9 Soft Skills Employers Want in New Hires
A ranking built from what US employers say they screen for, with one way to build each skill, a rough time range, and the words to prove it.
By Desmond Okafor · Oct 15, 2026 · 14 min read
Employers hiring for entry-level and early-career roles screen for a short, repeatable set of behaviours: can you define a problem, explain your thinking, work with people you did not choose, and show up reliably. In the National Association of Colleges and Employers' Job Outlook 2025 survey, nearly 90% of responding employers said they look for evidence of problem-solving ability and nearly 80% look for strong teamwork skills (NACE, December 2024).
This guide ranks nine of those skills by how often employers name them, then gives you a concrete way to build each one and a way to show it on a resume or in an interview. Timelines are ranges, because what you can practise depends on whether you are in school, in a job, or between jobs.
How we chose this list
The ranking criterion is how often US employers name a skill when asked directly what they look for in candidates, cross-checked against whether the skill has a public definition you can actually work towards.
Two sources do most of the work. The National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) runs an annual Job Outlook survey of employers who recruit college students and recent graduates; its Job Outlook 2024 list of the top ten things employers look for on a resume runs, in order: problem-solving skills, verbal communication skills, ability to work in a team, technical skills, written communication skills, analytical/quantitative skills, strong work ethic, initiative, flexibility/adaptability, and detail-oriented (NACE, November 2023). NACE also publishes eight Career Readiness Competencies — Career & Self-Development, Communication, Critical Thinking, Equity & Inclusion, Leadership, Professionalism, Teamwork and Technology — each with a written definition and sample behaviours (NACE, 2025). The US Department of Labor's ONET OnLine defines soft skills as the "interpersonal and thinking skills needed to interact successfully with people and to perform efficiently and effectively in the workplace" (ONET OnLine, undated), and CareerOneStop describes them as personality, attitudes and manners — sometimes called people skills or work-readiness skills — that employers use when deciding whether to keep or promote workers (CareerOneStop, undated).
We dropped technical skills from the ranking, even though it sits fourth on the NACE resume list, because it is not a soft skill and varies entirely by occupation. The remaining nine are ordered by frequency of mention, with ties broken by how easy the skill is to evidence with something a hiring manager can check.
Now the honest part. The Job Outlook 2025 data were collected from 5 August to 16 September 2024 from 237 total respondents, including 162 NACE employer members and 75 additional nonmember companies (NACE, December 2024). That is a real sample of large employers who recruit on campus; it is not a census of every warehouse, clinic, restaurant or small business in the country. What a 2,000-person engineering firm means by "communication" is not what a hospital charge nurse means by it.
The second problem is that soft skills are judged subjectively. There is no transcript for teamwork. You can be rejected for "fit" and never find out which behaviour triggered it, and some of what gets labelled a soft-skills gap is really nervousness, an unfamiliar interview format, or a hiring manager with a preference they have not examined. Treat this list as what to practise and what to put into words — not as a scoring system you can win.
One encouraging shift: NACE reports that GPA screening has fallen from nearly three-quarters of employers (73%) in 2019 to 42% in its most recent Job Outlook survey, partly displaced by skills-based hiring (NACE, 2025). More than 80% of employers highlight the key skills needed for the position when writing their job descriptions (NACE, 2025) — which means the posting itself usually tells you which of these nine to lead with.
The list at a glance
| # | Skill | How to build it | Rough time |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Problem-solving | Fix one recurring annoyance in a job, club or volunteer role and write up the before/after | 4–8 weeks |
| 2 | Verbal communication | Join a Toastmasters club and work a Pathways path, or present at one team meeting a month | 3 months for first speeches; a full path is self-paced |
| 3 | Teamwork | Take a defined role on a group project with a deadline you do not control | One project cycle, 6–12 weeks |
| 4 | Written communication | Write a weekly status update or meeting summary and ask one person to edit it | 6–12 weeks |
| 5 | Analytical and quantitative thinking | Rebuild a real spreadsheet or dataset and answer three questions with it | 4–10 weeks |
| 6 | Professionalism and dependability | Track every commitment in one calendar or task tool for a full quarter | 12 weeks |
| 7 | Initiative | Propose one improvement in writing to a supervisor and run it to completion | 4–8 weeks |
| 8 | Flexibility and adaptability | Volunteer for the shift, task or tool you have not done before | 1–3 months |
| 9 | Leadership | Run a small project or shift where two or more people depend on you | One project or season, 2–6 months |
Each item in detail
1. Problem-solving
This is defining the actual problem, choosing an approach, and explaining the trade-off you accepted. Nearly 90% of employers in the Job Outlook 2025 survey said they look for evidence of it (NACE, December 2024), and it tops the resume list in Job Outlook 2024 (NACE, November 2023). NACE's related competency is Critical Thinking (NACE, 2025).
