12 Important Qualities Employers Are Looking For In Hires

You stand a greater chance of getting employed as a manager or employee with the 12 top qualities shown below.

Employers usually have a list of qualities they are looking for from applicants when hiring.

These are attributes they believe will enable the individual to perform excellently on the job when employed.

Therefore, if you are looking for job, you need to have developed these skills to increase your chances of being selected.

Here are top twelve of them, which the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) survey of 2014 find important.

1. Decision Making

Today’s work place requires people who can quickly do a proper assessment of situations and make the right decision. It is important for employers to have such people not only in managerial roles but also in low level jobs to ensure operations of the organization runs smoothly.

A situation where some employees of a company cannot take certain decisions right on the spot when a decision is needed can be very costly to that company in terms of both financial loss and loss to its brand image.

To avoid such loss and embarrassment, people with ability to make the right decisions, including when under pressure are given more consideration for employment, especially as manager than those that cannot.

2. Problem Solving

It is expected that problems of various kinds can occur at the work place. It can be operational challenges, sales problem, or even conflict amongst staff. Whatever it is, management expects someone, especially the head of the department or supervisor to provide solution to it.

Having people who are able to provide solution to whatever problem that might come up in the company is what every employer desires. It means the success of the company is assured.

3. Communication Skills

Most jobs positions require interaction with diverse groups of people including colleagues, management, customers, suppliers, auditors, and officials of government.

It is therefore important for employers to seek people who can communicate verbally, as well as in writing.

For people vying for managerial positions, this is a most have skill.

4. Acquiring and Processing Information

With the huge development in information technology – the Internet and the mobiles – it has become important for employers to hire people who know how to acquire the necessary information from various sources, process and deliver it to the right personnel for appropriate action.

Job seekers must know how to use at least the email and Microsoft Office package to obtain and process information.

5. Planning Skills

As an employee, whatever your job is, you need to set out a plan for it. Planning helps you to achieve more of the important things you need to accomplish at the right time.

It also helps to cut out time and material wastage, and makes you more effective on the job.

Managers need to have the ability to plan more than lower level workers because most of their functions require completion of projects within a time frame.

They would need to make serious plan and follow it up until the project is met within deadline.

Employers know how much the ability to plan can affect a worker’s productivity, that’s why it is one of their top interests when recruiting, especially for senior positions.

6. Organizational Skills

You need a good level of organization in a work place to get things going smoothly.

For junior workers, they need to be able to put their desk in order with files properly arranged.

They need to be able to file items correctly so they don’t go looking for them when they are required.

They may also need to be able to take record of supplies so that at a particular time they know the state of material supplies and bring the manager’s attention to it.

For the manager, his/her organizational skills will enable him/her to be effective in scheduling appointments and meetings; planning and supervising projects, as well as assigning tasks and organizing the work of employees to ensure they are not idle.

7. Ability to Prioritize Tasks

It is important for managers to have the ability to prioritize tasks since they usually have a lot of pressing responsibilities to complete.

Prioritizing tasks means you make a list of the duties you need to perform, with the most important one on top of it while others follow in order of their importance.

And that means you have to complete each one of them at a time, starting from the top to the bottom.

This helps the manager to maintain focus on each task, which results in being able to accomplish more tasks, especially the ones that are very important to the company.

It gives him/her a great sense of fulfillment seeing how much he/she has been able to achieve for the company. And that increases his/her productivity as well.

The ability to prioritize responsibilities is not only useful to managers, but also to employees as it increases the individual’s productivity level, which is why it is a quality employers usually require from new hires.

8. Skill in Analyzing Quantitative Data

The ability to analyze qualitative data and come up with the right interpretation can help the company in making effective decisions.

This is a skill people in managerial positions must have to succeed on their job. Companies usually generate lots of data and statistical trends and will require someone to understand and interpret them for management to be able to make the best decisions.

9. Possession of Technical Knowledge

Some jobs require applicants to have certain technical knowledge to be hired.

Before applying for a job, you need to check out the requirements to see if you need to have any technical knowledge to qualify for it.

If it does, it means you have to get that knowledge first from an accredited training institution if you don’t already have it before sending in your application.

10. Expertise in Using Computer Software Programs

Most current jobs, from employee to management positions require the use of computer software programs to execute tasks and to improve productivity.

There are various kinds of software programs used in accomplishing different tasks and responsibilities at work place.

The Microsoft Office package is popular in many offices across the world for performing various administrative and business tasks.

Employers usually state in their advertisements for a vacant position the kind of software programs job seekers need to be proficient in to be employed for that position.

If you don’t have the required proficiency in using the software programs, one of the ways you can get it is to serve as intern in a place where you can develop mastery in using such tools.

It is important to have this competence because recruiters usually ask for them.

11. Report Writing

The ability to write report or edit one is a quality supervisor, managers, and other senior staff of a company must have.

Such personnel are usually required to send in reports to management, detailing the activities of their departments, projects, etc., weekly, monthly, quarterly, and yearly.

This helps management to have a proper appraisal of their work.

12. Ability to Increase Sales

A critical need for most firms today is to be able to increase sales. Such companies would obviously hire people with strong marketing skills, or with the ability to influence others in making buying decisions.

This quality is especially important for sales or marketing positions.

Conclusion

Knowing the kind of qualities employers are mostly looking for when hiring in today’s job market, as we have discussed above, enables you to prepare adequately for your desired job, whether as an employee or a manager.

Take the effort to develop these qualities and you will be putting yourself in a better position of being recruited for the job.