Top 5 essential skills employers are looking in current job market

The pandemic has shifted a major sector of the workforce in ways we hadn’t anticipated. Businesses are facing difficult decisions about how to adapt and survive this seismic shift, and hiring practices have changed overnight. As we move to a highly competitive job market post Covid19, it is important to be proactive in re-skilling ourselves in an uncertain world.

Here are the top five skills that will help you stand out from the rest:

Although it is important to have technical skills and good background experience, it is also important to be mentally agile. Training your mind to be active, learn quickly, absorb new technology, people, process and ideas. Many a times we have seen people very resistive to any new change in the organisation, this results in a mental block and built-up resistance in turn affective mental health and productivity of an individual. One of the key considerations an employer will make during hiring process and employee performance evaluation will be to review if they fit into the current team and how well they integrate. Hence its important to be mentally agile and have a high level of emotional intelligence. There are many ways of being mentally agile, some include speaking to your line managers and HR, attending webinars and networking events to help you better understand developments in market and make informed decisions. A candidate who has a fluidic mindset who never gives up and always seeks new opportunities will be able to survive during crisis or layovers.

Acquiring new skill sets in a remote, socially distant capacity could make a dramatic difference in post-pandemic abilities to return to work or start a new career. Focus on new skills, new leadership styles and new ways to work in order to stay competitive. Gain digital skills to optimise company’s virtual presence. Analytical skills is of utmost priority post Covid19 crisis. As we know many companies are facing recession and are moving towards economic downturn. At such situations analytical and critical thinking is a must.

Along with being mentally agile, candidates with strong soft skills such as curiosity, problem solving, leadership skills, adaptiveness, solidarity, resilience, persistence and client centric approach are high in demand among employers. Soft skills are mainly the reason for an employer decision making on promotions, new hiring’s and also layoffs. Regardless of which role you are applying, it is important to have atleast some of the soft skills.

As many organisations and government institutes are adapting to changing digital landscape, there is an increased demand for candidates with digital skills such as digital marketing, basic data analytics, coding, website administration, programming and database management are now highly desirable, and basic computer skills are simply expected by employers. With plenty of webinars, free online courses and youtube guides it is now easy to learn basic fundamentals to amp up your resume and have your cv stand out. Having digital skills in your resume will only have you position yourself as a future-proofed candidate among employers. Overall we can summarise that learning new digital skills will be an opportunity for people of all ages – not just young people – to jump into a new sector or to get a better job in their current role

This is one of the most talked about skill in today’s era, where employers expect candidates to think in an organised and rational manner. What we mean is conditioning your mindset with a deeper kind of thinking, where you question the situation, analyse and evaluate, come up with possible solutions and to remain active in innovating new ideas that helps business to grow.

Inorder to arrive at actionable results and improve overall performance, it is important that you begin with basic questions such as what, why, when and how? The answers to these questions should be authenticated by consultation to line manager or senior leaders and implement necessary action. This results in companies to value employees who know how to think critically.