How to Boost Your Employability: 5 Strategies You Don’t Want to Miss

Today’s job market is a competitive place where every opening is vied for by many. The more coveted or niche-like a position, the more of a struggle it is to get a foot in the door. Thus, making a mark and getting noticed as a better prospect in the pool of applicants is very important. That is where your level of employability comes in.

Employability is much more than just your learned skill set. Employers now want you to sell yourself not only based on your aptitude, but your ability to be an integral part of a team working well with others, and other personal qualities that will make you a good fit within their organization.

Qualities Employers Look For

Personal presentation

The way you present yourself to others. This can be your personal appearance, your actions towards others, and how you interact.

Your approach

Are you a positive individual who can appropriately express your opinions in a helpful manner? Then you are more employable than the person who just goes through the motions to get through a day of work.

Organizational skills

Knowing how to multi-task and prioritize are important aspects of most businesses. Staying organized helps keep those activities productive making your ability to remain organized even more important.

Flexibility

Not just the ability to change with a growing company, but also the flexibility to work effectively with a varied and diverse group of people.

Collaboration

Having the ability to work within a group is something employers look for. However, you are even more employable if you can collaborate and add your ideas to the process instead of sitting on the sidelines.

Company awareness

Know your job, know the company and what its product or services are, and know the customer base.

Employability Tips

Stay abreast of business trends.

Use that knowledge to be creative and introduce new ideas. Being knowledgeable in your field and using that knowledge to innovate shows your motivation to be a key player in the business.

Use your resume to cater to the position.

Do a little research to find out qualities an employer is looking for in the ideal candidate. This can be done simply by looking at the job description and requirements. Then, use that information to adjust your resume to highlight those areas.

Add real-life experience to your skillset.

Being involved in volunteer work, community projects, or even hobbies that can relate to your work can add some impressive features to a resume. It shows you like to be involved even if it is not required. It can also show you are able to work in a group towards a positive goal. Internships are a great way to show your skills are developing in a real and related work environment.

Use your network.

Beginning in college and possibly even in high school, you have likely developed personal and professional contacts creating a network. Do not forget to look into the usefulness of it. A contact within your network can make suggestions as to what skills an employer may be looking for, software to learn, skills to acquire, or even job openings to look at. Thus, it is important to keep a diverse network made up of individuals from different industries and job positions.

Become bilingual and learn a new language.

Not only is this an additional qualification only a small percentage hold, but it can also earn you a bit extra on your paychecks. It allows you to work with multilingual customers and employees that others may have a harder time interacting with. If you are vying for a position with a specific company, do a bit of research to find out if they have major customers in certain countries, a specific customer base that may speak another language or an abundant amount of workers that speak a specific language and use that to find the language to learn.