The Top Skills Employers Are Looking For In 2023

If you’re not fully satisfied with your current role, you may feel a sense of urgency to find a new job before market conditions change. The good news? While the job market may be sending mixed signals, it’s still a largely candidate-driven market.

While the number of open positions currently outpaces the supply of qualified candidates, this doesn’t mean you can take a laid-back approach to job searching! Many job seekers in today’s market are known for their talent and skill level, so how do you stand out from the pack?

To get your resume noticed, ace an interview, and land a job, you’ll want to ensure you’re showing that you possess the top skills employers look for. To prove you’re the right candidate for the role, you’ll want to demonstrate the following skills:

Problem-solving + critical thinking

Since challenges can arise at any time, an employer will want to gain an understanding of your problem-solving and critical thinking skills. To do this on your resume, go beyond simply listing these skills. Instead, go into more detail with your experiences by documenting problems you’ve solved, things you’ve learned, and results you’ve produced. In an interview, be ready for open-ended questions about how you’ve solved problems or handled conflicts in the workplace. Read also: The STAR Method: How To Ace Behavioral Interview Questions

Understanding of common tech

It’s hard to find a position that doesn’t require some degree of digital literacy in today’s tech-driven age. While this will depend on your industry, here are a few of the top skills employers look for in new hires:

Microsoft Office: Word, PowerPoint, Excel
Social media: Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter
Web and coding: HTML, JavaScript, CMS

Remote work skills

Job requirements are shifting to support remote work. As a result, proficiency in various collaboration tools is among the top skills employers are looking for today. This includes, but is not limited to:

Communication + collaboration tools: Slack, Microsoft Teams, Office 365, Google Drive
Video meeting software: Zoom, WebEx, GoToMeeting
Project management tools: Asana, Trello, Monday

Adaptability

Adaptability is a critical skill. It means you are flexible, open to change, and able to adjust to changing factors or environments. Adaptable employees are highly valued by employers for a variety of reasons:

They keep them competitive
They’re fast learners
They’re strong decision makers
They’re resourceful

While adaptable employees have always been in high demand, the pandemic has only heightened their importance. Bringing about unpredictable challenges to every business, a company’s ability to adapt became critical to their survival. As a result, employers will look out for close signs you are adaptable throughout the hiring process.

Communication skills

In today’s work environment, communication is crucial for any job. This is especially true when in-person interactions are limited, or you are working at different times or from different locations than your colleagues. As a result, employers closely assess communication skills for new hires. Do you communicate clearly via email? Are you an active listener? Do you practice positive body language? These are all questions they’ll be asking themselves throughout the interview process.

Technical skills from the job description

When applying for a job, it’s also important to show you possess many of the technical skills relevant to the job. To do this, your first step would be to ensure your resume is optimized appropriately with keywords from the job description and that you are able to explain how you used these skills in past roles. This can help your resume show up in searches via various applicant tracking systems and job boards. Once you make it to the interview stages, you’ll want to expand on why your skills and experience makes you the right fit for the role.

Need more insight on new workplace trends? Check out our 2023 Future Of Work Report.