Digital Marketing

11 employability skills organizations today look for when hiring

Getting hired by TOP ORGANIZATIONS for most desired SKILL SETS

Over the past seven years, as a digital agency, we have ourselves seen digital grow and evolve at a blindingly rapid pace. 

Organization’s today, Multinational corporations across industries and around the globe are facing a dearth of the “RIGHT SET OF SKILLS” Or the “Relevant CORE Employability Skills” which they feel are missing across areas of specialization.

So we asked a lot of companies, organizations, checked out their listings online, met corporate professionals across industries and asked them: “When you hire people what are you looking for today? What set of employability skills do you really need to help you ensure you have hired the best candidate possible?“

Here are 11 skills these corporate professionals shared as the “TOP Priority Checklist for Candidates to get their DREAM JOBS”

1. 360 degree thinking:Develop your hindsight, foresight and insight in way that will allow you to ask the right questions and get the right answers at the most relevant time.
2. Cultural competency: Cultural competency and proficiency is simply put the skills and a positive attitude which will enable you to work well with, respond effectively to, and be supportive of people in cross-cultural settings.  Today, the world has shrunk into a global village. So as an employee of a prestigious organization, you need to be aware of problems, issues, cultural differences, do’s and do not across countries. For eg. learning about case studies in your field of work will give you a boost in terms of your ability to handle sudden problems and pressures at work. But today, you can no longer afford to limit the CASE STUDY based learning to only your country. You need to have a diversified learning process that helps you understand how to deal with problems across industries and countries.
3. Empathy – Empathy towards customers while designing strategies. In other words, ensuring the power quote ~ “Brands today have a role much more responsible than ever before, i.e. to connect with the customer within“
4. Communication: Written and spoken: Today you need to be confident while connecting and engaging with teams internally, peers, colleagues, subordinates, team members, superiors, prospects, customers etc. It not only reflects your level of know-how but also in many ways speaks a lot about the brand or the organization you represent.
5. Teamwork: It does not matter how brilliantly unique or amazingly creative & talented you are. Organizations are about being a team player. You need to be able to work with teams and take ownership when necessary and responsibility when required.
6. Problem solving: The ability to cope with unexpected problems are a core skill set. But with the ever changing world of technology today wherein the power of becoming a BRAND AMBASSADOR almost rests with every other consumer, brands today have very little control over what is said. Handling problems that arise out of the blue and providing an impromptu solution on the spot is a core skill today.
7. Initiative: Nothing will work unless you do. Self-initiatives are core in terms of employability and skill sets today. In fact, organizations give you a plus point in terms of skills if you have a go-getter or an entrepreneurial mind-set to approaching problems and coming up with solutions.
8. Analytics: You might enjoy working with numbers or you might not. But that does not really configure as an option anymore. You need to be able to decipher analytics and metrics to some extent irrespective of the field you are in today to help you understand what are customers online really asking for or expecting you to deliver. You don’t need to be a master of analytics, but you need to at least know “how to interpret the available data”.
9. Learning: Learning is a continuous process. Today organizations spend literally millions of dollars to ensure employee skill development, employee engagement, employee satisfaction,employee growth, employee learning etc to help them in two ways. Firstly, it reiterates to them that they are serious about investing in you as a valuable asset to the organization and at the same time, help them grow further without having to depend on third party agencies or consultation by helping their own employees take charge of the new wave in their field of expertise.
10. Technology: Understanding and learning about technology skills was listed across every organization and corporate professional we spoke to. This was common across jobs, skill sets, field of work, industry, location, etc. Learning and understanding practical application of using digital skills was the top priority among organizations today. In fact, most of them listed that learning digital skills like digital marketing, social media analytics, pay per click campaigns, social media marketing, email marketing, viral marketing, content marketing, blogging like a professional etc were among the most desired skill sets irrespective of which field you were in. For eg. Digital skill sets such as blogging etc were regarded to be among the top bonus skills that gave an edge to job seekers today when compared to their peers across industries like FMCG, FINANCE, BANKING, HOSPITALITY, INDUSTRIAL, INFRASTRUCTURE, REAL ESTATE, EDU-TECH,EDUCATION,TECHNOLOGY PRODUCTS,CREATIVE,ADVERTISING & MEDIA, AUTOMOBILES, TELECOM,RETAIL,LIFESTYLE, HEALTH & WELLNESS, EVENT MANAGEMENT and of course PUBLICATION too. So as a job seeker, whether you are fresh out of an Engineering college or a Management institute or across other fields of specialization, you need to make sure that you have digital skill sets that make you STAND OUT of the crowd coming with the same background, certification and other skills such as yours. It’s time to learn digital marketing and the time is right NOW!
11. Practical: Today employers are not merely looking for certificates or certifications. In fact, lot of them are publicly stating today that majority of the professionals are untrainable. For eg. Capgemini India CEO says 65% of IT employees not re-trainable. So if you as a job seeker today showcase PRACTICAL know-how on how to use digital skill sets along with your credentials, education etc you without a doubt stand tall and distinct among thousands of other applicants who lack these practical skill sets. So its not about watching a video that is live, rather hands-on training learning digital is a must today from professionals who are regarded as the most influential digital marketing leaders or the best digital marketing professional today, who have a credential that backs up their know-how, practical application, understanding in the field of technology integrated marketing and management and who are working across industries and countries so as to be able to give you the wide perspective in terms of handling global level competencies irrespective of which Multinational Fortune 500 company you successfully end up working for. So corporate training from the best in the industry especially in the field of digital marketing is core today.

Reach me using this Quick contact form link – Click here

Have an amazing day ahead.

Be Well

Ananth V

Let’s Connect – Facebook – Twitter – LinkedIn – Social Media Book

Top posts this week:

• SPEAKER Ananth V On Digital STRATEGY at – BBC KNOWLEDGE National Digital Marketing Awards TAJ
• PODCAST – Omnichannel Digital Marketing Strategy on Soundcloud
• Digital strategy to empower your digital marketing ecommerce
• Leadership with analytics, Digital marketing consultation at Bangalore and Hyderabad
• Profits, Products, People, Passion: the Entrepreneurship Guide
• Behind every click there is a consumer goal
• Top Digital Marketing Trends for 2017

Top embeds this week:

Live Speaker at "BBC Knowledge" @BBC National DigitalMarketing Awards @TajLandsEnd #DigitalMarketing #DigitalTransformation #digitalstrategy pic.twitter.com/U2BlG5tr02

— Ananth V (@AnanthV9) February 13, 2017