The 10 Essential Skills to Add to Your CV Before Graduation

We will analyze what essential skills are, which of them should be included in a CV before graduation, and which should be removed. We will tell you how to best describe your knowledge and skills to get a job.

What are professional skills?

Professional skills are a person's ability to apply knowledge in practice. By indicating them in a CV, a specialist makes it clear to a future employer that they are able to perform the necessary tasks.

Of course, if you are still a student and are just preparing to write a CV, you may have difficulties. But do not worry; you can buy a resume template from a special writing service. In addition, the writers who work there can also help with other texts. For example, they can buy research proposal from them.

Professional skills can be divided into two types:

1. Hard skills. Technical skills that allow an employee to perform work at a certain level. For example, a hard skill for a QA engineer could be the ability to work with bug tracking tools such as Jira or Bugzilla and SQL and PostgreSQL databases.

2. Soft skills. Soft skills that help an employee make professional decisions and communicate with colleagues. For example, among the key soft skills of a QA engineer in a CV, you can mention the ability to work in a team and responsibility for the result.

Professional skills are often confused with competencies, but competencies are a broader concept. They imply that a specialist has a set of skills, experience, and knowledge that they can apply in the context needed by a specific company. For example, if a data scientist lists 10–15 different key skills in a CV, the employer will have to go through each of them. However, if the applicant groups them by competencies, it will be easier for the employer to make a hiring decision.

What skills can be listed as essential?

LinkedIn identifies ten essential skills that are most in demand among employers. In the era of artificial intelligence, these professional skills and personal qualities will be useful for CVs for representatives of any profession, including the IT sector.

• Communication skills. Communication between the company's management and the team, as well as within departments, simplifies work and motivates to achieve results.

• Customer service. This skill is a continuation of the previous one. Despite the automation of many aspects of working with consumers, employers value the ability of employees to develop relationships with clients and strengthen their trust.

• Leadership. Strong leadership qualities in a CV will be useful both for the company as a whole and for the development of each specialist, regardless of their position in the organization.

• Project management. As work processes become more complex, leaders and project managers who can organize the work of a team are in great demand among employers.

• Management. A specialist's ability not only to organize work but also to achieve measurable business results from a project is a big advantage.

• Analytics. In a world that is increasingly data-oriented, the ability to analyze is key. This CV skill allows employees to interpret complex data, obtain valuable information, and quickly make informed decisions.

• Teamwork. Teams that work well together achieve better results — that's why this is one of the most sought-after skills in the modern world.

• Sales. Regardless of their specialty, employees who indicate this professional skill in their CVs are interesting to employers. The ability to sell will come in handy both when communicating with clients and when presenting your own ideas within the company.

• Problem solving. Critical thinking and the ability to find a way out of difficult situations are important for any specialist.

• Research. Employees who can find the necessary information, learn new approaches to work, and use artificial intelligence are in demand in the labor market and have good career prospects.

• Adaptability. Although it is the 11th skill, we should still mention it. It is one of the key skills that helps any specialist remain flexible in a changing environment.

If you don't possess one of these skills, you still have time to get them before graduation.

While you may feel the need to jump straight into your dream job after your vacation, remember that it can sometimes take a little time to figure out what that truly is. In the meantime, you can use the skills above to get your foot on the ladder and try out a range of different roles. You should also use this as an opportunity to travel and work remotely, as there’s never a better time in your life to travel than post-graduation. After all, you do not have the immediate responsibilities of a mortgage or children, and yet you know when you return, your life can pick up pretty much where it left off. If you’re going to be working abroad in any capacity, work alongside companies such as SavvyNomad to simplify the process of paying taxes!

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