5 Ways to Make Yourself Marketable in 2021

1. Identify & Highlight Your Soft Skills

While it’s true that employers look for specific credentials and experience, your soft skills are what will ultimately determine whether or not you are a good fit for a position. If you haven’t identified and highlighted your soft skills, as they relate to your professional profile or job search, you’re missing a key ingredient to standing out to potential employers. Think about it from a managerial perspective: do you work well with others, are you tech-savvy, how do you manage your time, are you organized, are you results-oriented, how do you manage relationships—and ultimately, can you demonstrate these things?

First, identify your soft skills. Here are some of the most sought after soft skills:

• Communication
• Adaptability
• Team Work
• Work Ethic
• Organization
• Punctuality
• Adaptability
• Problem-Solving
• Social Skills
• Critical/Strategic Thinking
• Creativity
• Technological Skills
• Positive Attitude
• Perform Under Pressure

Next, highlight and demonstrate your soft skills. Your soft skills can and should be highlighted and demonstrated in every aspect of your professional profile or job search: cover letter, resume or CV, LinkedIn profile, work samples, recommendations, via your references, in communications with potential employers, during interviews, and any other touchpoint you may have with a potential employer.

Here are a couple of examples of how you could highlight your soft skills during a job search:

1. Organization: Demonstrate your ability to be detail-oriented and organized by presenting your job application materials in an organized way. If instructions were provided, ensure you’ve followed them. If not, take it as an opportunity to demonstrate organization, i.e. label your files with your full name, the position you are applying for, and the date; take extra time to check and polish document formatting (including once saved as a PDF); consider resume format based on the position you’re applying for.
2. Problem-Solving: To highlight your ability to solve problems, reach out to past colleagues or other references to write a recommendation on LinkedIn that describes a time in which you demonstrated proactivity and problem-solving skills in a professional setting.

2. Upskill

To upskill, or upskilling, has recently become a common way of describing an intentional effort to learn new skills or improve existing skills. Particularly during the pandemic, dozens and dozens of opportunities to upskill have cropped up online. In addition, hiring managers may be beginning to ask, how did you spend your time during the pandemic; how were you able to improve your marketability or marketable skills?

While you may choose to upskill based on personal interests or preferences, a great way to improve your marketable skills is to research and observe skills and qualifications mentioned in job descriptions that are aligned with your career goals. For example, you may be reading the position responsibilities of a job you want to apply for and note that, “administer the department’s budget” isn’t something you feel particularly skilled at. As a result, you could conduct an online search for training or courses about administering budgets.

Here are some of our favorite resources for upskilling online:

• LinkedIn Learning (previously Lynda)
• SkillShare
• Udemy
• MasterClass

3. Build a Strong Online Presence

When it comes to how to make yourself marketable, having an online presence is often expected from professionals. The most popular professional network is LinkedIn, and is a great way to provide your full professional experience, background, soft skills, portfolio pieces, recommendations, and more. If you don’t have a LinkedIn profile, or you haven’t taken the time to complete your profile, now is the time.

Here are some pro tips for creating a professional and engaging profile:

• Include a professional profile picture.
• Do your best to fill out every section of your profile (LinkedIn will guide and prompt you).
• List your marketable skills on LinkedIn.
• Include certifications and online courses in addition to traditional education credentials.
• Get at least 5 people to write you a recommendation.

Beyond LinkedIn, you should take the time to review and optimize any other profiles or content about yourself online. Have you googled yourself? Do you know what a hiring manager might read or see if they did?

4. Align Your Resume & Profiles with Job Postings

If you’re sending out a templated cover letter and resume—stop! One of the best ways to make yourself more marketable is to tailor your application materials to the job posting and job description. While you may still work from a template, you should take the time to craft your cover letter and resume to fit the desired position.

Here are some top ways to make sure your resume aligns with a job posting:

• Tailor your career objective to the description of the job
• List qualifications from job description on your resume
• List experiences you have that match any position responsibilities on the posting (Pro tip: include measurable results from past experiences)
• Reorder the sections of your resume to focus on the areas that are most relevant for the position

5. Create a Portfolio

Often forgotten until it is requested, is a portfolio or detailed list of accomplishments from your previous professional experience. You don’t need to be a photographer to have a portfolio—every job has deliverables, and you can work to collect examples, either tangible or generalized. In many cases, you can ask previous employers if you can share pieces of work you’ve completed, i.e. documents, presentations, reports, etc. If you need to protect confidential information, you can anonymize the work, or you can write a description of the project or work to include in application materials or share during an interview.

Overall, there are many ways to make yourself more marketable, focus on soft skills, and improve upon your marketable skills. If some or all of these five ways are something you have not yet considered, you can now consider it among your goals for 2021!

About HQR

HQ Resources (HQR) is a full-service consulting and recruiting firm focused on providing exceptional services to the healthcare, life sciences, and financial services verticals. We hire great people. We look for world-class skills, but we also want world-class team players—people who want to build a great company. Does this sound like you? Learn more about HQR and search open positions here: https://hqres.com/jobs/