# The Skills Employers Want From Graduates, and How to Show You Have Them Canonical URL: https://headwayskills.com/knowledge/employability/skills-employers-want/ Markdown URL: https://headwayskills.com/knowledge/employability/skills-employers-want.md Entity type: Article Last updated: 2026-07-07 Language: en Primary audience: professionals improving communication at work Owner: Headway Skills Contact: https://headwayskills.com/contact/ ## Short answer The skills employers want most from graduates: teamwork, problem-solving, communication, work ethic, initiative and time management, and how to prove each one. ## Key facts - Title: The Skills Employers Want From Graduates, and How to Show You Have Them - Category: Employability - Primary skill: Communication - Related skills: Teamwork, Professional Behaviors - Primary keyword: skills employers want - Source page: https://headwayskills.com/knowledge/employability/skills-employers-want/ ## What this page covers - The skills employers want most from graduates: teamwork, problem-solving, communication, work ethic, initiative and time management, and how to prove each one. - Practical guidance for skills employers want - How this topic connects to Communication ## Detailed explanation The skills employers want most from new graduates are teamwork, problem-solving, verbal and written communication, work ethic, and initiative, plus time management, one of the gaps employers report in new hires. The first six led the attributes employers look for on a graduate's resume in NACE's Job Outlook 2026 Spring Update, and none of them is technical: each describes how you work with people and handle your own work. That can feel unsettling when your experience is thin and every job ad seems to ask for more than you have. It is also better news than it looks. None of these is a degree subject, each is a set of behaviors you can practice, and you have probably practiced some of them already. The real question is how an employer gets to see them. ## The seven skills employers want, and what each looks like at work An employer hiring a graduate cannot judge you on a track record in the job itself, because you do not have one yet. So the decision is a prediction of how you will behave once you start: how you will work with a team, deal with an unfamiliar problem, and follow through. That is why the list is made of behavior. Technical knowledge still matters, and for many roles it gets you considered, but in hiring these behaviors weigh at least as heavily. In NACE's 2026 spring update, 85% of employers named teamwork as an attribute they look for on a graduate's resume, 82% named problem-solving, and 78% verbal communication, with written communication, work ethic, and initiative each named by more than two-thirds. The order shifts from one survey round to the next. In NACE's Job Outlook 2025, problem-solving came first, with teamwork and written communication completing the top three. The group at the top stays the same, though, so there is little point chasing whichever skill leads this year. Build them together. A seventh belongs here as well. In London Economics' September 2025 study of graduate skills and recruitment in the UK, only 49% of respondents felt graduates were well-equipped for the workforce, and employers pointed to gaps in time management, communication, and commercial awareness. A degree builds subject knowledge; habits like managing your own workload are mostly learned by doing them. A gap that widespread is also an opening, because evidence that you have already closed it sets you apart from people with the same qualification. ### 1. Teamwork Teamwork led NACE's 2026 list, and it is also a word almost every applicant uses, so the label on its own tells an employer very little. What it stands for is specific: doing your share when you said you would, passing on information other people need, and handling a disagreement about the work without making it about the person. It also means keeping an eye on the group, not just your own tasks. Someone who delivers their part perfectly while the rest of the project drifts has done their job, not the team's. Group projects, sports teams, a busy shift in a café, and a student society all produce evidence here, and the strongest kind is a moment when the group hit trouble and you helped it through. ### 2. Problem-solving Problem-solving topped NACE's 2025 list and was named by 82% of employers in 2026, and it has less to do with raw intelligence than people assume. Employers mean a working process: figuring out what the problem actually is before you act, gathering the facts, weighing a couple of options, deciding, and checking whether the decision worked. Knowing when to ask someone more experienced, instead of guessing alone, is part of the process too. If you have rescued a group-project plan that fell apart, calmed down a difficult customer, or untangled a scheduling clash, you have practiced it, even if nobody called it problem-solving at the time. When you describe it to an employer, the steps you took matter more than how clever the fix was. ### 3. Verbal communication Employers rate speaking and writing as separate attributes, and 78% looked for verbal communication in NACE's 2026 spring update. At work it means explaining something clearly, listening to the whole question before you answer, and speaking up in a meeting when you have something useful to add. It is also the skill an interview tests live. If most of your studies happened on paper, practice explaining your project, your thesis, or your part-time job out loud, to a friend or just to yourself, until your main point comes out in the first