# Employee Skills List: What Every Job Expects and How to Check Yours Canonical URL: https://headwayskills.com/knowledge/skills-standards/employee-skills-list/ Markdown URL: https://headwayskills.com/knowledge/skills-standards/employee-skills-list.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 An employee skills list has two layers: the technical skills a job names and the workplace skills every role assumes. See all twelve and how to check yours. ## Key facts - Title: Employee Skills List: What Every Job Expects and How to Check Yours - Category: Skills Standards and Frameworks - Primary skill: Professional Behaviors - Related skills: Building Self-Awareness, Communication - Primary keyword: employee skills list - Source page: https://headwayskills.com/knowledge/skills-standards/employee-skills-list/ ## What this page covers - An employee skills list has two layers: the technical skills a job names and the workplace skills every role assumes. See all twelve and how to check yours. - Practical guidance for employee skills list - How this topic connects to Professional Behaviors ## Detailed explanation An employee skills list has two layers. The first is the technical skills a specific job requires, which its [job description](/knowledge/skills-standards/skills-qualifications/) spells out. The second is the workplace skills every role assumes, such as communication, teamwork, time management, professional conduct and self-awareness, and that layer is the one employers rank highest. A list alone settles very little, though. The questions that matter come after it: what each skill looks like on an ordinary workday, whether you already have it, which gap to close first, and how to describe your strengths when an application or a review asks. Feeling unsure where you stand is normal, because these skills are rarely taught or graded. The answers start with telling the kinds of skill apart. ## The four kinds of skill on an employee skills list Every employee skills list mixes skills that behave very differently, and the first useful line runs between what you know and what you can do. The O*NET occupational taxonomy keeps knowledge and education apart from skills, and divides the skills themselves into basic skills and cross-functional skills. That distinction matters more than it looks: a degree or a subject is not itself an item on the list. The list asks what you can do with it. Within the skills, four kinds are worth telling apart. ### Hard skills Hard skills are specific and measurable: writing, mathematics, reading or using a computer at the level a particular role demands. You build them through targeted training and study, and many belong to one occupation only. That is why no general employee skills list can settle which ones you need. The job description of the role you are aiming for sets them, so read this layer straight off the posting and use a general list for everything else. ### Basic skills Basic skills, such as reading comprehension and critical thinking, are the skills that make learning possible. In O*NET's terms, they help you acquire new knowledge and skills across many different fields, which is why someone strong in them picks up a new role's technical demands faster. This is where your education has already built real capacity, even if nobody ever called it an employee skill. The difficulty is usually translation, not absence. > I can solve a school assignment, do my research, structure a paper. But how do I turn 'searching literature for an exam' into something a workplace can use? Nobody on the degree tells us which jobs we can actually hold, or how academic skills become a work resource. That was one of the young people we interviewed about starting work, and her question has a practical answer: describe what the task required you to do, not the task itself. Searching literature for an exam means finding, judging and summarizing information against a deadline. Structuring a paper means turning a sprawling problem into something other people can follow. A workplace uses both every day. ### Cross-functional skills Cross-functional skills are what O*NET describes as developed capacities that improve performance in activities common to many different jobs, including social skills and complex problem solving. They are defined by what jobs share rather than by what makes one job unique. That makes them the skills that travel with you through every change, whether you move from a student job in a café to your first office role or from one industry to another. ### Transferable skills Transferable skills, often called soft skills, are harder to measure and less tangible than hard skills, and they carry from job to job without much retraining. No certificate or grade proves them; they show up in how you behave. They are also what employers ask for most. According to NACE's Job Outlook 2025 survey, the three skills that stood out among those employers seek in new graduates were problem-solving, teamwork and written communication. None of them belongs to a particular job, and that is exactly why they rank so high: every role an employer fills needs them. For you, it means the items that count in every application are the ones your transcript does not show. Unlike a transcript, though, they are still open: each can be learned and demonstrated through what you do from here on. ## Twelve workplace skills every role assumes A general list earns its keep in the transferable layer, so here it is in full. Twelve workplace skills recur in almost every job, and they fall into three groups: managing yourself, working with others day to day, and building your standing over time. ### Managing yourself - Building Self-Awareness: knowing what you are naturally good at, recognizing your blind spots, and asking for feedback that shows how you come across. - Setting Goals: choosing work that fits your strengths and values, with plans short enough to change as you learn more about yourself. - Building Confidence: taking on unfamiliar tasks one manageable step at a time, and acting while the nerves are still there. - Building Resilience: recovering from setbacks and criticism by putting your energy into what is within your control. ### Working with others, day to day - Professional Behaviors: being on time, showing everyone the same respect, handling confidential information with care, and steering clear of passive or negative behavior. - Communication: putting the main point first, keeping it brief, listening actively, and speaking up when you have something to add. - Teamwork: doing what you commit to, sharing what you know, and voicing disagreement openly before committing to the team's decision. - Working with Your Manager: preparing for regular one-on-ones, making your results visible, and bringing solutions along with problems. - Time Management: clarifying exactly what a task requires and when it is due, separating the important from the merely urgent, and saying no with a reason once you have the credibility to. - Decision-Making: knowing what you are authorized to decide, getting a second opinion, and avoiding traps such as sticking with a bad call because of what it has already cost. Much of what employers call problem-solving happens here. ### Building your standing - Networking: building relationships before you need them, and helping people without keeping score. - Getting and Applying Influence: earning a reputation for delivering, taking the initiative, and winning support for ideas through preparation rather than pressure. None of these is a personality trait. Each is a set of behaviors you can learn, and learning them does not ask you to become someone else. ## How to check yourself against an employee skills list The boundaries between the kinds of skill blur. Writing is a measurable hard skill and, as written communication, one of the transferable skills employers rank highest, while many soft-type abilities, such as social skills, sit in O*NET's cross-functional group. So do not spend effort deciding which box a skill belongs in. The question worth your time is whether you can show it, and five moves make that practical. 