News

Key employment skills linked to volunteering

Skills
Young job applicants who have voluntary experience through schemes such as the Duke of Edinburgh’s, are more likely to demonstrate the employability skills that businesses are after, a poll has suggested.

A survey of 850 UK HR professionals by the CIPD found that the key skills employers are looking for are communication, teamwork, and confidence. Further down the list came time-management, business awareness and problem-solving.

Almost 70 per cent of the respondents said that entry-level job candidates who have voluntary experience demonstrated more of these employability skills.

However, despite this admission, only a minority of employers said they actively looked for specific voluntary schemes or experiences on applicants’ CVs.

Of those who do, the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award came top in the list of sought-after initiatives, with 27 per cent of the HR professionals saying that they looked specifically for this.

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