Here Are the Most Sought After Skills From Canadian Employers

A new survey conducted by Workopolis details what employers are looking for in new hires and what skills candidates are lacking.

The survey of the Canadian job market included 256 employers and their hiring intentions and challenges. The survey was conducted in the spring of 2015 and one-third of respondents said they plan to increase staffing levels over the next 12 months. However, 68 per cent said that it is 'very or somewhat difficult' to find the people that they need to hire.

“71 per cent of employers surveyed said a shortage of qualified candidates is having an impact on their ability to meet client needs,” said Workopolis in a statement. “This is up by five per cent from a similar survey we conducted in 2012, where 66 per cent of senior executives said that a shortage of skilled workers was impacting their business.”

There is good news though, as Canadian employers say only four per cent of candidates are lacking educational skills. Experience is the biggest hurdle in the way of prospective candidates as employers cite this as the top skill people are lacking. This was followed by candidates not having soft skills and technical skills.

The most sought after skills in Canadian job postings include:
Communication skills
Writing
Customer relations
Sales
Organizational skills
Microsoft office
Policy analysis
Supervisory skills/leadership
Problem solving
Teamwork

According to Workopolis, communications is the clear stand out skill appearing in most job postings and it is a particularly key skill in many professions. The employers surveyed by Workopolis also mentioned "a positive work ethic" as one of the attributes they found lacking in many applicants.

Of course a lack of experience is not a new problem, but how can candidates gain experience when they are not being hired? How can you get your foot in the door of your first job without real experience to demonstrate you have what it takes to do the work?

To find out the answer Workopolis spoke with Sharon Ramalho, Senior Vice President and Chief People Officer at McDonald's Restaurants of Canada. Her company hires roughly 45,000 people every year. About 70 to 80 per cent of these are people are seeking their first or second job. Here's what her company looks for in entry-level candidates.

"People who are really interested in working as part of a team," said Ramalho. "They don't necessarily have to be extroverts, but they have to be self-motivated. It helps if they want to learn, have a passion for food, and they want to help people have a nice experience in our restaurants. We teach people communication skills they don't necessarily come in with: how to speak to their peer group, how to communicate with management, how to interact with customers. Staff learn everything from the basics of making proper eye contact to how to give praise or to provide feedback when necessary.”

One of the traps people fall into when they are nervous is to try to fill any silence with words, so that they end up rambling and appearing inarticulate. Pause for three seconds before answering a job interview question. It only seems like a long silence in your own head. This gives you time to think about the question and form an articulate answer before you speak.

Secondly, write an engaging cover letter that doesn't sound like a cookie-cutter template, but really tells your story and why you want the job. Make sure that your resume and cover letter are free from grammatical mistakes and typos. Writing skills are amongst the most sought after.

Digital skills are also in demand from employers and can range from knowing basic computer skills to coding and social media savvy.

The top ten skills for rising demand in 2015 are:
HTML5
Social media platforms
Big data
nosql
jQuery
Tableau
MongoDB
Google Analytics
JSON
Revit

Canadian employers want candidates with a demonstrated work ethic, plus communications, customer relations, and teamwork abilities who can use computers to create and share documents and spreadsheets, and who keep up with the latest technologies. Highlighting these in your resume and during job interviews can be the key to breaking into the job market.