# Job Related Skills: What Employers Want and How to Show It Canonical URL: https://headwayskills.com/knowledge/soft-skills-at-work/job-related-skills/ Markdown URL: https://headwayskills.com/knowledge/soft-skills-at-work/job-related-skills.md Entity type: Article Last updated: 2026-07-07 Language: en Primary audience: professionals improving building self-awareness at work Owner: Headway Skills Contact: https://headwayskills.com/contact/ ## Short answer Job related skills are technical skills for one role plus workplace skills nearly every employer wants. The seven that count most and how to prove them. ## Key facts - Title: Job Related Skills: What Employers Want and How to Show It - Category: Soft Skills at Work - Primary skill: Building Self-Awareness - Related skills: Communication, Teamwork - Primary keyword: job related skills - Source page: https://headwayskills.com/knowledge/soft-skills-at-work/job-related-skills/ ## What this page covers - Job related skills are technical skills for one role plus workplace skills nearly every employer wants. The seven that count most and how to prove them. - Practical guidance for job related skills - How this topic connects to Building Self-Awareness ## Detailed explanation Job related skills are the abilities you need to get hired and do a job well, and they come in two kinds: job-specific technical skills that belong to one role, such as running payroll software or applying statistical methods, and workplace skills such as teamwork, communication, initiative and work ethic, which employers expect in almost every role. If you are [putting together a resume](/knowledge/soft-skills-at-work/career-skills-resume/) or working through job ads, the second kind is usually the one that feels vague. A degree lists the technical content you covered. It rarely tells you which workplace skills you have, or how to show them. That part is worth getting clear, because it is where employers look first. ## What job related skills actually cover Job-specific skills are tied to the work itself. UC Davis Human Resources gives forklift operation, statistical methods and payroll and personnel systems as examples, and notes that people pick them up through education, reading, training, apprenticeships or on-the-job experience. That last route matters at the start of a career. Many job-specific skills are expected to be learned once you are in the role, so arriving without all of them is normal rather than disqualifying. Workplace skills travel with you. Technical skills show an employer that you can handle the practical side of the job; workplace skills show that you can contribute to a working environment where things get done. Employers look for both in the same hire, and they weigh the second kind heavily for a practical reason: teaching a new person a software program or a procedure is far easier than building how that person works with others. The workplace skills are the ones an employer is least able to supply after hiring you. So read every job ad as two lists in one: the role-specific requirements, and the workplace skills nearly every employer expects. Taken together, they can look impossible to meet. One of the young people we interviewed about starting work described her first look at job ads like this: > 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. Separating the two lists makes it manageable. The technical list changes from ad to ad. The workplace list barely changes at all, which means you can prepare it once and use it in every application. ## The job related skills employers look for most NACE's Job Outlook 2025 survey asked employers what they want to see on a college student's resume. The 237 employers that responded, surveyed in August and September 2024, put a small set of attributes at the top. These seven are the ones worth preparing evidence for. ### 1. Job-specific technical skills These are the skills a role is built around, and they still count: technical skills reach at least 70% of employers in NACE's resume attributes. What surprises many graduates is the company they keep. Initiative and work ethic sit at the same level, with flexibility and analytical skills in the same range. Technical skill is one strong attribute among several, not the deciding one on its own. If you have assumed that the technical content of your degree is the whole of your job readiness, this is the correction: it gets you considered, and the rest of the list shapes how you compare with other candidates. ### 2. Problem-solving Nearly 90% of employers in the NACE survey look for evidence that a candidate can solve problems, which puts it at the top of the list. Evidence is the key word. An employer wants a specific situation where something was stuck and you moved it forward: a group project that fell behind until you rebuilt the schedule, a customer complaint at a part-time job that you resolved, a lab result that made no sense until you traced the cause. Describe what the problem was, what you did, and what changed as a result. ### 3. Teamwork Nearly 80% of employers look for strong teamwork skills, second only to problem-solving. Almost every entry-level role is a team role, so employers are checking whether you will make a team stronger or harder to run. Good evidence goes beyond "worked in a group." It shows what you were responsible for, how you coordinated with others, and how the shared result came together. One group assignment where you owned a piece of the work and delivered it on time says more than a long list of teams you belonged to. ### 4. Written communication NACE rates communication as two separate attributes, and written communication matters to at least 70% of employers. At work, writing means emails, short updates, documentation and messages that someone else has to act on. The habit employers notice is clarity: [the main point first](/knowledge/communication/business-communication-email/), short paragraphs, a clear request. Your resume and cover letter are the first writing samples an employer sees, so they are part of the evidence, not just the container for it. ### 5. Verbal communication More than two-thirds