With a New Year comes new goals. For many people, those goals involve brushing up on skills that will prime them for greater personal and professional success in the year ahead.
In that spirit, Comparably analyzed tens of thousands of employee reviews to determine which skills are most prized by employees and employers right now. More than 32,000 respondents from across all industries, but predominantly tech, were asked the following:
— Which of the following qualities is most important when hiring someone new for your company?
— Which of the following soft skills has helped you advance most in your career?
— What does your direct manager most need to improve?
The results:
“Work ethic” is the top skill valued by employers
Top-line view: 34% of employers said work ethic was the most important quality in a new hire, making it the top answer. The second most-popular answer was “integrity,” (25%) followed by “good culture fit” (22%). The least popular answers were “resourcefulness” (12%) and “prior experience” (8%).
— Men vs. women: Men and women were nearly identical in their rankings.
— By ethnicity: People across all ethnicities ranked these qualities in the same order; Asians and Pacific Islanders, however, ranked “good culture fit” just as important as “work ethic.”
Asian/Pacific Islander
— By age: Responses were similar across all age groups except ages 46 to 50. This group ranked “good culture fit” as No. 1 (33%), followed by “integrity” (25%), and then “work ethic” (23%).
Ages 46 to 50
“Persistence” is the No. 1 career-making soft skill
— Top-line view: When asked what soft skill has helped them most in their career, 32% of people said “persistence,” making it the top answer overall. The next most popular response was “likability” (26%), followed by “humility” and “logic” (tied at 15%). The least popular response overall was empathy (12%).
— Men vs. women: The most marked difference in the responses of men and women was that women chose “empathy” much more than men (14% women vs. 9% men). Men, on the other hand, chose “logic” more than women (17% men vs. 13% women).
— By ethnicity: People across all ethnicities ranked these skills in the same order; however, 23% of African Americans chose “humility,” making it close behind “persistence” at 29% and “likability” at 27%. Humility, on average, was chosen by 15% of people.
African Americans
- By age: The importance of persistence was shown to increase with age: for workers aged 18 to 25, the percentage of people who chose persistence was 28%; for workers aged 51 to 55, the percentage of people who chose persistence was 39%.18 to 25
51 to 55
Communication” is the skill managers most need to improve - — Top-line view: 48% of people say their managers need to improve their communication. The next most popular response was accountability (20%), positivity (15%), honesty (9%) and work ethic (8%).
— Men vs. women: Men and women were nearly identical in their responses. The only slight difference was that 49% of men chose communication compared with 46% of women, and 7% of men chose work ethic compared to 9% of women.
— By ethnicity: 51% of Caucasians chose communication, the highest percentage among all ethnic groups.
— By ethnicity: 51% of Caucasians chose communication, the highest percentage among all ethnic groups.
Methodology— Questions were in Yes/No and multiple-choice format.
— Results are based on more than 32,000 responses from employees predominantly across the technology sector.
— Employees hail from small, mid-size, and large tech companies (VC-funded, privately-held, and public) to household brands like Amazon, Apple, Google, Facebook, Uber, etc.
— Data was collected between March 30, 2016 and December 14, 2017.
