The United States is currently experiencing one of the tightest labor markets in history and many say that the country is currently facing a skills gap. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the U.S. currently has over 7 million unfilled jobs.
This tight labor market has led many companies to become more open-minded when considering candidates. Companies including Google, Apple, IBM and Bank of America no longer require applicants to have a college degree.
Instead of emphasizing the need for specific titles and experience, organizations are shifting towards a focus on the skills that a potential employee may bring. At tech companies like Facebook, this is especially true.
"Skills really matter the most,"Janelle Gale, Facebook's vice president of human resources, tells CNBC Make It.
Her advice for workers interested in landing a job at an organization like Facebook is to focus on skills and apply — even if your resume does not exactly match the job description.
"We actually value skills over experience in the grand scheme of things," she says. "Apply if you have the relevant skills even if you don't have the right experience, because we're looking underneath the surface for what's really going to matter here and that's what skills you can bring to the table."
LinkedIn recently analyzed hundreds of thousands of job postings in order to determine which skills companies need most in 2019. They found that employers are looking for workers with both soft skills and hard technical skills and matched these skills with LinkedIn Learning courses that are free for the month of January.
Here are the 5 most in-demand soft skills in 2019:
5. Time Management
Recommended courses: Tony Schwartz on Managing Your Energy for Sustainable High Performance, Finding Your Time Management Style, Time Management for Managers
4. Adaptability
Recommended courses: Strategic Agility, Developing Adaptable Employees, Developing Adaptability as a Manager
3. Collaboration
Recommended courses: Collaboration Principles and Process, Being an effective team member, Business Collaboration in the Modern Workplace
2. Persuasion
Recommended courses: Persuading Others, Becoming A Thought Leader, Advanced Consumer Behavior
1. Creativity
Recommended courses: Creativity Bootcamp, The Five-Step Creative Process, Creativity: Generate Ideas in Greater Quantity and Quality
Here are the 5 most in-demand hard skills in 2019:
5. UX Design
Recommended courses: UX Foundations: Multidevice Design, UX Design: 01 Overview, UX Research for Agile Teams
4. People Management
Recommended courses: Motivating and Engaging Employees, Managing Team Conflict, Leading with Purpose
3. Analytical Reasoning
Recommended courses: Making Decisions, Decision Making Strategies, Executive Decision Making
2. Artificial Intelligence
Recommended courses: Artificial Intelligence Foundations: Neural Networks, Artificial Intelligence Foundations: Machine Learning, Machine Learning and AI Foundations: Classification Modeling
1. Cloud Computing
Recommended courses: Learning Cloud Computing: Networking, Learning Amazon Web Services (AWS) for Developers, AWS for Architects: Advanced Security
Creativity and cloud computing came in first as the most in-demand soft and hard skills in 2019, according to LinkedIn.
According to Paul Petrone, editor of LinkedIn Learning, this year's list reflects a change in employers' priorities.
"Interestingly, the newcomers to our list were uniquely human traits: Among soft skills, creativity and adaptability joined the list for the first time, and among hard skills, people management was a new addition," he tells CNBC Make It via email.
"While digital skills like cloud computing and artificial intelligence topped the list of hard skills companies need most, the emergence of these three new skills suggests that employers recognize the importance of embracing modern technologies as well as recognizing those things technology can't do: connect with other people, engage in out-of-the-box thinking and quickly adapt to new priorities or problems."
By paying attention to in-demand skills like these, workers can make sure they remain in-demand among employers.
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