Experience is something we all worry about.
Do I have enough experience for this job?
Without experience, how do I GET experience?
The good news is that you can get experience by simply living your life as normal. Engaging with other people, completing your university work to a strict deadline, or even just taking an interest in things, it all counts! You can really win over an employer by listing the skills you have – from both work and life experiences.
Now that it’s graduation season, here at Beam we thought we’d list 10 top skills employers want to see on your resume….
1.Time Management
Time Management is super important in the workplace. Everyone has deadlines, and we’ll usually be expected to hit KPI’s, or sales targets, or so on. The best way to hit those targets? Make the most of the time you’re given!
Having excellent Time Management skills is something you can learn in school, college or university. Think about every deadline you’ve smashed, every lecture you’ve turned up to on time, or whenever you’ve said you’ll meet friends in the pub at 6pm and you’re 10 minutes early.
If you’re good at meeting Uni deadlines, you’ll probably be great at hitting targets in a workplace. Focus on getting that across on your CV, and explain the similarities of researching, and executing a plan in time for a major deadline in both environments.
2. Collaborative Skills
Collaboration is an important foundation of the workplace. If you go on LinkedIn, you’ll see it’s all about networking and discussing crucial topics.
Obviously, you don’t need to learn this in an office. You could have collaborated in school, university or even in your personal life such as joining a band or taking part in a group fundraiser. Anything counts and you should always include these skills on your CV!
3. Project Management
This is a great skill to have, and it’s bound to be put to good use at some point in your career. It’s also great for career growth and comes in handy when your manager asks you to manage your own projects.
Think back to a time you’ve had to manage a project. Was it at school or on a work placement? Whenever the time, be sure to discuss it during interviews.
4. Leadership
A lot of people see leadership as a really scary thing – but you’ve got a lot more experience in Leadership than you think.
Have you taken the lead on a charity or school event? Were you ever the moderator at sports day? Have you ever looked after younger siblings?
We all have experience of leadership somewhere in our lives, and employers like this for many reasons, such as your potential career progression. If you’re already showing leadership skills in a job role early on, this puts you in an excellent position moving forward.
5. Analytical Skills
Being analytical helps you capture important data and really hone-in on what works, and – more importantly – what doesn’t work. It’s the perfect way to see patterns and trends. This might be something you’ve done within your own coursework or independent projects.
You can find courses on analytical skills here.
6. Teamwork
Being a team player in business is important, and you’ll need to show potential employers that you can pull it off, but also work independently to get your side of the job done.
We’ve all needed to team together at some point in life. Think of Sports Day, or any hobbies or projects you run, any team building classes you’ve taken. Deep down, we all have the Teamwork gene in us!
7. Open-Mindedness
Every company is different, but most will want to try something new once in a while. With this, they need someone who’s on board for the ride – open to all suggestions and willing to try something completely new.
If you show you’re up for a challenge and ready to be honest when things aren’t working – employers will love this.
8. Organisation Skills
This one goes without saying, and most of us have heard ‘you need to be more organised’ far too often growing up.
But organisation does help. It’s a massive part of getting literally anything done, and – more importantly – done on time.
You’re probably much more organised than you think, but if you still lack confidence there are many tips and tricks to be more organised if it’s something you feel you need to improve on.
9. Communication Skills
Communication is KEY.
For anything, from discussing contracts with clients, to discussing your tasks with your manager. Without communicating, we’d all be fumbling about, second guessing what people mean and winging it literally all the time.
Whilst sometimes winging it can be a winner – nothing beats good ol’ communication.
Check out LinkedIn’s Communication Course.
10. IT Skills
Most jobs nowadays require some level of IT knowledge, and if you grew up around computers and had IT lessons you probably have heaps of Microsoft Office experience you forget to put on your CV.
It’s definitely worth adding, and it’s something nearly all employers want from a candidate.
Are you a little stiff with your IT skills? Check out some free computer courses here.
We hope this gave you some confidence so you can add these skills to your resume and LinkedIn profile. We’d recommend putting as much information you can into your personal bio, so the employers get to know more about your fabulous skillset!
If you’d like to broaden any of your skills, check out LinkedIn Learning and HubSpot courses and access free programmes that’ll help you upskill.
