These Are the Skills You Need if You Want to Be Headhunted

By Akane Otani January 05, 2015. © Businessweek

If you're marching into the new year ready to ace job interviews by boasting about the half-dozen startups you launched in school, reconsider your game plan. For all the career advice about the importance of entrepreneurial thinking and being a global citizen, data show that recruiters don't necessarily value cosmopolitan self-starters or even people with lots of industry credentials. What they do want: employees who can write clean e-mails, work in a team, and think analytically.

Bloomberg Businessweek polled 1,320 MBA recruiters from July to September of last year for our 2014 business school rankings. We surveyed recruiters in two dozen industries, from consulting to consumer products, so while we asked specifically about their preferences in MBA recruiting, their feedback likely applies to a wide pool of applicants for the same types of jobs. Recruiters in our survey could pick up to five skills from a list of 14 that they considered most important in applicants. The most commonly named asset was good communication, which 68 percent of recruiters sought, followed by analytical thinking (60 percent) and the ability to work collaboratively (55 percent). On the flip side, only 8.9 percent of recruiters listed entrepreneurship as one of their must-haves, 12.3 mentioned a global mindset, and 15.2 picked industry-related work experience.

We also asked recruiters what skills were most difficult for them to find among job applicants. Recruiters ranked strategic thinking (47.3 percent), creative problem-solving (44.4 percent), and leadership skills (42.2 percent) highest in this category. Few said it was hard to spot driven candidates, probably because most job applicants in this economy aren't showing up to interviews apathetic about landing the job.

Those who want to blow away recruiters should try to hone skills that are important to recruiters and hard to find. Three skills—creative problem-solving, strategic thinking, and leadership skills—were named as both important and hard to find by more than 40 percent of recruiters. If you made a New Year's resolution to get a competitive edge in your job search, figuring a way to lead groups at unraveling complex challenges in a creative way (become an Eagle scout leader?) would be a good start.

Otani is a reporter for Bloomberg Businessweek in New York, covering business schools.

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nanheyangrouchuan • 19 hours ago

In listing the skills that recruiters say are the hardest to find, it can be said that:

Strategic thinking is extinguished at the lower ranks and middle management, so recruiters for lower to mid level positions wouldn't know strategic thinking if Chingis Khan or Napoleon were looking for a job.

Creative problem solving, again, lip service until you start your job if you are under the level of VP. Tow the line, being creative is for people in suits. Thus, creative types outside of marketing or actual art related jobs aren't an exact fit.

Industry related work experience: if a candidate is coming from a competitor, they already have the job, not you. If your former industry was similar but not exact, the recruiter is unable to connect the dots.

Adaptability: You are probably very adaptable. The job description was carved by the gods in adamantium, making it very unflexible. Communication skills: "Yes sir!", "yes ma'am!", "I can work on the weekend of my kid's birthday, wedding anniversary, parent funeral!", "I don't require a benefit package", "I am H1-B eligible and willing to do 100k work for 30k!"

Risk taking and decision making: Skills that come with entrepreneurship, which is an undesirable trait. There is HR contradicting itself again. Decisions and risk are for people in offices. If you are in a cubicle, you can make decisions about where you eat lunch and take the risk of not liking your food.

And lastly, be H1-B eligible.

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Jessica Bowslaugh • 4 hours ago

strategic thinking is a function of IQ and development and it is statistically rare. Almost anyone who is a strategic, creative problem-solving leader is not going to want to spend time in a corporate environment (corporate environments are by their nature stifling, mediocre compromises that frustrate and crush these traits). Recruiters and HR departments may seek these qualities out all they want, but that simply reveals they have an entitlement complex and lack a comprehensive understanding of functionality and context.