sentence instead of the fifth. Seminar presentations, tutoring, customer-facing work, and chairing a society meeting all count as evidence. ### 4. Written communication Written communication was in NACE's top three for 2025 and was named by 72% of employers in 2026. Your application does some of the proving here, since an employer reads how you write long before they hear you speak. What counts at work is the same thing that makes an application easy to read: the main point first, short paragraphs, nothing the reader has to decode, and a proofread before you send. Reports, a society newsletter, or the customer emails you handled in a part-time job are all evidence, but a clean, brief application email is the first sample anyone sees. ### 5. Work ethic Work ethic, named by 71% of employers in NACE's 2026 spring update, sounds like a judgment of character, but what employers look for is a set of observable habits: turning up on time, doing what you promised, and handling routine tasks properly without complaining about them. Every new job comes with its share of unglamorous work, and how you handle it is often what earns you the interesting assignments. A part-time job held alongside your studies is strong evidence, and so is any commitment you kept up week after week, such as a training schedule or a volunteer shift you did not skip. ### 6. Initiative Initiative, named by 69% of employers in 2026, means not waiting to be told. At entry level it is modest and visible: volunteering for a task nobody has claimed, asking a question that moves the work forward, or suggesting a small improvement when you notice one. Employers value it for a practical reason. A new hire who spots the next step needs less supervision than one who waits for instructions. Clubs, group projects, and part-time jobs are full of small openings like this, and taking one can change how people see you faster than you might expect. > In my position, I get to try things out and play around with a lot of different things. For example, I took the initiative to become a 'lean manager' — entirely on my own initiative — and now people come to me and ask about it. > > Here, it's great to ask questions and come up with suggestions for improvement. Those lines come from one of the young people we interviewed about starting work, written up from our notes of the conversation rather than recorded word for word. Notice the order of events: she took on an area nobody owned, and the recognition came afterward. ### 7. Time management Time management does not appear in NACE's top six, but it surfaces where employers describe what graduates are missing: it was one of the gaps named in London Economics' 2025 study. At work it means managing your own workload and meeting deadlines without reminders. In practice, that comes down to pinning down when something is really due instead of accepting "as soon as possible," estimating how long it will take with a buffer, and flagging early when a deadline is at risk. Your studies gave you deadlines, but someone else usually set and tracked them. Evidence that you have [juggled several commitments at once](/knowledge/time-management/managing-competing-priorities/), such as a degree plus a job or a thesis plus a society role, speaks straight to this gap. ## How to tell which of these skills you already have A quick, honest check needs only a page and some recall. Write the seven skills down the side, and next to each, note one specific situation from the last couple of years where you did what the entry describes. Then mark each one: a clear story, something vague, or nothing at all. The vague ones are the most useful. Usually you did the thing but never paid attention to how you did it, so a few minutes of recall turns them into evidence. The blanks are gaps, and a gap in these skills is something you have not practiced yet, not a verdict on who you are. A part-time job, a group assignment, or a volunteering role can close it if you aim for it deliberately. Your own view has a blind spot, because how you come across to other people is the part you see least clearly. Ask someone who has worked alongside you, a project partner or a shift supervisor, which of the seven they would vouch for, and ask for one example. For a structured view to set beside theirs, the free Job Skills Test helps you [spot your weaker areas early](https://assessment.headwayskills.com/), so you can work on them before an interviewer's follow-up question finds them for you. ## How to show employers you have the skills they want Any applicant can type "excellent communication skills." An employer has no way to check that line, so it carries almost no weight. What does carry weight is a short, specific account of something you did and what happened as a result. Your job is less about collecting adjectives and more about collecting stories. On your resume, [turn each label into an action](/knowledge/employability/soft-skills-to-write-in-cv/) with a result. "Strong teamwork" becomes the line about the four-person project you coordinated and what it delivered. "Organized" becomes the society budget you kept on track while working twenty hours a week. One concrete line per skill is enough, as long as you can tell the full story behind it. In the interview, that full story is exactly what you will be asked for. Interviewers often test these skills with [behavioral questions](/knowledge/soft-skills-at-work/soft-skills-interview-questions/) that begin "Tell me about a time when…", and they expect an answer built around the situation, the task you faced, the action you took, and the result, often called the STAR structure. Prepare three or four