You Will Never See These Essential Skills on a Job Posting

Nancy Anderson
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Some essential skills for the contemporary workplace do not show up on a job posting. This is not because your future employer neglects to mention them. Rather, it's because everyone is expected to have these skills. Read on to find out the four main skills employers expect workers to possess.

1. Driving

A driver's license is a general requirement for several reasons. If the company isn't located in a large city, an employer may ask if you have reliable transportation to and from work. In small towns or rural areas, public transportation may be extremely slow, unreliable or nonexistent. Additionally, your job might require you to run errands, drive to business meetings or meet with clients on a regular basis. Driving is one of the essential skills that most Americans have, and employers are likely to assume you know how to drive and have a valid driver's license.

2. Teamwork

Teamwork is probably the most important of these essential skills, simply because you have to build trust with your co-workers to accomplish goals as a unit. Collaboration skills are vital to the contemporary workplace because business environments can change quickly. Teams must come together to foster learning, share discoveries, bounce ideas off one another and solve problems on a continuous basis.

3. Conflict Resolution

Teamwork also leads to better conflict resolution, which is a third of the unwritten essential skills you need to succeed in any workplace. You must learn how to resolve conflicts at the office before small issues spiral out of control. Conflict may take many forms. For example, someone might mishear a word and get upset, or a person on your team might continually berate other employees. Conflict resolution does not have to be complicated. All you have to do is learn to respond to feedback appropriately and respectfully without letting your anger or strong emotions get in the way of a situation. Two key things to remember during a conflict at work is that it's not about a personal issue against you, and the underlying cause is likely related to a deeper issue.

4. Storytelling

Everyone at the office has to tell a good story at some point, which is why this is one of the necessary essential skills. Storytelling happens in marketing departments, since marketers have to provide examples of why customers should purchase specific products. IT jobs also require storytelling, because employees need to communicate how a particular process works and convince department heads to invest in certain hardware or software upgrades. Good storytellers convey information in a short, condensed form that listeners can understand and even relate to.

Essential skills that are not listed on a job posting may come up during a job interview. Be prepared to discuss your skills in these four areas, because your employer will likely require them for specific aspects of the job.


Photo courtesy of Stuart Miles at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

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