With 2017 here you can expect companies eagerly on the lookout for talent to utilize their budgets for the year. That gives you plenty of opportunity to showcase yourself as a talented individual who’s keen on pursuing a new, challenging career move. But what exactly will set you apart from other candidates? Are you equipped with the necessary experience and skills that’ll highlight you to recruiting managers?

There’s a good chance you’re already highly skilled and can comfortably woo any recruiting manager. But with rapidly changing dynamics, company needs are constantly changing as well. What they’ll be seeking in candidates in 2017 won’t be the same as what it was in past years. To be relevant and attractive in 2017 here are 5 skills I recommend for everyone to develop.

1. Data and Analytics

Irrespective of the field you’ve chosen to build your career, data and analytics are something you simply cannot avoid. Companies heavily rely on data for operations, forecasts and strategies and this trend isn’t dying anytime soon. And it’s not just your skill on managing data, it’s how you can manipulate and analyze it to produce meaningful information from which key decisions can be made that’s also important. Learning this skill now would definitely keep you relevant as without it you’re pretty much asking to be tagged as “unemployable”. It’s similar to what MS Office was 10 years ago where candidates who weren’t familiar with the tool lost out on opportunities.

2. Customer Relations

There was a time when Customer Relations was a skill specifically taught to people in sales, customer relationships and customer support. Made sense for the time, but these days it’s a ‘must-have’ skill every function in the organization. Irrespective of whether you’re in manufacturing, engineering, HR, finance or even corporate governance, you’ll always be dealing with a ‘customer’, be it internal or external. The skill is more than just dealing with disgruntled customers or knowing how to communicate professionally. With this skill you’ll be able to enhance your abilities that can help you work smarter because it ties in negotiation, interpersonal, communication and problem solving skills. Unfortunately Customer Relations isn’t part of any university curricula and so candidates tend to lack this key skill when entering the job market.

3. Agility

Technology in the past few years has enabled and created many new avenues in how we communicate and operate. Things are rapidly changing and improving. So fast is the pace that by the time you’re an expert something new comes along to throw you back to the novice level. Hence, to stay relevant and constantly on top of your game you need to be agile. Agility is the skill that’ll help you weather storms and give you the strength to overcome challenges. It’s what’ll define your ability to be resilient and stand out amongst the competition. Agility is probably the most important skill you need to develop in order to prevail, prosper and succeed.

4. Cognitive Skills

Leaders, managers, bosses and entrepreneurs all have one thing in common – their cognitive skills. To implement their vision, strategies and bold dreams leaders need to tap into their intellectual reasoning abilities which enables them to make tough choices and crucial decisions. As an aspiring leader this is the single most important skill that’ll propel you to the next level. Bosses and managers dream to see their team members exploit their reasoning skills to come up with intelligent solutions. Hence, why you’ll need to develop your cognitive skills if you want to be seriously considered as the next generation leader in your company.

5. Project Management

Being a project management professional may not necessarily appeal to everyone. Some see it as a specialization that isn’t in-line with their current profession. But if you take a peek inside, project management isn’t any different from what we do on a daily basis. It’s a discipline more than a skill, in some ways. If you think about it irrespective of what function you’re in you’re bound to be handed an assignment, task, project, problem, whatever you want to call it. But at some stage in your career you’ll be working with a group of individuals and working on solving a problem over a given timeframe. With the knowledge and skill of project management this assignment could be worked out in an organized, efficient and systematic manner. Plus you’ll complete it within time and budget! That’s the power of project management.

As the market becomes more and more challenging, companies are becoming more keen on attracting talent that’s extraordinary. The hunt for top talent has transformed companies to be even more demanding now than they ever were. Your qualifications are just the baseline. To really stand a chance and be recognized as true talent you’ll need your experience to be backed by skills that’ll set you apart and give you an edge over the rest.

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