Skills that all graduate employers value

Many recruitment organisations share lists of the top 10 skills graduate recruiters seek. Watch this short video from the graduate jobs website Targetjobs to see one of these lists:

While there are many overlapping skills on each of the lists you’ll find, the three that appear most consistently are:

• Communication
• Problem solving
• Teamwork

In Bright Network’s 2023/24 What do Graduates Want? Survey, the following data shows the difference in perspective between what students think employers are looking for and what employers say they value most.

• Students were asked: What do you think employers value the most in graduates joining their schemes?
• Employers were asked: What do you value most in graduates joining your scheme?

As you can see – the largest discrepancies are around existing industry experience, with students assuming it would be number one and employers actually putting it at the bottom of their list; and resilience, which comes high on the employers’ list but is found at the bottom of the student selection.

When recruiting new graduates, employers are much more interested in your potential than the context of your previous experience, but they will focus strongly on your interest in their business, so researching them carefully is a useful starting point. You’ll explore how to do that in more detail in Week 2.

When describing the skills employers feel need to be boosted in their new graduate hires, the ISEs Annual Student Development Survey (2024) cites the following as key areas for development:

• Self-motivation/responsibility
• Resilience
• Self-awareness

Increasing your awareness of which skills employers are prioritising, or feel are missing amongst some of their new graduate applicants, allows you to identify and emphasise your relevant experience in those areas when you make applications – boosting your chance of being noticed.

Highlighting the right skills

You can pick up clues about what a particular employer might be looking for from their website, recent job advertisements, social media posts, etc. If you just want to explore the types of skills a particular job role will need, Sarah has some good advice.

‘I’ve spent loads of time googling different jobs, trying to understand more about what they involve, and these are some websites I’ve found really useful. Prospects Job Profiles are written specifically for graduates and they cover lots of aspects of each role, including salary expectations, skills required and day to day responsibilities. If you’re looking for something more personal BBC Bitesize Careers A-Z interviews people about their jobs.’ Sarah, BA Art History

Over to you

Take some time now to think about your best evidence for the three most commonly listed skills – communication, problem solving and teamwork. You might find it useful to also consider resilience, as that scored highly in the employer survey.

Use a notebook or app to list occasions when you’ve clearly demonstrated that skill as this will be useful to refer back to when making future job applications. Your examples might come from work experience, volunteering, home life, hobbies or interests.