Trail To Employment – Applicant Skills Series
From maintaining quality customer relationships, and regulating compliance, to dealing with embedded AI in the future, companies face many challenges. Problem-solving skills can get you through these and other roadblocks encountered in your search for a job as well as when starting on your career journey. Problem-solving, which is closely related to decision-making and critical thinking, is a complex skill. It begins with identifying an issue, tracing its origin, drafting potential solutions, and choosing the most favourable way to fix it. The CICan Innovation Fund Project Report specifies that internationally mobile students frequently employ their problem-solving skills during their time abroad. Problem-solving tactics are to be found in your everyday life and academic experiences preparing you for your future career.
What makes problem-solving a desirable skill for employers is your ability to understand and fix issues quickly. Evaluating which solution can be modified to successfully overcome a problem requires innovative thinking, particularly when new problems appear. Research and analysis of the new circumstances contribute to the creation of a proposal and application of an action plan. Your resourcefulness and independent reasoning are tested in classroom discussions, and so is your initiative in the workplace. As one of the employers underlined, the ability to think on your feet matters in entry-level positions.
Problem-solving skills are crucial because problems arise across every layer of every industry in the job market. The Erasmus Competence Booklet accentuates that a motivated, persistent graduate can cope with unexpected problems calmly. After being exposed to a challenging situation, you can visualise the problem, distance yourself from it, and start brainstorming answers. The more pressing the problem, the greater your motivation to find an effective solution. Typical priorities for international students include residence permits and visas. Successfully getting through a country’s bureaucracy in a foreign language on your own gives you a sense of achievement. Feeling empowered you can solve these problems, you gather the confidence to rely on yourself. With new challenges arising, you need to devise a new strategy, fit for the new circumstances. For that reason, problem-solving is an individual, original skill.
Communication; Adaptability; Problem-solving; Teamwork; and Time- and Self-management are the top skills employers seek. These skills surfaced in the employer interviews conducted by Expertise in Labour Mobility (ELM) within the CICan Innovation Fund Project. This blog series called Trail to Employment – Applicant Skills presents each of their respective functions using the metaphor of a carriage, the vehicle needed on the trail to employment. In doing so, we direct students considering going to an exchange or approaching graduation on their path to the job market. The series concludes with a post proposing different ways you can convincingly argue how your international experience contributed to the acquisition and cultivation of those skills.
In summary, Problem-solving is deemed desirable in the workplace as change and unpredictability make up the constant reality. Within the carriage, problem-solving is the driver – overseeing the journey from a higher see but also responsible for choosing the right track. If skills seem fun to you, check out our next post!
Written by Athina Tzanetou for Expertise in Labour Mobility
Images by Jizelle Ys for CareerProfessor.works
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