1. Split the layers. Take the hard skills from the job description of the role you want, and use the twelve workplace skills above for the rest. Keeping the layers apart stops every gap from looking equally urgent. 2. Find one recent example per skill. For each workplace skill, name a specific situation where you used it: a group project you kept on schedule, a disagreement you settled without anyone losing face, an email that got a quick, clear yes. Where an example comes easily, you probably have the skill. Where nothing comes, you have found a [candidate gap](/knowledge/improve-skills/skills-development-plan/) rather than a verdict, and a gap is simply a skill you have not practiced enough yet. 3. Compare your view with someone else's. Your own picture leans on how you mean to behave, while other people see only what you actually do. Ask a manager, supervisor, teacher or colleague one specific, [forward-looking question](/knowledge/self-awareness/questions-to-ask-for-feedback/), such as what you could do differently in your next meeting, rather than how you are doing in general. 4. Pick one or two to work on first. Choose the gaps that matter most in your current job or the one you want, and let the rest wait; working on twelve things at once usually means progress on none. If you would rather not guess which gap matters most, the free Job Skills Test can [show you where to start](https://assessment.headwayskills.com/). 5. Turn strengths into evidence, not adjectives. "Strong communicator" [on a resume](/knowledge/soft-skills-at-work/how-to-list-soft-skills-on-resume/) gives an employer nothing to check. A short account of the situation, what you did and what happened does: you rewrote the team's weekly update so the decision came first, and replies started arriving the same day. The same habit works in an interview answer and in a performance review. ## What helps you measure up to the list Look back at those five moves and a pattern shows. None of them depends on how long the list is. They depend on how you conduct yourself when nobody is grading you, how clearly you see yourself, and how well you put what you do into words. **Professional Behaviors** are the foundation layer of the list: the conduct every role assumes and nobody announces, and the part colleagues notice before they have seen any of your work. In practice it means arriving on time, giving the receptionist and the director the same respect, keeping confidential information confidential, speaking about absent colleagues as if they were in the room, and finishing the administrative side of the job without complaint. Steering clear of passive or negative behavior counts just as much. Every item is concrete and observable, so you can start practicing it tomorrow. **Building Self-Awareness** is what lets you place yourself on the list honestly. It starts with telling your natural strengths apart from things you can merely do: a real strength is something you work at with energy, that leaves you feeling good, and that produces strong results. It continues with feedback. When someone tells you how your work comes across, make sure you understand what they mean first, then add your own view, then reflect before deciding what to change. A gap found this way says nothing about your character; it tells you what to practice next. **Communication** is the skill through which almost everything else on the list becomes visible. Reliability gets judged by whether you reply when you said you would, teamwork by how you disagree, competence by whether your email makes its main point in the first line. Being clear and direct, keeping it brief, listening fully before you answer, and speaking up when you have something useful to add are habits colleagues pick up on within days. Choosing the medium is part of it as well: a sensitive or complicated issue goes better in conversation, while anything that needs a record belongs in writing. Of the three, self-awareness is the hardest to build on your own, so a structured starting point helps. The Job Skills Test checks you against **the whole set of twelve**, not only these three, and shows you [which skills already stand out](https://assessment.headwayskills.com/). Those are the ones to lead with in your next application or review, and whatever scores lowest is not a fixed result, just the next thing to practice. ## Starting from what you already do Some of the twelve probably describe you on a good day already. Perhaps you are the one who sends a short summary after a group meeting so nobody forgets what was agreed, or who notices that someone has gone quiet and asks what they think. Habits like those are the raw material of professional behavior and communication, and they count even if nobody has ever called them skills. The rest can be built the same way, through practice in the work you already do, and without turning into someone you are not. Starting while the stakes are modest pays off: as your responsibilities grow, these skills carry more of the weight in how your work is judged, and a gap you have named early is much easier to close. What you need now is a clear view of your own starting point. ## See where you stand on the list The one thing no list can tell you is where you personally stand on it. The Job Skills Test is a **free** self-assessment of your workplace skills. It takes 7 minutes and shows where you are across all twelve, which skills already work in your favor, and which ones would make the biggest difference if you worked on them next. ## 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? An employee skills list has two layers: the technical skills a job names and the workplace skills every role assumes. See all twelve and how to check yours. ### Which Headway skill does this connect to? This guide connects primarily to Professional Behaviors. It also relates to Building Self-Awareness, Communication. ### 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/self-awareness.md - https://headwayskills.com/knowledge/communication.md - https://headwayskills.com/work-skills-test.md ## Citation guidance Use the canonical page when citing this content: https://headwayskills.com/knowledge/skills-standards/employee-skills-list/ Preferred summary: "An employee skills list has two layers: the technical skills a job names and the workplace skills every role assumes. See all twelve and how to check yours." ## Change log - 2026-07-07: Content collection version published.