If you’re thinking of switching jobs (or finding one in the first place), then it helps to know which skills hiring managers look for. Once you know these, you’ll never approach the job market in the same way again.
So, what should you prioritize?
Problem-Solving
While it might sound clichéd, offering problem-solving skills is probably the most valuable thing you can do. If you can walk into a company and literally sort it out, then most executives and managers will be willing to pay you anything.
The best way to figure out which problems you should be solving is to ask managers for their pain points. If there’s something getting in the way of their success and you can resolve it, they’re much more likely to take you on.
Teamwork
Related to this, you want to show that you can work together with other people as a team. If you have social skills, that’s another thing that hiring managers want. They want to be surrounded by people who make them feel good while they’re at work. It’s not all about money and performance (as strange as that may sound).
Digital Tool Mastery
If you can also show digital tool mastery, that’s also something that can support your case. The ability to simply slot in and use the tools that the business is already using is a rare skill and something that managers will really appreciate. It means they don’t need to spend six months training you up to a standard that actually earns your wage. You can just walk in and do it immediately.
Offer Practical Skills
Being practical is another way to get your foot in the door. A lot of businesses have people with academic backgrounds, but the pool of people with useful qualifications in the business realm is actually quite limited.
Because of this, it is easier to outcompete other candidates than you might think. For example, if you have forklift instructor training and they don’t, then you can really bring a lot of value, especially to warehouse businesses. You can literally train their entire team and create a new onboarding process for new hires.
Creativity
Creativity is something quite abstract, but it is also something that a lot of hiring managers look for. They want to see people who are capable of inventing the next best thing at their business.
The problem with a lot of hires is employees are stifled. They think that following processes is the way to proceed, but that’s hardly ever the case. What really matters is innovation the target company finds acceptable.
Project Management
Finally, you can make a lot of progress if you have serious project management skills. These allow you to bring everything together and ship it out on time, something that’s incredibly valuable to large organizations.
You can prove these skills if you’ve actively solved pain points for companies in the past. Showing how you fixed these can be among the most powerful things you do in an interview as it demonstrates real competence.