Most Common Job Requirements For Entry-Level Workers in 2021

Publié le 3 May 2021 Par Lesley Vos

Learning some of the most common job requirements for entry-level workers in 2021 will help job seekers find the right opportunities in a changing job market.

Since 2020, the job market has been turned upside down and thousands of people had to go through a job search again, often changing their career fields drastically. Job requirements have also undergone some changes, as companies try to embrace new strategies and work models to keep the wheels turning as they start to enter the post-pandemic reality.

Now that we all are evolving into a more technological- and human-centric world, employers are searching for job skills that would help a worker fit into this new work model. And while hard skills are still essential, most recruiters understand they are easy to teach, paying much more attention to candidates’ soft skills when hiring.

So, what are the job requirements for entry-level workers now? What traits and features should you cultivate to become a suitable candidate in the job market’s current landscape?

Most Common Job Requirements For Entry-Level Workers in 2021:

Adaptability
Continuous learning
Growth mindset
Emotional intelligence
Time management
Communication
Decision making
Critical thinking
Creativity

And now, for the details.

What Are Entry-Level Jobs?

First and foremost, let’s get it all sorted out:

Entry-level workers are those applying for jobs that require little to no experience. Whether you’ve just graduated, wrapped up the internship, or decided to give up your current profession and start your career path in a new field, you’ll more than likely look for entry-level work.

Entry-level jobs are those requiring minimal work experience. As a rule, it means a recruiter looks for a young professional with some internship or part-time/seasonal employment on their resume, but it’s OK for such a candidate to have no full-time experience at all.

When looking for no experience jobs at the best job search websites, you may notice a few types of entry-level jobs positions:

“Degree not required” jobs
Actual entry-level work positions as those described above
“Professional experience required” jobs

The last ones are less common yet present on the market, including some job search resources for students. Labeled “entry-level,” they expect you to have 1-3 years of full-time experience. If you’re a recent grad, your volunteer work, internships, coursework, or membership in college organizations can be considered experience and skills for a job. If you’re a professional who decided or had to change the field, your previous experience can work for your benefit here.

Either way, you need to focus on the following job skills and traits in your resume to stand out from other candidates in 2021.

9 Most Job Requirements for Entry-Level Workers in 2021

1) Adaptability

Things change faster than ever today, and it’s a challenge for both employers and workers to keep up with the pace. Technologies evolve, new work models appear, and so it’s critical to manage all those changes to our benefit. Gone are the days when the “we always did it that way!” attitude worked well for businesses and professionals.

Now it’s critical to handle changes and adapt to new norms quickly. What employers want is that you can accept and go with the flow of new philosophies, technologies, and collaborative opportunities as they appear.

In 2021, most job search tips will advise you to include change management and adaptability to the soft skills list of your resume. To master these traits, you can start with reading some books focusing on adaptability in the workplace. Open-mindedness and openness to changes are your best weapon here.

2) Continuous Learning

Given that entry-level workers often come to a company with fewer hard skills in their pocket, their standard job requirements include openness and readiness for learning. Employers are looking for candidates who enjoy gaining new knowledge and improving their skills set for professional growth.

The business world is super fast-growing and changing today, which is why those unwilling or unable to embrace learning new things will be less able to keep up.

3) Growth Mindset

As a follow-up to the previous requirement, most recruiters look for a growth mindset in entry-level candidates today. They admit that technical skills are great to have, but they’d more likely hire a person who is curious, flexible, and eager to adjust to new things.

Are you ready to overcome obstacles and win? Are you comfortable with constant changes and prepared to reflect them? Do you have enough resilience to deal with the challenges at work? You’re wired for growth and continued development, then.

4) Emotional Intelligence

Emotional intelligence (EI) is about your ability to recognize and manage your own emotions and the emotions of others. Today this skill is so valuable because it’s about our ability to relieve stress at work, empathize with colleagues, communicate effectively, and defuse conflicts.

EI is about four attributes:

Self-awareness, aka recognizing your own emotions and their impact on your thoughts and behavior.
Self-management, aka your ability to control impulsive feelings, manage emotions, and adapt to changes.
Social awareness, aka empathy, aka the ability to understand the feelings and concerns of other people.
Relationship management, aka the ability to maintain relationships, communicate, manage conflicts, work in a team, and inspire or even influence others.