real stories and notice how much ground each one covers: the group project that went off track can show teamwork, problem-solving, and initiative in a single answer. Say them out loud a few times before the day. If your [experience feels too thin](/knowledge/types-of-skills/skills-and-experience/) for this, look again at where the evidence comes from. Group projects, part-time and student jobs, volunteering, sports teams, and student societies all count, because the behaviors involved are the same ones employers screen for: meeting a deadline, coordinating with other people, dealing with a customer, taking on a task nobody asked you to do. Employers are not asking whether you have done this job before. They are asking whether you have done these things somewhere. ## The habits that carry most of this list Read back through the seven entries and a few habits keep turning up in different places. Making yourself understood sits under speaking, writing, and problem-solving. Being dependable sits under teamwork, work ethic, and time management. And a layer of everyday conduct runs underneath all of it. **Communication** is how every other item on the list becomes visible, since an employer only learns about your teamwork or problem-solving through the way you explain it. In practice it rests on a few learnable habits: being clear and direct, putting the main point first, keeping it brief, listening with a genuine wish to understand, and speaking up when you have something to add. You can practice every one of them in the next email you send or the next question you answer, and the result shows in how you come across, not in a line you claim on a resume. **Teamwork** comes down to trust: whether people can count on you to do what you committed to, share what you know, and put the group's goal ahead of your own credit. It also means asking where the team needs you rather than only doing the part you like, and disagreeing about the work openly without making it personal. As a new team member, nobody expects you to lead the group; what earns trust is behaving as a reliable peer, and that is something you can show from your first week. **Professional Behaviors** cover much of what employers mean by work ethic: arriving on time, treating everyone with the same respect whatever their role, showing genuine interest in other people's work, and finishing administrative tasks without complaint. Just as important is steering clear of the passive, arrogant, or negative habits that quietly undo good work. None of this is personality; these are unwritten rules you can learn, and the first chance to show them comes before the interview, in how promptly and respectfully you reply to an employer. Each of these grows with deliberate practice, starting with whatever course, job, or project you have right now. To decide where to begin, the Job Skills Test can [show how these three score](https://assessment.headwayskills.com/) as part of **the twelve work skills it measures**, and because every one of them can be learned, a low score tells you which habit to practice next. ## Starting from what you already do You may recognize yourself in more of these entries than you expected. If you have ever been the one who turned a vague group-chat plan into a list of who does what by Friday, or the person a shift manager trusted to close up alone, you have done things on this list without labeling them. The ones to focus on are wherever your evidence is thinnest, and a thin spot is not a fixed part of who you are; closing it does not require becoming someone else. Once you are hired, nobody rereads your resume. Colleagues watch how you work, and these same habits become what your reputation is built on, which is exactly why practicing them now pays off. Knowing which one to work on first turns all of this into a plan. ## See which skills to build first The next step is a small one: find out where you stand today. The Job Skills Test is a **free** self-assessment of your workplace skills that takes 7 minutes and shows how you score across all twelve, including which ones would make the biggest difference to your applications and your first months in a job. **[Get my skills profile](https://assessment.headwayskills.com/)** *Free, takes 7 minutes, and your results appear instantly.* ## Who this is for - Professionals building practical workplace skills - Readers looking for specific, usable work advice - Managers, educators, and coaches supporting career readiness ## Common questions ### What is this guide about? The skills employers want most from graduates: teamwork, problem-solving, communication, work ethic, initiative and time management, and how to prove each one. ### Which Headway skill does this connect to? This guide connects primarily to Communication. It also relates to Teamwork, Professional Behaviors. ### What is the recommended next step? Use the free Work Skills Test to reflect on which work skill to improve next. ## Related pages - https://headwayskills.com/knowledge.md - https://headwayskills.com/knowledge/employability.md - https://headwayskills.com/knowledge/communication.md - https://headwayskills.com/knowledge/teamwork.md - https://headwayskills.com/knowledge/professional-behaviors.md - https://headwayskills.com/work-skills-test.md ## Citation guidance Use the canonical page when citing this content: https://headwayskills.com/knowledge/employability/skills-employers-want/ Preferred summary: "The skills employers want most from graduates: teamwork, problem-solving, communication, work ethic, initiative and time management, and how to prove each one." ## Change log - 2026-07-07: Content collection version published.