🏋️‍♀️5 Overlooked In-Demand Career Skills That Are Vital In Any Industry

With every career comes a new set of skills you must brush up on but what if there were 5 universal skills that every job market required?

Wouldn’t that be so much easier?

Well you’re in luck.

You’ve stumbled upon this article to become a better worker in this digital age. I applaud you but as a heads up, you probably already have 3 of these skills you’ve adopted since Middle School. You just never knew it.

No, I’m not talking about coding, data science or financial analysis. Those are niche industry specific skills anyone can learn.

Coincidentally, you don’t even need to know them when applying for the specific role because there are multi million dollar training programs that are put into place each year for companies to onboard new employees.

Don’t believe me?

As a senior in HS I got an engineering and trading desk internship by proving what I can learn and my perseverance as a student. I had 0 experience back then but with my grit and humility, I made it seem like I was the perfect employee with 10+ years of proof.

Spoiler alert, I stayed at the firm for 8 months and they couldn’t be more blown away by a high schooler.

When interviewing, companies just want to confirm you know:

-What the company does

-How you will make them successful

-If you’re human and have soft skills

-Not a liar

-A listener

-Can be onboarded and unexpectedly added to new projects with strict deadlines

Seems easy right? Well, it is. It’s all up to you to make it a conversation and fun or a test and aggressive.

To live a successful life starts inside the noggin and learning skills that are applicable to any career, not just 1 specific role. Be an open minded generalist, not a close minded specialist that cannot handle switching careers if a virus hits.

Lets face it, no job is 100% stable and the average tenure at a job is 20 years. You have at least 20+ more years to work, unless you skipped the career gig entirely and went to live the FIRE movement retiring after college and in that case, good luck not being bored and saving every penny. Not a very lucrative and comfortable way to live.

But even if you work as a doctor during the most in-demand season of Covid, your boss might want fresh blood in the office, the budget is crying or there’s a better replacement. I’m sorry folks but no one is irreplaceable so having passive income streams to back up your active investment (job) is key.

Okay now since I scared you a bit about job prospects, let’s learn how to become the best employee you can without going crazy. Whichever path you are on, you need to be able to agile and adjust to multiple industries. It’s great that you have 10+ years of programming experience but you’ll be surprised how much the fashion or automobile industry needs you too.

You

Before we discuss tangible skills that you just want to write on paper and look up in Udemy or Khan Academy right after this, hold up.

As with everything, it starts with you. Your past experience, salary, prior jobs don’t define you. It’s your vision towards the future and what people associate you with when you walk into a room.

You must have the mindset of loving to learn otherwise it’s going to be extremely difficult for you to have the motivation to be curious, teach someone what you’ve learned, dream about it to retain the information and eventually apply it in your life.

That’s why school is a waste of time. It isn’t the real world. It is memorizing facts that go in 1 ear out the other. After graduate school or your PHD, there are no tests you have to do with clients or at work. You are working with people. The basic skills are overlooked and that’s why people struggle.

When life is hard that means you are living it correctly. If it was easy, you aren’t doing it right.

Here are the easiest ways to stand out that most people neglect and instead focus on brushing up their resume:

Social Media

My 7 year anniversary of quitting social media just passed a few months ago. Clearly I’m not a big fan because it wastes more than expected of our precious time, energy, mental sanity and life that are guaranteed not to come back. You cannot buy back time and that’s what I needed more of. I asked myself, every time I logged off of social media which never happened, will I feel better? I consistently said no, so I decided it was time for a couple days of hiatus which ended up turning into a permanent deletion.

Yet, we all need to credit social media for our success. Millions of people have been able to meet inspirational creators, promote their business for free, flaunt their looks to temporarily boost their self esteem and simply understand what is going on in the other side of the world. I appreciate social media’s creation but I needed to sacrifice salary over my mental health.

So I stuck with the 30+ platform of LinkedIn. I’ve been able to grow my following exponentially to 5k+ because I write relatable and valuable content people want to read. I’ve met incredible individuals that ghosted me on other platforms, found jobs and actually learned something. This all helped me create my personal brand because the first thing people do when they meet you is search who you are. Let your profile and content stand out and speak for itself.

YouTube

This is another classic way to put yourself out there. There are over 500 million minutes of videos uploaded every minute and that allows your voice to be heard and personal brand to flourish. As with everything, if your sole goal is to be monetized after the first video, you’ve come to the wrong place. With social media influencing to YouTube, everything takes time and patience. This is another way for someone to find you online besides a wrong address and middle school photo that leaked from your camp’s Facebook page.

Blogging

I might be bias with this one since i’ve been writing on here 5x a week for 8 months now but it truly is a great way to share your story. The beauty about working for free is that there are no expectations, no deadlines, more freedom, creativity and fun! There’s nothing better than doing something if you can make it more fun!

Building a brand takes time and dignity. The beauty about it is that most people have their own unique story and need to display it to the world. There are an abundance of outlets to share your thoughts and who you are. It never hurts, only promotes more opportunities. Never neglect your personal side.

Soft vs Hard Skills Debate

Now there’s no written in stone ratio on which one skill set is better but data proves that soft skills are useful no matter what industry and when 2 employees are matched up against each other, the one with the communication, leadership, humility, empathy and self awareness gets the job.

Don’t strive to be the smartest genius in the room, that’s why there are training programs. You can learn anytime, but true character takes patience, diligence and persistence. Resist short term gians for long term results.

The best way to build up your soft skills is to:

-Hang out with more diverse people

-Try public speaking as much as you can

-Practice makes perfect and perfect practice makes perfect

-Work with a team as much as possible

-You can still be an introvert or extrovert, just be open to having your voice heard since we all deserve it

Most Underrated Skill

How to write well is a true blessing. If you can let a toddler understand everything you write, you are golden.

People try to fake themselves and others into thinking that the more dictionary like poetic words you use, the fancier and smarter you are.

Smart means nothing. Relatability and actually allowing people to enjoy your work counts.

If I don’t understand something in the first sentence of an article, I leave. I don’t have time to be a part of a club that doesn’t care about my time and headspace.

KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid)

If anything from podcasts to books were shorter, we would be more willing to read/listen/watch because it means the producer/writer/etc. values the audience’s attention, time and life to learn more.

Short and sweet always wins.

Anyone can learn:

-Basic copywriting

-How to write a punchy and persuasive email

-How to negotiate

-Basic blogging with under 5k words

I know, maybe you were hoping for some concrete technical skills to actually get the job. That’s exactly the problem. You are missing the whole point of how you can actually boost your prospects of getting the job. The reason recruiters ask the first question, “tell me about yourself” is to gauge your conversation skills and personality. If you overlook that, don’t bother continuing the rest of the interview.

And if you are still looking for those hard skills, you’re in luck. I’ve dug up a piece from a few months ago when I was an amateur blogger. You can check them out here since they’re still completely relevant.

It’s better to be wrong and confess you don’t know willing to learn than be a smart genius book worm.

Words are behind everything we do. Focus on the tangibles and the persuasiveness. Start with you and everything else will fall into place.