TAKE A BOX SEAT FOR CREATIVITY

Strive for a point of difference to be one of the most-wanted workers this year, writes

CREATIVITY has been ranked the most useful skill of the year, with employers snapping up jobseekers who can think outside the box.

A LinkedIn analysis of 10 million Australian profiles on the professional networking site reveals it is the mostsought soft skill, followed by teamwork, persuasion, adaptability and time management.

LinkedIn Learning Solutions senior director Jason Laufer says organisations need people who can take a new approach to tasks.

“This could be (applied to anyone from) software engineers to HR practitioners,” he says.

“How do you bring new ideas to the table to help organisations in the industry today?

“Businesses see soft skills or human skills are just as important as hard skills, in fact 50 per cent believe soft skills are more important than hard skills.”

Futurist Anders SormanNilsson believes creativity will be a priority for many years to come.

He says its place at the top of the list is “absolutely spot on”.

“In an age of artificial intelligence and machine learning, we notice machines and AI are becoming very sophisticated at left-brain skills – things like logic, sequence, mathematics, process, big data pattern recognition,” Sorman-Nilsson says.

“It would be very futile for humans to try and outdo the machines with left-brain skills.

“So what remains is more right-brain skills – the humanistic skills like creativity, innovation, entrepreneurship, interpersonal skills, even sustainability and emotional intelligence.

“They are the skills humans should be focusing on.”

However, soft skills are not the only skills in demand this year in Australia.

The LinkedIn report also identifies the 10 hard skills most sought by employers.

Blockchain tops the list, despite the technological security method not even ranking last year. It is followed by analytic reasoning, cloud computing, artificial intelligence, translation, scientific computing, investor relations, customer service systems, UX (user experience) design, and competitive strategies.