In Demand Skills to Succeed in Your Career

No matter what industry or field of work you are in or looking to get into, there are crucial skills which employers highly value. Having these skills will make you stand out amongst other candidates and it will certainly help you navigate through just about anything in the workplace.

We’ve asked our recruitment and HR professionals at BAT Australia and Malaysia to highlight top five skills that young professionals should start developing now to succeed in their careers.

Leadership

This is a skill you would have heard a lot through attending workshops, seminars and courses you’ve undertaken during your studies. Leadership is the ability and competence to guide others to bring about the best possible outcome while ensuring everyone is heard, supported and contributes to the final decision making. Apart from leading others, a vital aspect of leadership is supervising decision making and taking accountability of your decisions and actions.

You can start building this skill in multiple ways and settings. Next time there is a group assignment, you can volunteer to keep everyone in the team accountable of delivering their parts and ensure the deadline is being met by following up and supporting your group. Working a part time job? You can practice your leadership skills by helping the newcomer – be a mentor and stand up for them when required.

Effective Communication & Stakeholder Management

Whether it be in an office, school or part time work, you will rarely ever be working alone, and the chances are, you’ll be relying on both internal and external stakeholders for pivotal support and resources. While everyone is capable of communication, communicating effectively involves sending a message across respectfully and concisely. Stakeholder management is to maintain good relations with individuals or groups that have impact on your work. Effective communication and stakeholder management can also go hand-in-hand as delivering important messages effectively to stakeholders help maintain clear stakeholder expectations and ensure a smooth experience for everyone.

To practice effective communication, you need to embrace elements of emotional intelligence, active listening, seeking clarity and respect. You should also consider the medium in which the message is being communicated. For example, when sending messages digitally i.e., through emails or text messages, you should think about how your message will be received by the recipient as tone of your message is difficult to be transmitted digitally. When communicating via text message, you should also try to ensure that your messages are clear and straight to the point.

Assertiveness

Sometimes it’s important to break out of your shell and not be afraid voice yourself when you have an input that needs to be heard. Being assertive does not mean forcing your ideas on to others but is instead being direct and respectful. If you are too passive or aggressive, it may distract audiences from the message as they would be too focused on your delivery. Assertiveness is about expressing yourself and standing up for your points while respecting others. 

So next time you have a great idea, try to step outside your comfort zone to speak up. Who knows? It may be a groundbreaking idea!

Teamwork

This is a trait that is often overlooked – it is a collaborative effort of a group to achieve a common goal in the most effective and efficient way. As mentioned earlier, working in an organisation will often have you working in teams so learning to work with others and flex style to your audience will no doubt be attractive abilities to have.

By working with a team effectively, team members will get a chance to ignite their leadership skills and creativity, maximising the potential of their unique individual skillsets.

For this, members need to understand and have a clear and common end goal in mind, establish roles of each member, respect the rules of the team, manage time efficiently and most importantly, embrace a positive mindset to overcome any challenges together.

Emotional intelligence

Emotional Intelligence (EQ) is a different type of intelligence. It’s about being ‘heart smart’ not just ‘head smart’. It has been found to be amongst the Top 10 Skills needed to succeed in the modern days of work.

EQ is made up of four key pillars that can be classified into two groups. First group being personal competence that encompasses the understanding of one’s own emotions and feelings, and second being relational competence that deals with that of others.

• Personal Competence – The two main elements that make up this branch of EQ are self-awareness and self-control. The former is the ability to recognise your own emotions, and how they affect your thoughts and behaviour. Understanding your strengths and weaknesses also falls under self-awareness. Self-control however is when you contain impulsive feelings and behaviours while managing your emotions in healthy ways. Taking initiative, following through on commitments, and adapting to circumstances are also part of having self-control.
• Relational Competence – This is defined by the awareness of others and building relationships. This is about understanding the emotions and feelings of those around you. Feeling socially comfortable and recognising the power dynamics in a group or organisation are also part of this. Building relationships is self-explanatory. Other key aspects include the ability to develop and maintain good relationships, communicating clearly, inspiring and influencing others, working well in a team, and managing conflict.

Few ways in which you can start building this crucial skill is to be empathetic, self-reflect and learn about yourself including you own emotions and triggers. Then, you can use this understanding to better connect to others and this should also help you better understand others and why they act the way they do, allowing you to work with others efficiently. 

Do you already hold any of the above skills or willing to start developing them? You may be interested in taking part in BAT’s Global Graduate Programme. Click here to learn more about BAT, our world-class graduate programme and how you can apply.