What employers look for
Identify key transferable skills that graduate employers look for.
Employers generally have high expectations of graduates they recruit into their organisation, anticipating that they will arrive with an established level of knowledge, skill and professionalism that should help them to transition into the role more easily than those without a degree. This is why it’s so important that by the time you graduate you not only know what employers in your chosen field(s) are looking for, but that you have dedicated time and effort into developing yourself to meet those requirements.
One of the best ways to understand what employers want from their employees is by researching job profiles. You can use websites like Prospects and TargetJobs to search for specific job profiles, which will highlight the qualifications, skills and experience required for that particular role. Taking some time to review job descriptions and person specifications for live jobs is a really useful way of understanding what type of person the recruiter is looking for. You can find these on any jobs board, such as Indeed, LinkedIn, TotalJobs and of course, your Student Futures Account.
Gaining work experience, whether that be through volunteering, a work placement or a part-time job alongside your studies, is also key to evidence to employers that you have developed the skills they are looking for in the workplace, not just through your degree.
To develop our own deeper understanding of what employers want, the university recently collaborated with local, regional and national employers to develop six graduate attributes that are highly sought after in graduates. As such, we feel confident that if you dedicate the time to developing these attributes alongside your studies, you will enhance your chances of standing out to recruiters and thriving in your early career. Learn more about the Graduate Attributes and how you can develop them on your course and through extra-curricular activities at Cardiff University.
In addition to our graduate attributes, this next section takes a deeper dive into the skills most in-demand from employers.
What are the top skills most employers look for?
Watch the video below to hear what skills and attributes employers look for when recruiting Cardiff University graduates:
Graduate employers look mainly for two types of skills:
- Technical skills – needed to perform a specific task or type of work, for example data analysis, laboratory skills or computer programming.
- Transferable skills – skills that are needed to work in any organisation, they can be developed in one environment or job and applied to almost all others, for example teamwork or communication.
Whilst technical skills will likely be developed through your course and relevant work experience, transferable skills can be developed through a huge range of activities including hobbies, clubs and societies, your course, work experiences, volunteering and your personal life. Transferable skills are always high on graduate recruiters’ wish lists as they tend to be the skills you need to navigate the working world, like how well you manage your own workload or deal with any conflict. The World Economic Forum has outlined the top 10 skills needed for the modern world of work:
Top 10 Employment Skills
(World Economic Forum, 2023)
Type of skill:
Cognitive skills | 
Self-efficacy | 
Technology skills | 
Working with others | 
Management skills
Note: The skills judged to be of greatest importance to workers at the time of the survey.
Cognitive skills top the list for 2023. Image adapted from World Economic Forum, 2023.
You can find out more about each of these skills and how to develop them further below:
Analytical thinking
Analytical thinking is having the ability to apply a process or method to analyse a problem and reach a solution based on data, information and relevant evidence. Being able to analyse a problem and reach an effective solution is a highly desired skill in most industries! This could include applying your analytical approach to a specific skill, for example laboratory experiments or following complex procedures, or simply applying your analytical skills to solve a problem facing the organisation.
Read Indeed’s advice on the importance of analytical thinking and how you can develop your analytical skills.
Creative thinking
Creative thinkers come up with innovative or new solutions to problems, often having the ability to consider problems from a new perspective and propose ‘out of the box’ ways to address the issue. Analytical and creative thinking aren’t mutually exclusive and applying both skillsets to a problem will probably lead to the best possible solution. Firstly, you need to analyse the problem and consider the evidence and facts you have before you. With this foundational understanding, you can try to find an innovative solution. In a workplace, this might involve things like improving processes to make them more efficient or identifying new ways to engage customers and stakeholders.
Read Forage’s guide to creative thinking and get tips on how to improve your creative thinking skills on the Skills you Need website.
Resilience, flexibility and agility
Employers in all industries and sectors value employees who can roll with the punches, so to speak! Things change - in work as well as in life – and you need to be able to withstand these, and any setbacks you might encounter along the way. Being resilient, flexible and agile can include things like learning from mistakes, accepting constructive feedback and staying focused on the task in hand, even when things go wrong. Employers don’t expect perfection but they do expect graduates to be adaptable to change and have strategies in place to cope with challenges.
You can read more about being reflective and resilient on this site, and take the free Open Learn course on Developing career resilience. Indeed also has some helpful tips on demonstrating adaptability and flexibility at work.
Motivation and self-awareness
Motivation is what drives us to complete our goals – usually these are things that we care about. As with any other area of life though, motivation can be just as easily lost as it can be gained! It’s important to identify why your work matters to you and reflect on the things that drive you professionally – these can help you regain motivation when you don’t feel as committed to achieving your goals. BetterUp have a useful blog on work motivation and Barclays Life Skills also offers advice on staying motivated at work.
