The top skills looked for in today’s candidates

At Talent Ticker, we’re not only interested in providing you with the most current and predictive business development intel. We can also help you connect with the best candidates and hiring managers to really streamline your workflow and save you hours of research time.

This week we’ve examined a whole host of live vacancies and identified the most searched-for skills. See how many of your candidates are ticking all these boxes – you’re onto a sure thing if they’ve got them all!

1. Critical thinking and decision making – any employee will need to be able to examine a situation or document, form their own ideas, test their theories, and observe results before drawing their conclusions. It’s an essential skill that will help them with problem-solving scenarios too.
2. Learning and adaptability – continued learning is important for most employers. Hiring managers are not only looking to hire someone who will learn about their new job and company quickly. A hunger to learn shows a keen mind, an individual who wants to better themselves and grow, someone who will keep pushing hard for their company and will generate great ideas.

3. Teamwork – whether your candidate is a Marketing Manager, a Front-End Developer, or a Chief Human Resources Officer, they will all need good teamwork skills. Being part of a company means being part of something bigger than the individual. Make sure your candidate can display their ability to work independently and as part of a bigger team.

4. Strong communication – strong communications skills, both written and oral, appears on almost all job descriptions. Whether or not your candidate will be client-facing, an employer needs to know that their team can communicate issues quickly and clearly, can explain their work, or can be an active participant in a group project or team environment.

5. Leadership – whether your candidate is looking to move into a leadership role or not, this is a skill all employers are looking for on some level. Many leadership skills derive from enthusiasm and passion. By hiring individuals whose excitement and dedication is palpable, productivity and workflow will spread across team. A calm and reliable presence in the team will also encourage level-headedness in stressful situations, too.

6. Self-organisation – no employer hires with the intention of babysitting, so it’s essential that your candidate knows how to manage their own workload and hold themselves accountable. Being able to prioritise, work to deadlines, and stay on track with (and on top of) a task is central to this.

7. Confidence – your candidate will need to strike a balance on this one. Employers are looking for someone who can be trusted to get on with a job, but who is also self-aware enough to know when they need to ask for help. Arrogance, however, is where the balance tips. Make sure your candidate can project confidence while also remaining grounded.

8. Ability to work under pressure – the corporate world is a fast-paced place these days. With fears of recession, it’s important that the workplace is a well-oiled machine. An employer wants to know that your candidate will be able to handle the responsibility and pressure of working in this kind of environment. Mental resilience will be important for them to demonstrate at interview.

9. Analytical mindset – in most lines of work, accuracy is everything, but we’re human and mistakes are made. Employers looking for an analytical mindset are trying to identify candidates who can recognise mistakes and can correct them, but also who can spot the areas in which potential mistakes can be made too. By identifying issues ahead of time, faults can be avoided, saving time, money, and reputation.

10. Time management – employers are looking for people who can set themselves their own timeframes to get work done in, who can provide effective and efficient working plans – and follow through on them. The workplace is a busy place, and the top candidates are expected to deliver and plan their workloads in the most efficient manner without needing to be micro-managed.

What next?

Whether you’re helping your candidate polish their CV, or prepping them for interview, these are the skills employers are looking for right now that your candidate will want to highlight. Using Talent Ticker will help you identify some great opportunities for your candidates or help you spec some more candidates to add to your roster, too. With our database of 650 million real-time contact profiles, outreach becomes easy and will help you on the way to more productive conversations.

Don’t forget, with the Talent Ticker Chrome Extension you can gather key insights, vacancies, and valuable contact data directly from company websites and LinkedIn profiles. You can also connect with prospects or candidates directly through the plugin and bypass your InMail and connection request limits.

Find out what else we can do

Interested in seeing how you can get lists like these delivered to your inbox, daily? Book a quick 15-minute call with our team to see how you can spend less time doing business development and get more time to build stronger relationships with candidates and customers.

We’ll even pass along some free leads for your time. Book your demo today.