You could see EI in job requirements at the best job search websites lately because employers understand its effect on your job performance and overall well-being.

EI influences our physical and mental health, social intelligence, relationships, and performance at work. So this skill is worth developing and growing even if a job search isn’t in your plans at the moment.

5) Time Management

Time management is among the top most common job requirements for entry-level workers in 2021, especially among jobs with no experience. While it has always been critical to have the ability to manage time effectively, it gets particular attention now because of the rapid growth of remote work. Now your employer wants to make sure you can organize your workspace, manage time, and get the job done without a team lead’s constant control.

Planning, punctuality, prioritizing tasks, delegating, the ability to say no, meeting deadlines — all these traits are about time management. In today’s age of constant distractions, you need to prove you can organize your time and stay proactive even while working remotely.

6) Communication

The most common requirement for no experience jobs mentioned by career experts is your ability to communicate. Both verbal and non-verbal communication skills affect your professional life: It’s all about your self-presentation, relationship with co-workers, collaboration, ability to introduce ideas to colleagues, and more.

Communication skills include active listening, willingness to ask questions, giving feedback, understanding email etiquette, showing respect, and remaining open-minded. When working remotely, these skills become even more critical for effective collaboration via different communication channels.

Follow the best job search tips and mention collaborative projects in your resume. It will show a hiring manager that you’re a team player. Also, please pay attention to how you write a cover letter: It can tell a lot about your ability to communicate. The way you build sentences, choose lexical items, and combine arguments into paragraphs is a signal for recruiters whether you can express your thoughts clearly and efficiently. Reading your message, they understand if you’re able to communicate with ease to a larger audience than through face-to-face conversations only.

7) Decision Making

Even when applying for no experience jobs, you need to demonstrate decision-making skills to recruiters. They portray your leadership traits, ability to think objectively, and readiness to take potentially beneficial risks when the opportunity offers. They signal to an employer that you’re a person who gets things done.

Decision-making skills include problem-solving, teamwork, reasoning, leadership, and intuition. Time management and organization can also play a role here as it provides you with the time and space needed to make informed decisions.

These skills are among the most common job requirements for entry-level workers in 2021 because they mark you as a professional who’s able to identify and evaluate critical factors, navigate risks, see logical consequences, and anticipate outcomes. Isn’t that what businesses need to master to survive today?

8) Critical Thinking

Businesses will continue to face challenges in a post-COVID world, requiring them to be innovative and reasoning to thrive. That is why the ability to think critically is among the top requirements at the best job search websites. Employers want their workers to be able to analyze data and facts to form judgments.

Learn to address situations based on the available facts and information. Your critical thinking skills set can include:

Observation, aka your ability to notice and predict opportunities
Analysis, aka gathering and interpreting the data and information
Inference, aka drawing conclusions based on the relevant data and personal knowledge
Communication, aka sharing and receiving the info with others
Problem-solving, aka troubleshooting and finding the solution

9) Creativity

Employers understand that 2021 is the year of change and growth, which means a constant search for new ideas and creative solutions. Your alternative way of thinking about tasks and problems or generating new ideas can help you get a dream job even if you don’t have too much professional experience in the resume.

Creativity is about alternative ways of thinking, resilience, and new ways to approach tasks. It enables solving complex problems, nurturing teamwork and cooperation, and shows an employer that you want to help their company move forward.

Communication skills, writing, problem-solving, visual art, open-mindedness — all are examples of creative thinking skills you can boost with a bit of change in your routine. Why not start right now and become a creative genius who’ll find a way to get a dream job?

In a Word

Now that you know what employers want from workers applying for jobs with no experience, let’s do a recap of the most common job requirements for entry-level workers in 2021:

Get ready to handle changes and adapt to new norms quickly
Be open to continuous learning
Develop a growth mindset: be curious, flexible, and resilient
Grow your emotional intelligence
Master time management
Communicate and cooperate with others like a boss
Don’t be afraid of decision-making
Think critically
Boost your creative thinking

All these skills are possible to master even if you don’t have any professional job experience yet. Just be open to self-growth, know what you want from your career, learn new things step by step — and the positive feedback from the best job search websites won’t take long in coming.