Entry Level Employment Skills - What Do Employers Want?

Last month SHRM and the consulting firm Mercer issued a joint report titled EntryLevel Job Applicant Skills.

They assessed 15 skills and attributes employers commonly look for including dependability, communication, creativity, and integrity, to name a few. The top "vote getters" (skills or attributes deemed most important) were:

• Dependability and Reliability

• Integrity

• Respect

• Teamwork

Interestingly, these are all soft-skills and attributes rather than the hard-skills (communication, problem solving) that many employers are saying candidates are missing at the entry-level. Less than a quarter of the survey respondents said mathematics was a critical entry-level skill.

The #1 tactic suggested for securing entry-level positions was career-related internships. Internships are able to help a potential employer assess the skills bulleted above. Panel interviews are the most widely used interview technique for assessing the desired attributes.

This study / survey has interesting implications for training...

• If candidates lack these attributes... can we train for them?

• Are these attributes prerequisites to skills training or entirely different from them?