How to Help Your Candidates Create a Résumé for the 21st Century

Being a recruiter is a job that requires that you put a solid amount of work into preparing your candidates for the highly-dynamic job market.

In recent years, there has been a considerable shift which has affected each and every industry. Thus, new job positions are opening while others are slowly vanishing, and others are being fundamentally redesigned.

What Makes the Labor Market So Different Today?

Life is constantly evolving, and we are all witnesses to new discoveries in medicine, technology, and other sectors every day. Bringing these innovations to the different industries changes the way companies function; physical labour is being quickly replaced by machines, for instance.

As we can predict, a large part of the drivers influencing industries will eventually reflect on the job market—either by creating new occupations or causing job displacement. We can also expect that instead of improving labour productivity, businesses will need to focus on upgrading workers’ skill set because of the fast pace of skill evolution happening.

An interesting fact is that the most in-demand positions appeared only five to ten years ago. It is estimated that 65% of children entering primary school in 2017 will end up occupying jobs that don’t exist today, according to World Economic Forum.

In such a rapidly developing employment climate, the capability to prepare for future skill requirements is essential for companies, governments, and people in order to entirely embrace the opportunities brought on by these new trends—and to mitigate any undesirable results.

Which Are the 21st Century Essential Job Skills?

All the trends and disruptions shaping modern business models are expected to require an adjustment to certain skill sets for key job functions in the different industries. On one hand, companies might need to qualify employees with the skills required to embrace new work opportunities. On the other hand, it is also important to avoid losing competitiveness due to the erosion of current employees’ existing skill sets.

Due to the different business models and different combinations of trends and disruptions prevalent in each industry, the same drivers of change may be felt differently industry to industry.

For example, in the consumer industry the main driver of change is the changing nature of work, while climate change is a dominating factor shaping the energy and transportation industries. These speak for a society that is more concerned about subjects such as equality and sustainability.

Beyond hard skills and formal qualifications, employers are often equally interested in the work-related, practical skills or competences that current employees are capable of in order to perform certain tasks successfully.

World Economic Forum’s (WEF) report ‘Future of Jobs’ focuses on a core set of work-related skills valued across all industry sectors as well as the job families originating from the same classification. The skills are divided into two main groups: basic skills—which include content and process skills—and cross-functional skills—social, systems, complex problem solving, resource management, and technical skills. Although many jobs involve a wide variety of skills, the skill set combinations in demand in different industries are quite divergent.

It is estimated that by 2020, more than 33% of the core skill sets for most positions will include skills not yet considered essential. Speaking about differences at an industry-level, the most changes are expected to happen in the Financial Services & Investors sector, while the least are forecasted to be in Media, Entertainment & Information.

In order to help candidates create a résumé that will stand out in the 21st century, recruiters need to be familiar with the upcoming trends in core job skill set and potential occupations. In any case, the first step to a professional CV is the paper itself. Professional typing companies will help you to edit your resume in accordance with the most essential skills you need. The infographic below presents, in an easy and structured way, all the important information you need to know to prepare your candidates to seize their dream job.

About the author: Nona Madzharova is a writing enthusiast, currently working for Market-Inspector.co.uk, a B2B digital marketplace for businesses and organisations in Europe. She is also a fan of football, good music, and chocolate.