Written by Indeed Editorial Team and published on Indeed Career Guide.
What are employability skills?
Employability skills are transferrable skills that are useful in nearly every job. They involve the development of an expertise, knowledge base or mindset that makes you more attractive to employers. Employability skills are also often referred to as employment skills, soft skills, work-readiness skills or foundational skills. They often improve your performance, minimize errors and promote collaboration with your coworkers, enabling you to perform your role more effectively.
Examples of employability skills
Employers have high regard for employability skills because they are much harder to teach than job-specific skills. Some employable qualities come naturally, while others can be acquired through education, work or daily practice. You may already have some of the key employment skills, but you can work to improve those skills and develop new ones. Here are 10 common employability skills that employers look for:
- Communication
- Teamwork
- Reliability
- Problem-solving
- Organization and planning
- Initiative
- Self-management
- Leadership
- Learning
- Technology
1. Communication
Communication is one of the most important employability skills because it is an essential part of almost any job. The communication process involves five elements: the sender, receiver, message, medium and feedback. When these elements work together, you can deliver and understand messages clearly and efficiently, eliminating unnecessary misunderstandings and errors. Excellent communication skills make you more employable because they can enhance a company’s productivity and efficiency and help prevent the waste of valuable time and resources.
Being an effective communicator involves conveying your thoughts and ideas clearly to achieve certain outcomes, as well as listening to your coworkers’ instructions, ideas and intentions. Depending on the job you want, you may have to be competent in several different types of communication, such as verbal, nonverbal, written and visual. For instance, a customer-facing employee needs to have excellent verbal and nonverbal communication skills.
The best way to improve your communication skills is to communicate as frequently as possible. Some of the activities that can help you develop better communication skills include:
- Communicating on social media
- Joining a local club
- Practicing awareness of your facial expressions and body language
2. Teamwork
Good teamwork skills refer to the ability to work harmoniously with your colleagues to achieve a shared goal. Teamwork skills such as collaboration can increase your hiring chances because you may be able to help a company reach its goals more effectively. These skills can also contribute to a more positive work environment. To become a great team player, you need to be comfortable working with people, take responsibility for your share of work and contribute to team goals.
There are many things you can do to boost your teamwork skills, including:
- Volunteering->Check out CareerHub for volunteer opportunities!
- Working with others in a local organization
- Joining a sports team
3. Reliability
Reliability makes you more employable because it promotes trust between you and your employer. You are a reliable employee if you can consistently complete your tasks on time, deliver quality work and make minimal mistakes. You must also be able to respond to inquiries and emails promptly and only make promises you can keep.
You can become more reliable by:
- Consistently meeting or exceeding your expected levels of work performance
- Creating schedules for your daily tasks and maintaining them
- Acknowledging your mistakes and making a conscious effort to avoid them in the future
4. Problem-solving
Problem-solving involves identifying key issues and their implications, having a clear understanding of problems and determining the most effective solutions. For more complex problems, you need to know how to divide them into smaller parts that are easier to understand and more manageable.
Problem-solving skills can set you apart from other job candidates because they can help your potential employer maintain an efficient operational process and achieve objectives more effectively. If you are a good problem-solver, you can play an important role in troubleshooting issues, which can enable your team to overcome obstacles and solve complex problems. Depending on the position you are applying for, you may need a certain set of sub-skills to solve problems effectively, including research, analysis and decision-making.
You can become a better problem-solver by:
- Undertaking research assignments and projects
- Participating in brainstorming sessions
- Regularly developing your skills by solving puzzles and playing games
5. Organization and planning
Being able to organize and plan effectively is important because it helps you and your employer save time, effort and money by improving workflow. It ensures that assignments and projects are completed on time and prevents confusion and errors that can be costly to the company.
To be a good organizer and planner, you should be able to identify tasks, prioritize them, create schedules for them and complete them on time. If you are in a leadership position, you need to develop systematic processes for achieving goals and delegating tasks appropriately.
You can develop organizational and planning skills by:
- Developing a timetable for your daily activities
- Organizing an event
- Writing down your tasks and activities in a planner
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