

A recent Businessweek article highlights the top skills job-seekers need to make the greatest impression on headhunters and future employers. What’s not high up on the list? Involvement in startups. According to the recruiters surveyed in BW’s 2014 b-school rankings, employees who are entrepreneurial thinkers and “cosmopolitan self-starters” aren’t as important as employees who can “write clean e-mails, work in a team, and think analytically.”
Businessweek’s polled 1320 MBA recruiters from various industries, asking them to choose up to five skills or assets from a list of 14. Here’s what they found were most important (the top three) and least important (the bottom three):
• 68% — Good communication
• 60% — Analytical thinking
• 55% — Ability to work collaboratively
• 15.2% — Industry-related work experience
• 12.3% — Global mindset
• 8.9% — Entrepreneurship
See BW’s chart for more details:
Recruiters said that the following skills/assets were the most difficult to find among job applicants:
• 47.3% — Strategic thinking
• 44.4% — Creative problem-solving
• 42.2% — Leadership skills
Here’s the BW chart on that:
• MBA Hiring Expected to Increase in 2015
• MBA Project Search: Matchmaking for MBAs and Businesses
• 5 Tips to Find a Satisfying Career