Be sure to read our main career/job skills article, How to Capitalize on the Looming Skills Shortage.

What skills do experts believe are most important for workers to possess in this century? This compilation from a variety of sources, while not exhaustive, provides a snapshot of in-demand skills (and in some cases, values and personal characteristics) that can equip individuals with a competitive edge. You will notice significant repetition in the experts' opinions; skills mentioned by multiple authorities clearly are the most important to bring to the table.

• Integrity
• Energy
• Communication
• Confidence
• Adaptability
• Chemistry (fit with organizational culture)
• Results
• Teamwork
• Confidence in leading
• Interest

Source: Chuck McConnell, executive vice president,
Stewart, Cooper & Coon

• Motivation
• Flexibility
• Independence
• Dedication
• Professionalism
• Customer orientation
• Creativity
• Organizational skills
• Interpersonal skills with teams, customers, and management
• Negotiation
• Conflict resolution
• Ability to encourage employees to express opinions and develop collaborative relationships
• Emotional intelligence

Source: Kathryn Kraemer Troutman, author, president and founder,
The Resume Place

• Intelligence, ability to learn quickly
• Ability to make good decisions quickly
• Analytical, inquiring, logical
• Ability to work well under pressure and willingness to work hard
• Competitiveness, enjoyment of challenge
• Ability to apply oneself to a variety of tasks simultaneously
• Thorough, organized, efficient
• Good time-management skills
• Resourceful, determined, and persistent
• Imaginative, creative
• Objective and flexible
• Cooperative and helpful
• Good listening skills
• Sensitive to different perspectives
• Ability to make other people "feel interesting"

Source: Todd Noebel, associate director,
Pfizer

• Talking to one's boss
• Surviving a poorly run meeting
• Running a meeting
• Figuring out anything independently
• Negotiating
• Having a conversation
• Explaining something in 30 seconds
• Writing a one-page report
• Writing a five-sentence e-mail
• Getting along with co-workers
• Using PowerPoint
• Leaving a voicemail

Source: Guy Kawasaki, author and founder of Garage.com

• Core subjects
• English reading/language arts
• Mathematics
• Science
• Foreign languages
• Civics/government
• Economics
• Arts
• History
• Geography
• 21st century content
• Global awareness
• Financial, economic, business and entrepreneurial literacy
• Civic literacy
• Health and wellness awareness
• Information and communications technology (ICT) literacy
• Learning and thinking skills
• Critical-thinking and problem-solving skills
• Communication skills
• Creativity and innovation skills
• Collaboration skills
• Contextual learning skills
• Information and media literacy skills
• Life skills
• Leadership
• Personal responsibility
• Ethics
• People skills
• Accountability
• Self-direction
• Adaptability
• Social responsibility
• Personal productivity

Source: Partnership for 21st Century Skills

• Ability to function in a variety of environments and roles
• Teaching skills: Conceptualizing, explaining
• Counseling, interviewing skills
• Public speaking
• Computer and information-management skills
• Ability to support a position or viewpoint with argumentation and logic
• Ability to conceive and design complex studies and projects
• Ability to implement and manage all phases of complex research projects and to follow them through to completion
• Knowledge of the scientific method to organize and test ideas
• Ability to organize and analyze data, to understand statistics, and to generalize from data
• Ability to combine, integrate information from disparate sources
• Ability to evaluate critically
• Ability to investigate, using many different research methodologies
• Ability to solve problems
• Ability to work with the committee process
• Ability to do advocacy work
• Ability to acknowledge many differing views of reality
• Ability to suspend judgment, to work with ambiguity
• Ability to make the best of "informed hunches" (intuition)

Source: Stanford University, Career Planning and Placement Center

• Interpersonal effectiveness
• Customer service
• Systems thinking
• Flexibility/adaptability
• Creative thinking
• Organizational stewardship
• Personal mastery
• Technical competency

Source: US Department of Veterans Affairs

• Goal-setting skills
• Time management skills
• Knowledge-management skills
• Team-player skills
• Professional image skills

Source: Consultants Milo and Thuy Sindell

• Oral and written communication
• Computer literacy
• Interpersonal/social
• Critical thinking
• Leadership
• Teamwork

Source: Janette Moody, Brent Stewart, Cynthia Bolt Lee in an article in which recruiters were surveyed about the top skills they seek in applicants, Business Communication Quarterly, 2002

• Technical/professional/job-specific skills
• Leadership/management skills
• Computer skills
• Interpersonal and teamwork skills
• Problem-solving skills
• Communications skills
• Basic skills, such as literacy and numeracy

Source: Workplace Partners Panel's 2005 Viewpoints Leadership Survey (Canada)