HOW TO MARKET YOURSELF TO EMPLOYERS
FIVE ESSENTIAL SOFT SKILLS As a graduate fresh out of university, there is a tendency to focus on sector-specific and academic skills. However, remember that graduate recruiters are looking beyond that: it’s the non-academic soft skills — “transferable skills” — that’ll make you stand out from the rest.
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ranferrable skills are skills that can be used in every sector, such as communication, teamwork, and problem-solving skills. Here are five transferrable competencies that most recruiters look for as well as tips on how you can demonstrate each of them!
Teamwork skills Aside from a few notable exceptions, modern employment largely involves team-based work. Effective teamwork means knowing how to operate smoothly and efficiently with others as a collective group. This will call upon your capacity to communicate well, negotiate and compromise as well as encourage and inspire your team members. Good teamwork isn’t about having similarminded people working together but motivating people with different strengths to work towards a common goal. It’s fine to talk about your personal contributions during a project but make it a point to talk about how the team managed to work together to achieve results as a group. If you have anecdotes about how your team pulled through a particularly difficult undertaking (eg tight deadlines), then all the better! Stories from your sports clubs, student societies, part-time jobs or any other experience will make for good accounts.
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Commercial awareness In essence, commercial awareness is the intersection between two areas of understanding: familiarity with a company or organisation (ie its goals, objectives, products and services) and a grasp of broader industry trends out there in the market. Recruiters want graduates who can put both of these factors together and figure out how external market forces may influence the organisation as well as how the organisation can best thrive in the current market situation. That said, commercial awareness takes time (and plenty of research!) to build. Here are some tips on how you can build up your knowledge on the employers you want to work for as well as the industries they operate in!
The company Find out:
• what the company does (products made/services provided) • its history and defining moments • who its clients/customers are • who its main competitors are
The industry Find out:
• how the major players in this market are performing • how to speculate intelligently about the future • the past to predict future trends When speaking with interviewers, use words like, “I noticed some discussions about X trend and did some research on it”. Your initiative will definitely set you apart from other applicants.
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