Whether you’re pursuing a career in finance or the technology sector, a good CV is a must-have tool for job seekers, which will help you get your foot in the door when putting yourself for job roles. Effectively, this document summarises yourself and will tell employers exactly what they need to know about your skills, education, and experience without meeting you face-to-face.
Due to this, it is essential that you fill out each section of your CV to the best of your knowledge so that you can effectively sell yourself to your prospective employers and give them no reason to turn you away. This includes the list of skills at the bottom of your CV, which may seem like a chore to fill out; however, its role is much more vital than you might think, especially if you want a job sharpish.
Since 76% of employers use skills-based hiring processes to determine which new talent makes its way through their doors, choosing which skills to highlight on your CV is more important than ever. But with these skills constantly changing, how do you know which ones are worth showcasing? To help you, we outline several of the most in-demand skills employers look for on a CV below:
Active Listening Skills
You don’t have to be an entrepreneur to know that communication skills are among employees’ most sought-after soft skills. However, often overlooked are active listening skills which play a massive role in becoming a successful communicator in both professional and personal settings.
Ultimately, prospective employers want employees who can think for themselves and complete tasks without being pestered; they don’t want employees who will forget what they said shortly after saying it or pretend to listen but fail to digest any information.
Employees with active listening skills can focus all their attention on a speaker, no matter what might be happening around them, take in what they’re saying, and formulate a cohesive, knowledgeable response.
Some of the most successful ways of demonstrating these skills are by asking questions, using hand gestures that illustrate their point, maintaining eye contact with the speaker, taking notes, completing tasks on time, and much more.
Practising active listening skills will make you look more appealing to prospective employers as it will show that you are interested in any tasks they might set you and make you appear like a more all-rounded employee.
Tech Skills
In our digital age, most of the most challenging problems modern businesses face are technical. No matter which industry you’re looking at entering, your employer will expect you to have a range of technical skills to complete actions, tasks, and processes using computational and physical technology. However, the acquisition of these technical skills is more accessible to obtain for some than others, as not everybody is as technically inclined as others.
Fortunately, if you’re not so tech-savvy, you can find various educational courses, training sessions, and hands-on learning opportunities to help you acquire all the tech skills you might need since tech skills are now required for future job seekers. Some of the most in-demand tech skills that will look favourably on your CV are as follows:
- Social Media Skills
- Presentation Skills
- Spreadsheeting
- Word Processing
- Touch Typing
- Keyboard Shortcuts, and much more.
Depending on which industry you’re looking at entering, you might find that the list of tech skills you need might fluctuate depending on the job role you’re submitting your CV for review. However, if there is one tech skill that is universal across job roles, it is emailing. Being the number one communication method used across businesses, being proficient in drafting emails, sending them, creating an email signature, attaching compressed PDFs etc., is fundamental for most employees.
Unlike some of the other tech skills on this list, you can find online tools from providers like PDF Tools to assist you with e-signing, merging, converting, and compressing any PDFs within your emails. Consider visiting their website to browse the complete list of their PDF tools and see how they could help develop tech skills that’ll look appealing on your CV.
Adaptability Skills
In today’s business world, organisations must constantly evolve to stay ahead of their competitors, stay on top of the latest business trends, and much more. Due to this, any talent that businesses attract must also have adaptability skills so that they’re able to cope with unforeseen circumstances and overcome/adapt to any changes that might happen in the workplace.
Adaptability makes it easier for employees to take on new responsibilities or roles outside their comfort zone without a long adjustment period. Whether this is dealing with a new team member, implementing new policies, using new pieces of tech, a change in your work environment, etc., there are tons of factors that could change when you’re at work which is why being able to adapt to them is such an attractive skill for employers.
There are several ways that you can demonstrate your adaptability skills within your CV, with some of the following being the most popular:
- Taking risks.
- Giving your opinion on current processes and suggesting new ways to improve them.
- Taking advantage of any training opportunities.
- Approaching any changes with positivity.
- Learning from your mistakes.
- Putting forward alternative solutions to common problems.
- Forming good relationships with other staff members.
- Asking for help from people in positions of authority when needed, and many more.
Effective Leadership Skills
Even if you have no intention of applying for a management role, employers still want to see effective leadership skills listed on your CV. Although it might seem that leadership is a trait solely assigned to those in authoritative positions, the ability to motivate others and drive them towards a common goal is still widely sought-after.
Not only is it essential for potential employees to demonstrate that they can lead others, but employers also want to see that they can manage their own time effectively so that they’re reassured that they’ll be able to handle all tasks thrown at them and deliver quick turnarounds.
You can demonstrate this to employers even if you haven’t had the chance to excel in a managerial role. For instance, cast your mind back to a time at university or at your previous job when you had to take control of a situation and write a quick synopsis on your CV, including what happened after you took control.
Showing that you can deal with conflicts as they arise and handle people is a desirable skill for employers and certainly not one to be overlooked as it demonstrates that the employee is capable of thinking for themselves and won’t use up staff members’ valuable time.
Customer Service Skills
Most businesses understand that it doesn’t matter how revolutionary their products or services are; if their customer service is less-than-satisfactory, attracting and retaining customers will be a continuous battle. Ultimately, customer service is one of the most sought-after skills potential employers will look for on applicants’ CVs because it directly correlates between their products/services and their consumers.
For businesses with a good customer service team, retaining their customer base, generating referrals, preaching your company values, getting your brand out there, boosting employee retention, and many more benefits become easier. To demonstrate your customer services abilities on your CV, you’ll need to detail when you’ve demonstrated empathy, problem-solving skills, active listening, reliability, etc., showing your prospective employer that you’re a worthy team member.
