Be Career Ready!
What Employers Want
Below are the 8 top skills employers are looking for today.
Leadership
Recognize and capitalize on personal and team strengths to achieve organizational goals. Use interpersonal skills to coach and develop others.
Examples:
- Inspire, persuade, and motivate self and others under a shared vision.
- Seek out and leverage diverse resources and feedback from others to inform direction.
- Use innovative thinking to go beyond traditional methods.
- Serve as a role model to others by approaching tasks with confidence and a positive attitude.
- Motivate and inspire others by encouraging them and by building mutual trust.
- Plan, initiate, manage, complete, and evaluate projects.
Technology
Understand and leverage technologies ethically to enhance efficiencies, complete tasks, and accomplish goals.
Examples:
- Navigate change and be open to learning new technologies.
- Use technology to improve efficiency and productivity of their work.
- Identify appropriate technology for completing specific tasks.
- Manage technology to integrate information to support relevant, effective, and timely decision-making.
- Quickly adapt to new or unfamiliar technologies.
- Manipulate information, construct ideas, and use technology to achieve strategic goals.
Teamwork
Build and maintain collaborative relationships to work effectively toward common goals, while appreciating diverse viewpoints and shared responsibilities.
Examples:
- Listen carefully to others, taking time to understand and ask appropriate questions without interrupting.
- Effectively manage conflict, interact with and respect diverse personalities, and meet ambiguity with resilience.
- Be accountable for individual and team responsibilities and deliverables.
- Employ personal strengths, knowledge, and talents to complement those of others.
- Exercise the ability to compromise and be agile.
- Collaborate with others to achieve common goals.
- Build strong, positive working relationships with supervisor and team members/coworkers.
Critical Thinking
Identify and respond to needs based upon an understanding of situational context and logical analysis of relevant information.
Examples:
- Make decisions and solve problems using sound, inclusive reasoning and judgment.
- Gather and analyze information from a diverse set of sources and individuals to fully understand a problem.
- Proactively anticipate needs and prioritize action steps.
- Accurately summarize and interpret data with an awareness of personal biases that may impact outcomes.
- Effectively communicate actions and rationale, recognizing the diverse perspectives and lived experiences of stakeholders.
- Multi-task well in a fast-paced environment.
Professionalism
Knowing work environments differ greatly, understand and demonstrate effective work habits, and act in the interest of the larger community and workplace.
Examples
- Act equitably with integrity and accountability to self, others, and the organization.
- Maintain a positive personal brand in alignment with organization and personal career values.
- Be present and prepared.
- Demonstrate dependability (e.g., report consistently for work or meetings).
- Manage time and workload effectively.
- Prioritize and complete tasks to accomplish organizational goals.
- Consistently meet or exceed goals and expectations.
- Have an attention to detail, resulting in few if any errors in their work.• Show a high level of dedication toward doing a good job
Communication
Clearly and effectively exchange information, ideas, facts, and perspectives with persons inside and outside of an organization.
Examples:
- Understand the importance of and demonstrate verbal, written, and non-verbal/body language, abilities.
- Employ active listening, persuasion, and influencing skills.
- Communicate in a clear and organized manner so that others can effectively understand.
- Frame communication with respect to diversity of learning styles, varied individual communication abilities, and cultural differences.
- Ask appropriate questions for specific information from supervisors, specialists, and others.
- Promptly inform relevant others when needing guidance with assigned tasks.
Equity & Inclusion
Demonstrate the awareness, attitude, knowledge, and skills required to equitably engage and include people from different local and global cultures.
Examples:
- Solicit and use feedback from multiple cultural perspectives to make inclusive and equity-minded decisions.
- Actively contribute to inclusive and equitable practices, justice, and empowerment for all.
- Seek global cross-cultural interactions and experiences that enhance one’s understanding of people from different demographic groups and that leads to personal growth.
- Keep an open mind to diverse ideas and new ways of thinking.
- Demonstrate flexibility by adapting to diverse environments.
Self-Development
Proactively develop oneself and one’s career through continual personal and professional learning, awareness of one’s strengths and weaknesses, navigation of career opportunities, and networking to build relationships within and without one’s organization.
Examples
- Show an awareness of own strengths and areas for development.
- Identify areas for continual growth while pursuing and applying feedback.
- Develop plans and goals for one’s future career.
- Professionally advocate for oneself and others.
- Display curiosity; seek out opportunities to learn.
- Assume duties or positions that will help one progress professionally.• Establish, maintain, and/or leverage relationships with people who can help one professionally.
- Seek and embrace development opportunities.
- Voluntarily participate in further education, training, or other events to support one’s career.
Where to Start
Start by thinking about the competencies that are of most interest to you. Then think about any experiences, academic, work, or otherwise, that you may have had that enhanced or built these skills. Consider starting a ‘skills portfolio.’ When you complete an activity that provides tangible evidence of any of these skills, make note of it in your portfolio.
Academics: Accept responsibility for an important component of a class project or offer to be the spokesperson for a small group project. Join a club where you can collaborate with peers on an initiative. Offer tutoring in a subject in which you excel. Continuing education courses can provide an additional perspective.
Experiential Learning: It can be anything from a service-learning project to a paid internship. Seek challenges to showcase your skills. Document examples of where you collaborated, motivated, solved a problem, or used public speaking, leadership, persuasion, writing, time management or creative skills. How did these skills lead to the success of the project? How did you learn from others?
Volunteer: Provide leadership to children, organize a fundraiser, volunteer at a hospital, participate in a community service day, etc. Participate in something that may be out of your “comfort zone.”
Ask CCM’s Career Services: Learn how to identify and communicate your skills to employers.
Office Hours and Location
Student Community Center, SCC 118
973-328-5245
career-services@ccm.edu
Monday: | 8:30 AM – 6:30 PM |
Tuesday: | 8:30 AM – 4:30 PM |
Wednesday: | 8:30 AM – 4:30 PM |
Thursday: | 8:30 AM – 6:30 PM |
Friday: | 8:30 AM – 4:30 PM |