them.

If you are looking for a job, then you should draft a resume that shows your employment skills, but if you are already employed, you need to display them through your work.

Employability Skills on Resume

As a job seeker, you need to showcase your resume skills that can present you as an employable applicant to the recruiters.

If you are applying for a data scientist job, you need to draft a data scientist resume that showcases your understanding of programming languages and tools namely - Python, SAS, SQL, Tableau, PowerBI, etc. along with employability skills such as team coordination, leadership, and issue resolution.

Displaying your technical skills is a must, and adding the soft skills mentioned above can enhance your chances of being employed for any job profile.

If you are applying for a technical job profile such as that of an AWS developer, then you need to draft an AWS resume with two separate sections for displaying your hard skills and soft skills.

In the hard skills section, list all your technical skills, as shown in the given snapshot:

And in the soft skills section, add all those skills that highlight your ability to execute the assigned task with ease by coordinating with team members and resolving issues whenever required.

Look at the example to get a clear understanding of how you can list your employability skills with other soft skills:

From this snapshot, we can see how one can add employability skills on a resume around deployment, management, and coordination. that helps in creating a productive work environment.

Doing so can give you an upper hand during job applications and help you get past the employability skills assessment of recruiters.

Also Read: What Skills to Put on a Resume

Employability Skills in the Workplace

If you are a professional who is already employed, you have the chance to showcase your skills and build a good rapport with your team and employers.

The benefit of doing so lies in the fact that when the time comes for you to get promoted or you need to change jobs, these skills would help you make a positive impression on your current or next employers.

For instance, if you are a proactive team leader and maintain strong communication with your team, then you can demonstrate that in your current work and highlight the same in your resume for the next job.

A web developer who is an expert in the web development life cycle while efficiently collaborating with team members to enhance the websites of the organization and clients can get a higher advantage of a promotion.

Just possessing technical skills is not enough to climb the career ladder. You need to be able to demonstrate your potential through employability skills that shed light on your efficiency as a competent professional.

Ways to Improve Your Employability Skills

To be considered as the most suitable applicant for a job, you need to be able to communicate the same to the recruiters.

The skills you possess can help you stand out and intrigue the recruiters during the employability skills assessment.

You can also bag higher ranking or earning roles and pave the way for greater growth in your career.

Given below are some tips on how to improve employability skills:

• Education: Taking up any educational employability skills course, certifications, employability skills training, or getting a suitable degree can boost your skills.
• Internships: Get hands-on experience by signing up as an intern in any reputed or reliable organization that can help you enhance your employability skills.
• Volunteering Workshops: Sign up for volunteering workshops that give you an insight into strategic planning, management, or any related area.
• Communicate: Enhance your communication skills by reaching out to others through various sources, such as social media, social events, or community gatherings.

These are some common ways through which you can build your employability skills and establish a strong identity amongst peers, society, or any organization.

Also Read: The Top Interview Tips to Help You Impress the Interviewers

Key Takeaways

• To be considered as an employable applicant, you need to curate a resume that showcases both technical and employability skills.
• Understand what is employability to have a clear insight into what all employability skills to focus on during job applications.
• Showcase employability skills in the workplace through communication, reliability, and strategic thinking if you are currently working to validate your efficiency in executing your tasks.
• Build your career on a solid foundation that enhances both your technical and soft skills.
• Sign up for courses and training that help you polish your employability skills.

Make the best use of Hirations 360-Degree Career Platform, which has 24/7 chat support that can guide you through the entire resume-building process.

You can also write to us at support@hiration.com for any career-related queries.