The 12 skills employers want the most

A new survey has revealed the skills that employers value. Photo / 123RF

A new survey has revealed the skills that employers value and how different they are to what university graduates think are important.

The QS Global Employer Survey 2018 has highlighted the misconceptions students have about what skills employers want and the areas where there is a graduate skills gap.

For the report released this week, more than 11,000 employers were surveyed around the world and their answers were compared to responses from 16,000 prospective students.

"Students do not fully understand how employers value skills," the report states.

"For example, students relatively overvalue the importance of creativity and leadership skills, and undervalue the importance of flexibility/adaptability and teamwork."

QS chief executive officer Nunzio Quacquarelli said the development of soft skills, such as team-playing and resilience, had become almost as important as that technical skills and knowledge acquired during a degree.

He said it was becoming more vital that universities prepared graduates for the world of work and this included the development of these skills.

"Opportunities for internships, study abroad, extra-curricular activity and active learning can all contribute to the development of these and other skills universities want," he said.

Annette Cairnduff, the general manager of research, evaluation and partnerships at the Foundation for Young Australians, said the results aligned with its own report, The New Work Reality, which found young people believed the key reason they couldn't get a full-time job was because they didn't have the skills employers were looking for.

She said workers with so-called "soft skills", or what she prefers to call "enterprise skills" such as problem solving, communication, teamwork and digital literacy, were in demand.

"Employers are already willing to pay more for young people who have these skills," she told news.com.au.

"They are hard skills to learn but they are the most portable of skills; they are skills you can take from one job to another."

While these skills are not going to replace the need for technical knowledge, as automation continues to change the working landscape, skills of a "higher order" will become more important.

Cairnduff believes industry must play a part in the development of these skills alongside educational institutions.

"It's a joint responsibility and always has been," she said.

"The future workforce is going to have to learn on the job more than they do now."

She said automation meant entry level jobs young people used to do were now disappearing and people also stayed in education for longer. The opportunities to engage in real work and to get work experience were harder to find.

Businesses can help young people through internships or other programs, but students could also develop skills by working through workplace problems while at university or vocational education.

"It doesn't have to be the traditional apprenticeship type of approach," she said.

"The workforce has changed but the way we are preparing young people hasn't."

The skills employers ranked as the most important for graduates:

1. Problem solving
2. Teamwork
3. Communication
4 Adaptability
5. Data analysis
6. Resilience
7. Organisation
8. Technical skills
9. Creativity
10. Leadership
11. Language
12. Commercial awareness

The skills students thought were the most important:

1. Creativity
2. Organisation
3. Problem solving
4. Leadership
5. Teamwork
6. Communication
7. Resilience
8. Commercial awareness
9. Adaptability
10. Technical skills
11. Language
12. Data analysis