The Job Skills Most Likely to Get You Hired

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Employers bringing in new hires are more concerned with how hard they're going to work than the technical abilities they bring to the table, new research finds.

When hiring entry-level employees, managers place a higher importance on soft skills such as attitude and work ethic than on hard trade skills, according to a study from Instructure, a software-as-a-service company.

The research revealed that overall employers place a greater emphasis on finding and hiring workers with skills that are difficult or impossible to be taught. Most of the managers surveyed said attitude and work ethic are the most important considerations when choosing a new hire, while 79 percent said a candidate's prestigious schooling was the least important consideration.

"As we combed through the data, we were surprised to find that managers valued soft skills over hard trade skills when looking for new entrants to the workforce," Josh Coates, CEO at Instructure, said in a statement.

Managers believe it's these soft skills that ultimately determine whether a new hire turns out successful. Specifically, 85 percent of those surveyed said having a solid work ethic is the most important attribute for employee success.

The study found that once hired, managers regard the skills entry-level employees learned in school almost as important as soft skills for success at work. The study's authors believe the responses show that managers make new hires based on key attributes, then hope to effectively train them to develop other skills they need to excel in the workplace.

"Most companies are hiring talent based on soft skills like attitude and hard work, with the hope that they can train them to be up to par on things like tech skills and industry knowledge," said Davis Bell, Instructure's vice president of corporate markets.

The study was based on surveys of more than 750 managers at U.S. companies in various industries. The surveys were designed to measure which factors managers take into highest consideration when hiring, which attributes they see as most important to the success of entry-level employees, as well as how they perceive employee competence in those same areas before and after formal training.

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