Build it by picking one recurring annoyance where you already are — a form people fill out wrong, a handoff that drops, a report nobody reads — and running a four- to eight-week fix: write down the current steps, time them, change one thing, measure again. You do not need permission to document a process.
Show it as a resume bullet that names the before and after: "Cut [task] from [X] steps to [Y] by [change], saving about [time] a week."
Interview answer, condensed
"The problem was [symptom]. When I looked, the real cause was [cause], not [assumed cause]. I tried [change] for [period] because it was reversible. It moved [measure] from [X] to [Y], and the trade-off was [cost]."
2. Verbal communication
NACE defines Communication as the ability to "clearly and effectively exchange information, ideas, facts, and perspectives with persons inside and outside of an organization" (NACE, 2025), and more than two-thirds of Job Outlook 2025 respondents said they seek verbal communication skills (NACE, December 2024).
Build it in a club with structured feedback. Toastmasters International's Pathways program offers eleven specialized paths — titles include Presentation Mastery, Dynamic Leadership, Innovative Planning and Persuasive Influence — each with five levels of increasing complexity (Toastmasters International, August 2019). Path recognition requires completing 15 projects across all five levels, 11 required and four elective, with most projects including at least one evaluated speech (Toastmasters International, undated). One Toastmasters district describes a path as self-paced and says it "might take around two years to complete," or roughly half that for members active in more than one club (Toastmasters International District 17, undated). You will give your first evaluated speech far sooner than that — usually within the first month or two.
If a club is not practical, volunteer to present one agenda item at a recurring meeting each month for a quarter, and ask one attendee afterwards what was unclear.
3. Teamwork
NACE defines Teamwork as building and maintaining "collaborative relationships to work effectively toward common goals, while appreciating diverse viewpoints and shared responsibilities" (NACE, 2025). Nearly 80% of Job Outlook 2025 employers said they look for it (NACE, December 2024).
Build it by taking a named role on a group project with a deadline you do not control — a student org event, a shift team, a church or sports committee, an open-source issue. The key is that someone else depends on your part. One project cycle of six to twelve weeks gives you a story.
In interviews, resist the urge to be the hero of the story. Hiring managers are listening for how you handled the person who did not deliver.
Interview answer, condensed
"My piece was [deliverable]. [Teammate's part] slipped, so I asked what was blocking it rather than escalating first. We split [task] and I took [portion]. We shipped [result] [timing], and I changed how we tracked handoffs afterwards."
4. Written communication
Fifth on the NACE resume list (NACE, November 2023). In practice this means short emails that get a decision, documentation someone else can follow, and summaries that do not need a follow-up meeting.
Build it by writing a weekly update for six to twelve weeks — what shipped, what is blocked, what you need — and asking one person whose writing you respect to edit two of them. Keeping a written record also gives you material for your resume later.
Show it by bringing a redacted sample: a one-page process document, a project summary, a customer-facing FAQ you wrote. Most candidates do not bring anything.
5. Analytical and quantitative thinking
More than two-thirds of Job Outlook 2025 respondents said they seek analytical and quantitative skills (NACE, December 2024). This is not statistics; it is being comfortable asking what the number is, where it came from, and whether it answers the question.
Build it on real data you can reach: your employer's scheduling spreadsheet, a public dataset, your own household or club finances. Set yourself three questions, answer them with a pivot table or a few formulas, and write a paragraph on what you would do about it. Four to ten weeks, depending on how much tool learning you need.
On a resume, name the tool and the decision: "Built [tool] model of [thing]; used it to recommend [decision]."
6. Professionalism and dependability
NACE defines Professionalism as understanding and demonstrating "effective work habits" and acting "in the interest of the larger community and workplace," with sample behaviours including dependability, attention to detail and meeting or exceeding goals (NACE, 2025). Strong work ethic and detail-oriented both appear in the Job Outlook 2024 resume top ten (NACE, November 2023).
Build it by running one capture system for a full quarter: every commitment you make goes into one calendar or task tool within a minute of making it, and you review the list at a fixed time each day. The skill is not memory, it is the system.
Show it with specifics, not adjectives. "Never missed a shift handover in [period]" beats "reliable team player." Reference checks are where this one is actually decided, so tell a former supervisor which of your habits you would like them to mention.
7. Initiative
Eighth on the NACE resume list (NACE, November 2023), and close to what NACE calls Career & Self-Development: proactively developing yourself and your career "through continual personal and professional learning, awareness of one's strengths and weaknesses, navigation of career opportunities, and networking" (NACE, 2025).
Build it by proposing one improvement in writing to a supervisor or club lead — half a page, stating the problem, the proposed change, what it costs and how you will measure it — then running it to completion over four to eight weeks. Use CareerOneStop's Skills Matcher, which lets you rate your current skill level in 40 areas and build a list of your strongest skills with definitions, then see which careers match (CareerOneStop, undated), to decide which gap to close first.