of employers look for verbal communication as its own skill. Across both halves, more than three-quarters of employers in the survey want evidence of good communication, so a single "excellent communication skills" line covers neither half well. Verbal communication shows up in how you explain your work, how you [speak up](/knowledge/professional-behaviors/how-to-speak-up/) in a meeting, and how you listen before you answer. The interview itself is where most employers test it, which makes practicing out loud as important as deciding what to say. ### 6. Initiative Initiative reaches at least 70% of employers in NACE's list. It means acting on something [without waiting to be asked](/knowledge/influence/show-initiative-at-work/): proposing a fix, volunteering for a task nobody had claimed, or following up on a loose end before it caused trouble. For a student or new graduate, small examples count, as long as they show that you saw something that needed doing and did it. ### 7. Work ethic Work ethic also reaches at least 70% of employers. It is the evidence that you are reliable over time: you show up, you deliver what you committed to, and you keep the quality steady when the task is dull. A part-time job held alongside your studies, or a long-running commitment to a club or volunteer role, is often the clearest proof you have. ## How to show the job related skills you already have Workplace skills are harder to verify than technical ones, which is why listing them carries little weight on its own. Anyone can write "strong team player." What makes the claim credible is an example: a specific time you used the skill, in a group project, a part-time job or a volunteer role, and what happened as a result. The example is the evidence. The label is only the heading. A practical way to build your list is to take the seven skills above and write down, for each one, a situation where you used it and the result it produced. Where you have a strong example, you have a line for your resume and a ready answer to "tell me about a time when…" in an interview. Where you have nothing, you have found a gap, and gaps in workplace skills close with practice, because they are learned behaviors rather than fixed traits. If you want to [find your strongest and weakest skills](https://assessment.headwayskills.com/) before you start that list, the free Job Skills Test gives you a clear starting point. ## The skills that make your examples convincing Look across the seven entries and a pattern shows. The technical list changes with every job, while almost everything else depends on knowing what you do well, getting it across to other people, and working alongside them. **Building Self-Awareness** is what turns a generic list into an honest inventory. It means noticing what you are genuinely good at, by looking at how you work when a task goes well, how it feels, and what results it produces, and asking supervisors, teachers or teammates for specific feedback on what to do differently next time. That inventory tells you which examples to lead with and which gaps deserve your effort first. A gap you have seen clearly is one you can start closing. **Communication** is the skill employers rate twice. In practice it means stating your main point first in an email, keeping messages clear and brief, speaking up in a meeting when you have something useful to add, and listening fully before you reply. Treated as concrete behaviors rather than a resume phrase, it becomes something you can practice this week and point to in an interview. **Teamwork** is what employers are really asking about when they ask about group work. It shows in doing what you committed to, sharing what you know, putting the team's goal ahead of personal credit, and disagreeing on the topic without making it personal. Those behaviors are what turn a group project or a shift at a part-time job into a convincing example of working well with others. The **free Job Skills Test** scores you on all three and keeps going, across **twelve work skills** in total, so you can [pick the one to work on next](https://assessment.headwayskills.com/) instead of guessing. Every one of them is learnable, and a lower score simply marks where practice will pay off soonest. You may find more of this in your own record than you expected. If you have ever rewritten a group report's summary so a reader could find the point in the first line, or taken over a classmate's section when they fell ill and told the rest of the group what had changed, you have already used communication and teamwork in a form an employer will recognize. The skills you have not built yet are not fixed. You grow them by practicing them in your own way, without becoming someone else. As your responsibilities grow, more of how you are judged tends to rest on how you work with people and less on what you studied, and every one of these skills can be built from wherever you are now. What remains is finding out where that is. ## Find out where your job related skills stand All that is left is to see your starting point. The Job Skills Test is a **free** self-assessment of your work skills: in about 7 minutes it scores you across all twelve and shows which ones would make the biggest difference to your applications right now. **[Get my skills profile](https://assessment.headwayskills.com/)** *Free, takes 7 minutes, results shown 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? Job related skills are technical skills for one role plus workplace skills nearly every employer wants. The seven that count most and how to prove them. ### Which Headway skill does this connect to? This guide connects primarily to Building Self-Awareness. 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/soft-skills-at-work.md - https://headwayskills.com/knowledge/self-awareness.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/soft-skills-at-work/job-related-skills/ Preferred summary: "Job related skills are technical skills for one role plus workplace skills nearly every employer wants. The seven that count most and how to prove them." ## Change log - 2026-07-07: Content collection version published.