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3 Employability Skills ALL New Graduates Need

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Chloe Harris
3 Employability Skills ALL New Graduates Need

Are you ready to enter the job market?

As the employment landscape shifts rapidly and competition for every job grows more challenging, it's more important than ever before for graduates to master key employability skills. 

Possessing these employability skills can be the difference between landing your dream job and watching it slip away.

The examples given here are universally applicable in practically every industry; and mastering them will do a great deal to help you excel in your career. 

1) Time Management  

Time management is an incredibly useful skill in any profession. You've no doubt heard the expression 'time is money'. In the professional arena, it's often literally true. 

If you know how to use your time wisely, you can make sure that your working hours are as productive as possible. 

Employers and managers are on a sharp lookout for graduates who excel at being productive. Knowing how to manage your time makes you more productive in all the work you do, and it's easy to draw a direct line from your own increased productivity to that of the larger organisation. 

The experts from Max Funding recommend treating time-management the same when at work as you would if you were looking to secure a loan. They explain “A good way to build strong time-management habits is to always approach your work, as if it was a home loan, in terms of meeting goals. Rank the tasks you need to complete to reach your goal according to their importance and focus your attention where it will have the most impact. Any effort sent the wrong way will hold you back.”  

2) Independent Research Skills  

In today's workplace, most employees are effectively left to sink or swim when it comes to refining professional skills and developing their knowledge base. 

Take the initiative and do everything you can to learn more about your industry and the way it is evolving. Cultivating this sort of knowledge sends a clear signal to employers and managers that you are serious about making an effective contribution with your work. 

Once again, by demonstrating the ability and initiative to learn on your own, you show yourself to be a more valuable member of your organisation. 

Subscribe to trade publications that are relevant to your industry, attend networking events, and follow key thought leaders in your field on social media. 

3) People Skills And Teamwork 

Every employer wants to hire employees who are technically skilled and productive. But most good employers also understand that all the skills in the world cannot make an employee an effective member of their team if he or she cannot collaborate with others. 

Graduates need to make it clear that they will always be capable and eager to contribute to a team effort. 

Modern recruiters heavily emphasize the idea of 'culture fit' when discussing their hiring process. In many cases, the ability to 'gel' with the organisation's existing members is ranked equal to or even ahead of the potential hire's technical skills. 

This is an excellent opportunity for graduates, as good people skills can be acquired quickly and early on in your career while technical skills take years to develop. 

According to NLP professional Luke Mollica, to improve your people skills, take an interest in your co-workers. He says “Make an effort to share professional ideas with them. Be proactive about helping with group projects to unlock the full benefits of teamwork.” 

Are you ready to land your dream job?

Working on the skills described above can help graduates transition out of the academic sphere and into the professional world more smoothly.  

If you're an employer looking for a young worker who has these broadly-applicable skills, why not consider hosting an intern? 

Or, if you’re a recent graduate looking to launch yourself into the job space, why not consider a program to move from graduate to full-time employee?

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Chloe Harris
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