The honest downside: initiative is read as overstepping in some workplaces. Ask first how decisions like this normally get made.
8. Flexibility and adaptability
More than two-thirds of Job Outlook 2025 employers said they seek flexibility and adaptability (NACE, December 2024). It also shows up as active listening, which ONET OnLine defines as "giving full attention to what other people are saying, taking time to understand the points being made, asking questions as appropriate, and not interrupting at inappropriate times" (ONET OnLine, undated) — you cannot adapt to information you did not hear.
Build it by volunteering for the thing you have not done: the unfamiliar shift, the new scheduling system, the department nobody wants to cover. One to three months of doing something badly and then adequately is the whole exercise.
In interviews, pick a change you did not choose and did not initially like, and be straight about the first week being rough.
9. Leadership
NACE defines Leadership as the ability to "recognize and capitalize on personal and team strengths to achieve organizational goals" (NACE, 2025). It does not require a title, and interviewers know that.
Build it by running something small end to end over two to six months: a shift, a fundraiser, an onboarding buddy programme, a seasonal volunteer team. If you want structured practice with feedback, the Dynamic Leadership and Innovative Planning paths in Toastmasters Pathways are built around it (Toastmasters International, August 2019).
Resume bullet pattern
"Led [number] [volunteers/staff] through [project]; delivered [outcome] by [date], and trained [number] replacements before handing over."
Where to start
Pick two skills, not nine. Read three job postings you would actually apply to and see which of these the employer named — more than 80% of employers highlight the key skills needed for the position in their job descriptions (NACE, 2025).
| Career stage | Start with | Then add | First piece of evidence to build |
|---|---|---|---|
| Student or first job | Problem-solving, teamwork | Verbal communication | One group project where you can name your part and the result |
| Early career, 1–3 years in | Written communication, professionalism | Analytical thinking | A weekly update log and one process document you wrote |
| Career changer | Flexibility, problem-solving | Verbal communication | A short project in the new field, paid or volunteer |
| Returning after a break | Professionalism, initiative | Teamwork | A current, dated commitment you kept — a course, a volunteer shift, a committee role |
| Moving into a first supervisory role | Leadership, written communication | Flexibility | A handover document and one person you trained |
| Unsure where you stand | Run CareerOneStop's Skills Matcher and rate yourself across its 40 skill areas (CareerOneStop, undated) | The two lowest-rated skills that appear in your target job postings | Your own written self-assessment, dated |
Frequently asked questions
Which skill should I work on first?
Problem-solving, unless your target job postings say otherwise. It is the most frequently named skill in NACE's surveys — nearly 90% of Job Outlook 2025 respondents look for evidence of it (NACE, December 2024) — and it is the one that makes every other story in your interview better, because teamwork, leadership and adaptability answers all need a problem at their centre. After that, pick whichever skill the three postings in front of you mention most often.
How long does it take to build a soft skill?
Long enough to produce one piece of evidence, which is usually four weeks to one project cycle. A process fix takes four to eight weeks. A group project takes six to twelve. A full Toastmasters Pathways path — 15 projects across five levels, 11 required and four elective, most including an evaluated speech (Toastmasters International, undated) — is self-paced, and one Toastmasters district estimates around two years, or roughly half that for members active in more than one club (Toastmasters International District 17, undated). You will have something to talk about long before you finish. The spread depends on how often you get to practise: someone in a busy team-based job builds teamwork evidence faster than someone working alone.
How do I prove a soft skill when there is no certificate for it?
With an artefact and a specific story. The artefact is something a hiring manager can look at: a one-page process document, a redacted project summary, a spreadsheet model, a training guide you wrote. The story names the situation, what you did, and what changed, with numbers where they exist. Also brief your references — tell a former supervisor which two behaviours you would like them to speak to, so the check backs up the claim. Avoid adjective lists on your resume; "excellent communicator" tells a reader nothing they can verify.
Are soft skills really more important than grades or technical ability?
They are increasingly how candidates are separated once the technical bar is met. NACE reports GPA screening has fallen from 73% of employers in 2019 to 42% in its most recent Job Outlook survey, partly because of a shift to skills-based hiring (NACE, 2025), and one workforce board cites a Wonderlic-conducted study in which 93% of surveyed employers called soft skills essential or very important in hiring decisions (CareerSource Central Florida, undated). That said, technical skills still rank fourth on NACE's resume list (NACE, November 2023), and no amount of communication practice substitutes for the licence, software or trade skill a job requires. Build both, and check the requirements in the posting rather than guessing.
Sources
- National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) — What Are Employers Looking for When Reviewing College Students' Resumes? (2024-12)
- National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) — Job Outlook 2024 — November 2023 (Grab and Go slides) (2023-11)
Written by
Desmond Okafor
Desmond talks to people mid-career about what their jobs actually look like day to day, past the job description. He's suspicious of any career advice that sounds too tidy.
