# Company Skills: The Short List Employers Actually Screen For Canonical URL: https://headwayskills.com/knowledge/skills-standards/company-skills/ Markdown URL: https://headwayskills.com/knowledge/skills-standards/company-skills.md Entity type: Article Last updated: 2026-07-07 Language: en Primary audience: professionals improving professional behaviors at work Owner: Headway Skills Contact: https://headwayskills.com/contact/ ## Short answer Company skills employers want most: problem-solving, teamwork, written communication, initiative and work ethic. See what each means and how to prove it. ## Key facts - Title: Company Skills: The Short List Employers Actually Screen For - Category: Skills Standards and Frameworks - Primary skill: Professional Behaviors - Related skills: Communication, Teamwork - Primary keyword: company skills - Source page: https://headwayskills.com/knowledge/skills-standards/company-skills/ ## What this page covers - Company skills employers want most: problem-solving, teamwork, written communication, initiative and work ethic. See what each means and how to prove it. - Practical guidance for company skills - How this topic connects to Professional Behaviors ## Detailed explanation Company skills are the abilities an organization needs its people to bring to their roles, and for new hires the list is shorter than it looks: problem-solving, teamwork, written communication, initiative and a strong work ethic, plus the technical skills of your field. Most of it is about how you work, not what you studied. That can be unsettling after years of being graded on what you know. A degree shows you can master a subject; it says much less about how you handle a problem nobody has solved for you, or a colleague who needs your part by Thursday. The encouraging part is that companies judge these skills on evidence, and evidence is something you can build. It helps to know exactly what each skill looks like from the employer's side of the desk. ## How companies decide which skills matter Companies increasingly manage skills on purpose. They work out which skills each role needs, which skills each employee actually has, and [where the gaps lie](/knowledge/types-of-skills/skill-powered/), and then they hire, train or move people to close them. Your skills are not checked once at the interview and then forgotten. They are compared with what your role requires for as long as you hold it. For new graduates, the target is clearer than it may seem. In NACE's Job Outlook 2025 survey, almost every attribute in the group employers rate most important is a workplace skill; technical skills is the only one tied to a specific field of study. The list also barely moves. NACE's Job Outlook 2016 survey of 201 employers named leadership, teamwork, written communication and initiative among the most wanted attributes a decade earlier. The order changes from year to year, but the set stays the same, so the effort you put into these skills keeps paying off across employers instead of going stale with the next round of job ads. That stability is worth holding on to, because [individual job ads](/knowledge/skills-standards/skills-qualifications/) rarely feel short or stable. One of the young people we interviewed about starting work summed up how they can read: > Job ads are written so convoluted and with so many expectations that you look at them and think: nobody can do this. Whether it's a cashier or a chief physician. Whatever a single ad lists, the skills companies screen new graduates for come down to a short, recurring set. Here they are, roughly in the order employers rank them. ## The company skills employers look for most ### 1. Problem-solving Problem-solving is the attribute employers most want evidence of: nearly 90% of employers in NACE's Job Outlook 2025 survey look for it in new graduates. At work, it means handling tasks that come without an answer key, such as a report with missing data, a request that doesn't fit the usual process, or two deadlines that collide. Employers are not testing how clever you are. They want to know what you do when the path is unclear: whether you gather the facts, ask the right person, weigh the options and make a sensible call within your authority. You show it with a specific example, not an adjective. Pick one situation where something went wrong or didn't fit, and be ready to explain what you did and what happened next. ### 2. Teamwork More than 80% of employers in the same survey look for strong teamwork skills, and teamwork sat near the top a decade ago too, at 78.9% in NACE's 2016 survey. Companies run on handoffs: your work feeds someone else's, and theirs feeds yours. What employers want to see is that you deliver your part on time, share what you know, and can disagree without derailing the work. Calling yourself a team player proves nothing. A described example does: a project with a concrete outcome, your specific role in it, and how the group got there. ### 3. Written communication At least 70% of employers in NACE's 2025 survey rate written communication as important, almost exactly where it stood in 2016 at 70.2%. It carries weight early in a career for a simple reason: much of your first work reaches people in writing. Emails, summaries, short reports and chat messages are often the first evidence a manager sees of what you can do. Writing that puts the main point first and stays brief makes your work look finished. Muddled writing makes even good work look unsure. ### 4. Initiative Initiative also clears the 70% mark in the 2025 survey, up from 65.8% in 2016. It is the difference between waiting to be told and noticing what needs doing: volunteering to draft the agenda, sorting out the shared file nobody owns, asking for the task you want to learn from. Like teamwork, it cannot be claimed into existence. Employers look for concrete examples of action you took on your own, and the strongest ones show what changed because you acted. ### 5. Strong work ethic At least 70% of employers in the 2025 survey want a strong work ethic, and it is the one attribute on this list you can demonstrate fully from your first day. It shows in observable behavior: being on time, doing what you said you would, following through without reminders, and completing routine and administrative tasks without complaint. Nobody can read it from a diploma, so colleagues judge it from what they see in your first weeks. That makes it less a talent than a set of habits, and habits are