Literature Review: Essential Skills for Job Market Success

This literature review analyzes the essential skills required for graduates entering the job market, emphasizing communication, organization, teamwork, and problem-solving as crucial transferable skills. The review synthesizes various sources to highlight the importance of these skills for adapting to changing job environments and career advancement. It explores the similarities and differences in skills expected by employers, noting that while basic skills remain consistent across different job advertisements, advanced skills vary based on job responsibilities and industry. The review identifies communication and problem-solving abilities as common skills sought by employers, essential for effective resource utilization and handling workplace challenges. The analysis concludes that there are no specific skills asked only in one job advertisement and not in others, and the importance of key skills like communication and problem-solving is consistently emphasized across various job roles. The review references key authors and their findings to support these conclusions.

Common themes in Literature review
One of the primary theme identified in this literature review is that each and every graduate
or student that is entering into job market is required to have some basic skills such as
communication, organization, teamwork, and problem-solving. These skills are also called
transferable skills as this type of skills can be used by an employee to move from one job to
another job. It can be said that these skills are helpful for employees to adapt in accordance
with the change in job environment. These are the factors that help employees to move up the
ladder in career. All of the authors under different journals identified in this literature review
has concluded similar views. According to these authors a graduate should have these skills
as some of the primary factors that are identified by job provider during interview process are
these factors (Morgeson, Brannick & Levine, 2019).
In addition to that job provider also identify the level of commitment and discipline inner
particle candidate. This analysis is undertaken by job provider as these factors will help such
employees to adjust to the work environment and corporate with employees. This type of
skills is generally provided by job provider under personal skills section of the job
advertisement. On the basis of this literature review can be said that majority of the articles
under consideration has provided similar views which are in line with the overall theme
reported in this literature review.
Variation in key skills
It can be said that generally, key skills expected by a job provider among candidates are
similar to each other. This is due to the fact that each and every employee will be operating in
a similar work environment and the level of communication with other employees will also
be similar. In this scenario key skills are referred as the basic skills required to operate in an
office or work environment. Example communication and organizational skills expected from
a candidate will be similar in majority of the job advertisements as these skills are important
to operate effectively at the workplace.
The difference in skills asked by different job providers will differ from each other on the
basis of responsibilities and industry in which organization is operating. For example if a
particular employee is appointed as board of director then his requirement of advanced skills
will be different for as compared to an employee that is appointed as operational head
(Landau & Rohmert, 2017). Employee included in board of directors will be working mostly
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to prepare strategies whereas employee appointed as operational head will be executing the
strategies prepared by BOD. On the basis of this analysis it can be said that basic skills do
not vary from employee to employer in job advertisements. On the other hand advanced skills
vary in accordance with roles and responsibilities in the organization.
Common skills
A specific skill that is common throughout the literature review and analysis of job
advertisement was communication skills. Majority of the authors have concluded that it is
very essential for a person to have effective and efficient communication skills to get an
entry-level job in any kind of business industry. This is due to the fact that effective and
efficient communication is very important in a business organization to achieve full resource
utilization. In addition to the development of effective and efficient work environment is also
dependent on the level of communication among employees working in such environment
(Semmer & Zapf, 2017). Communication with external stakeholders is also important part of
any job position in current market as involvement of stakeholders is becoming high as
compared to previous times.
Another common skill that can be identified throughout the literature review is problem-
solving abilities. This skill is also required as an employee will face different kind of
problems throughout the day to day process. Problem-solving skills will help an employee to
handle certain situations on its own rather than consulting with senior employees which will
help in his/ her development at the job.
Particular skills asked in specific jobs
After evaluating all the job advertisement collected in the previous sections it can be said that
there are no specific skills that are asked only in one job advertisement. In majority of the
cases at least four of the five job skills under consideration has been asked in different job
advertisement. There are cases in which a particular skill is not required at different position
such as analytical skills are not to ask in job advertisement for a general manager chief
executive officer and human resources manager. Similarly communication and leadership
skills are not required in case of payroll officer and economist (Lancee, 2016). At last scale is
not asked in job advertisement for auditors and customer service manager. An overall
evaluation of the job advertisements it can be said that there is no specific skill that is asked
only in one stop advertisement and not in others.
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References
Lancee, B. (2016). Job search methods and immigrant earnings: A longitudinal analysis of
the role of bridging social capital. Ethnicities, 16(3), 349-367.
Landau, K., & Rohmert, W. (Eds.). (2017). Recent developments in job analysis (Vol. 24).
Taylor & Francis.
Morgeson, F. P., Brannick, M. T., & Levine, E. L. (2019). Job and work analysis: Methods,
research, and applications for human resource management. Sage Publications.
Semmer, N., & Zapf, D. (2017). Validity of various methods of measurement in job analysis.
In Recent developments in job analysis (pp. 67-78). Routledge.
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