Standing Out In Your Career
How do you stand out in a crowded career market? One way is to simply highlight skills you already have. And whether you’re an experienced leader or a recent college graduate, it’s likely that you’ve got at least one of those highly desired skills.
In the recent Leadership IQ study called The Leadership Skills Gap, more than 3,000 leaders candidly assessed their expertise. We learned that there are critical competency gaps, and among those are some of the most desired skills in today’s modern organizations.
Here are three of the skills that you should be highlighting on your resume starting today.
Skill #1: Handling And Reducing Burnout
While there is no shortage of articles decrying the current state of employee burnout, the vast majority of leaders just don’t know how to fix the problem. In the aforementioned study, we discovered that only 19% of leaders are adept at reducing employee burnout.
Whether you decide to highlight that you’ve learned how to avoid burnout or that you’ve learned how to solve it once it emerges, if you’ve figured out approaches that keep you engaged no matter how stressful your workload, you’re going to be highly desired. For all the talk about how companies want to reduce employee burnout, few take those statements seriously or know how to start.
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Skill #2: Working Remotely
It probably goes without saying that the ability to work remotely is essential for anyone in the 2021 job market. Yet, notwithstanding the ubiquity of remote working, only 33% of leaders are highly skilled at managing remote employees. In other words, anyone who can show that they know how to manage themselves while working remotely is going to have a significant advantage in this job market.
It may seem strange to some, but there are more than a few people out there who still haven’t figured out how to manage themselves while working remotely. Of course, there are challenges for those with children, childcare shortages, eldercare obligations, and all the rest. But in a competitive job market, especially one in which remote working skills are critical, highlighting this skillset can only enhance your resume.
Skill #3: Embracing Change
You would be forgiven for assuming that everyone in today’s workplaces embraces change. But as we know from the study Resistance To Change, that is far from the case. Even worse, only 40% of leaders are well-versed in overcoming resistance to change.
Any candidate in this market who can demonstrate that they’re fully capable of handling and embracing change is going to stand apart from everyone else. Getting people to buy into change is incredibly stressful for leaders of all experience levels. So it makes sense that nearly all managers and executives would want to hire people who are change-positive.
The point of this is not that you should fabricate characteristics on your resume. Rather, if you are already someone who can manage their own burnout, work remotely effectively and embrace change, you should highlight those attributes. Because not only are they in high demand, they’re characteristics that most leaders simply don’t know how to replicate.
