What We Found

Heading into 2016 in the US alone, hiring managers continued to make Direct Sales and Customer Service the top 2 sought after skill sets. Six of the top 10 most desired skill sets in demand across all Job Postings listed on Opportunity by hiring managers remained more or less the same as prior years.  The exception being an increased demand for Accounting skills, which took the #3 spot after not appearing in the top 10 the prior 2 years (perhaps a direct reflection of new tax laws recently passed in the U.S.).  Other new skills added to the top 10 list also include Administrative, Nursing and Entrepreneurship skills. (Fig 1) while skills such as .Net, Project Management and Salesforce are seeing less demand. Entrepreneurship as a sought after skill by hiring managers (i.e. companies) is interesting as this skill set / trait is often antithetical to the idea of working for someone else.

Figure 1:  Skills sought by U.S. hiring managers

Fortunately for the overall job market, Job Seekers tended to list the majority of the most in demand skills sought by Hiring Managers (Fig 1) within their list of skillsets (Fig 2) on their Opportunity profile. In fact, many of the new skillsets listed by Job Seekers were also new to the Hiring Manager top 10 list (Accounting, Administrative, etc.).  The exception being a surge in job seekers claiming to have Adobe Skills (Photoshop, Illustrator, etc.). Unfortunately for Job Seekers with Adobe skills, that skillset was nowhere near the top 10 in terms of demand by Hiring Managers.  In fact, that particular skill set was not listed among our top 50. Lastly, skillsets such as Microsoft related (Office, Excel, etc.) and Leadership dropped out of the top 10 from previous years. 

Figure 2:  Skills offered by U.S. workforce

Summary

In conclusion, this snapshot from Opportunity suggests a high degree of equilibrium in terms of what hiring managers are demanding of their employees and what skills are being offered by the prospective candidates.  Despite the continued advancements in technology (particularly A.I.) and news surrounding the inevitable shift in the job market, jobs that require communication skills such as Sales, Customer Support, and Business Development are still in very high demand by companies across the U.S.  

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Datasource: Opportunity

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