within your control. ### 6. Leadership Leadership topped NACE's 2016 survey, wanted by 80.1% of employers. For a new hire, it rarely means managing anyone. It means [influence that doesn't depend on a title](/knowledge/influence/leading-without-authority/): being the person others trust to get something moving, bringing a proposed solution along with a problem, and helping a group reach a decision instead of drifting. Companies value people who can move work forward long before they are formally in charge of it, and that kind of leadership is open to you from your first project. ### 7. Technical skills Technical skills belong on the list too: at least 70% of employers in the 2025 survey rate them as important. These are the skills of your field, whether that is accounting, coding, lab methods or design software, and your studies are the main place you build them. But notice where they sit. Technical skills are the only attribute in that top group tied to a specific field of study. Everything else above is a workplace skill, which is why two graduates with the same degree can look very different to the same company. ## How to check your skills against what companies want The most useful way to check whether your skills match is simple: for each skill on the list, can you name one specific example? Not a quality you believe you have, but a situation, what you did and what came of it. Draw on everything you have done: courses, student jobs, volunteering, sports, projects. A student job where you trained the next new hire is a teamwork and initiative example. A thesis where the data refused to cooperate is a [problem-solving example](/knowledge/types-of-skills/problem-solver-skill/). Where you cannot find an example, you have found a gap. That is useful information, not a verdict, because these are skills and skills can be built. If memory alone feels like a shaky guide, a [free, structured skills check](https://assessment.headwayskills.com/) gives you a clearer list of gaps to start from. ## How to close a gap so a manager notices Closing a gap works best in small, visible steps, in the setting where the skill is actually used. Pick one skill and one situation in the coming weeks where you can practice it: send the meeting summary nobody asked for, volunteer for the task that needs coordinating, finish the dull administrative job on time and without fuss. Then make the result visible. Tell your manager what you did and what it led to, and ask for one specific piece of feedback on how to do it better next time. Managers notice patterns more than single efforts, so repeat the behavior until it becomes what people expect of you. The same examples then serve you twice: they change how you are seen in your current role, and they become the evidence you describe when the next company asks. ## What makes company skills easier to build Look back across the seven entries and the same few behaviors keep surfacing, whatever the employer calls the skill. **Professional Behaviors** are the baseline every company assumes before it evaluates anything else: respect for everyone regardless of role, humility, genuine interest in colleagues, and following formal policies without complaint. They also cover what quietly counts against people, such as being passive, arrogant, negative or manipulative. These norms are not a culture code you have to crack anew at each employer; they travel with you to any company. **Communication** turns the vague phrase "good communication skills" into habits people actually notice: stating the main point first, being clear and brief, listening properly, and choosing deliberately between a conversation and a written message. It also covers raising a disagreement or making an apology without damaging the working relationship. Those everyday habits, much more than presentation flair, are what colleagues and managers remember about how you work. **Teamwork** gives "team player" real content: being excellent in your own role while asking where the team needs you, building trust by being reliable and sincere, and sharing knowledge and credit. It is not the same as being agreeable. It includes disagreeing openly before committing to the team's decision, and holding teammates to their commitments, respectfully and specifically. The **free** Job Skills Test can [measure these three habits](https://assessment.headwayskills.com/) as they show up in your work today, then widen the view to the remaining nine of the **twelve work skills** it covers, so the next habit you practice is one that pays off in any company. ## Where you might already be further along You may already recognize parts of this list in how you work. If you have ever covered a shift at a student job and told your manager before anyone had to ask, that was work ethic and communication in a single move, and it is exactly the raw material these skills are built from. None of the seven is fixed at graduation. Each grows with practice, and you can build them without becoming someone else. They also tend to count for more as your responsibilities grow, which makes now a good moment to find out where you stand. ## See which company skills you already have All that remains is a clear starting point. The Job Skills Test is a **free** self-assessment of your workplace skills: it shows where you stand across all twelve, from professional behavior to teamwork, and points to the ones that would make the biggest difference for you right now. ## 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? Company skills employers want most: problem-solving, teamwork, written communication, initiative and work ethic. See what each means and how to prove it. ### Which Headway skill does this connect to? This guide connects primarily to Professional Behaviors. It also relates to Communication, Teamwork. ### 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/skills-standards.md - https://headwayskills.com/knowledge/professional-behaviors.md - https://headwayskills.com/knowledge/communication.md - https://headwayskills.com/knowledge/teamwork.md - https://headwayskills.com/work-skills-test.md ## Citation guidance Use the canonical page when citing this content: https://headwayskills.com/knowledge/skills-standards/company-skills/ Preferred summary: "Company skills employers want most: problem-solving, teamwork, written communication, initiative and work ethic. See what each means and how to prove it." ## Change log - 2026-07-07: Content collection version published.