Self-awareness is key to successful career management and your understanding of your interests, values, strengths and motivations should guide any decisions you make relating to your career. We have a whole section on this on Student Futures+ where you can find out more.
Curiosity and lifelong learning
Curiosity is a highly valued skill by employers! Curious employees will ask questions, deepen their understanding of an issue and try to find an innovative solution. Curious people may also have better interpersonal skills – being naturally curious can lead you to want to get to know others better, ask for their opinion and try to understand their perspective. Read this Forbes article on the power of curiosity in the workplace for more information.
Lifelong learners are also a huge benefit to organisations. Employees who are committed to their ongoing professional and personal development will always seek out opportunities to continue their learning, whether this be through enhancing their existing skills or focusing on developing new ones. Their pursuit of knowledge and continuous development can mean new solutions, new ideas or new ways of doing things that can better the organisation. This FutureLearn article also highlights the importance of lifelong learning to future-proofing your career – we all need to be comfortable in developing new skills in order to keep up with the growth of emerging technologies like AI.
Technological literacy
FutureLearn describes technological literacy as “the ability to use, understand, manage and assess technology effectively, safely and responsibly”. It’s more than just being able to identify digital tools – you need to make decisions on which tool to use depending on what you want to achieve, understand the limits of digital tools and realise what technological skills are needed in your chosen field.
The Employability E-hub, a pan-Wales resource created by universities across Wales, including Cardiff University, has useful advice on how digital skills can help you in the workplace. Indeed also has tips on how to become technology savvy.
Dependability and attention to detail
A dependable person can be relied upon to do what they say they will do. They can also be depended on to keep you informed of their progress and any setbacks they might encounter along the way. Employers need to be able to rely on and trust their employees to do their work on time and to schedule, to be at work when they say they will be and attend meetings they have committed to. Even if you work for yourself, your clients must be able to depend on you – if for example you agree to complete work by a certain date and then don’t, without providing your customer or client with any explanation or reason, this can ultimately lose you business and damage your relationship with a paying customer. Dependability is a sign of your professionalism, which impacts your reputation and the way others see you. You can read more about professionalism in our advice on transitioning to the workplace.
Attention to detail is an important transferable skill you need in any workplace. In some roles, especially ones which require a high degree of analysis, your attention to detail will be vital – for example, performing highly precise practical experiments in a laboratory or analysing huge volumes of written case law or court judgments as a solicitor. However, in whatever field you choose to work in, you will be required to demonstrate some level of attention to detail. This could involve producing error-free reports and emails or providing accurate quotes to customers. Attention to detail shows you care about the work you are producing and that you have concentrated on it. It also shows again that you can be trusted and relied upon to produce error-free and accurate work without supervision. Indeed has helpful advice on improving your attention to detail.
Empathy and active listening
Empathy is linked to communication and interpersonal skills, as well as your emotional intelligence and how well you are able to regulate your emotions in a work environment. It is your ability to see a situation or perspective from someone else’s point of view – this could be a customer, client, patient, colleague or manager. It can help you build positive relationships with people you work with and is also considered important for effective leadership.
Active listening is similar to empathy in that it relates to how you communicate and get on with others. Active listening involves more than just hearing what someone has said – it means fully engaging with it and demonstrating that you have understood. It could involve your body language, for example nodding, or you might summarise or paraphrase what you have heard to truly show that you have understood someone.
Indeed has excellent advice on both empathy and active listening and how you can develop these in the workplace.
Leadership and social influence
Leadership is a highly sought after graduate skill. Everyone can demonstrate leadership qualities and have a positive influence on others, regardless of whether you are in a leadership position or not. Employers look for people who can encourage and motivate others, take responsibility and set an example. You will be actively developing your leadership qualities and skills whilst at university, for example, by leading group projects, participating in group sports or clubs or joining clubs or societies in a position of responsibility.
There is lots of useful advice on how to develop your leadership skills and what makes a good leader – try these articles from TargetJobs and Indeed to get you started, and consider taking these free courses from Bright Network and the Open University to develop your understanding further.
Quality control
Quality control refers broadly to the processes, systems or methods through which products, services or work may be measured to ensure that they meet a certain standard – this could be defined by the industry you work in or by the organisation itself. Quality control could involve testing, inspection, checking, reviewing, gathering feedback, continuous development and training. Whilst you could work in a quality control job specifically, quality control could just form part of your wider role. Ultimately, quality control is high on all employers’ agenda – delivering a quality service or product efficiently and improving customer satisfaction is only going to lead to better outcomes for the organisation, whether this be through increased profits, customer loyalty or efficient use of resources.