Employability Skills

Recruitment advertisements aim to give as good an idea as possible of what sort of people a company is looking for. They often state the standard qualifications required. They may also suggest the sort of calibre of candidate they are looking for with phrases like 'proven achiever' or they may suggest they are looking for vibrant individuals through the images they use in their adverts. Some requirements, however, aren't always made clear.

The following describes the sort of requirements an advertisement may detail:

Motivation and Enthusiasm

Employers know that people will not just be applying for the job they have advertised but they want you to offer reasons why you have chosen to apply to their job advert and what motivates you to want to work for their company over any others.

They also want you to show what you know about their company and what you have to offer them, showing your enthusiasm to work in the area of the company they have to offer.

Team Working

More and more companies are placing an importance on team working. You may be required to work with a multi-disciplinary selection of people and your ability to mould yourself and your skills in order to benefit a team will be important.

Communication

Communication, in particular oral communication' is often very high on an employers list of requirements. An employer wants you to be able to communicate well within your working team and also to their customer, be it internal or eternal. Written communication skills are also important particularly in jobs where you will be required to write reports or communicate via letters to customers.

Flexibility and Adaptability

Your ability to adapt to new situations is very important particularly when considering the pace of change within organisations. Flexibility and adaptability is considered both a personal quality and a skill as not everyone is able to cope with the many changes that may take place within their workplace or to their specific job role. Organisations sometimes need to make changes to their working practices very quickly and your ability to adapt to these changes is very important to an employer.

Ongoing Environment

Jobs for life don't really exist any more and many organisations place a large amount of significance on your drive to develop yourself and your career. This also ties in with your motivation and enthusiasm, along with your ability to adapt to every changing skills and requirements.

Initiative and Proactivity

Whilst employers aren't expecting you to be an expert at everything, they do expect you to be able to think for yourself and perhaps find different and more efficient ways of working. You will already have a certain level of skills to do the job but you also need to show that you are willing and more than able to further develop those skills in order to benefit yourself and the company.