LinkedIn founder: Top skills employers want in new hires
'Thinking analytically, creativity, these things are equally important'
Despite a strong labor market in the U.S., which boasts a historic 50-year low unemployment rate, the struggle to bridge the skills gap remains.
LinkedIn co-founder Allen Blue told FOX Business’ Maria Bartiromo at the World Economic Forum in Davos that closing the gap will not only take endorsing hard tech skills, but also soft skills like creativity and communication.
“Thinking analytically, creativity, these things are equally important,” he said.
According to LinkedIn, some of the most in-demand skills include cloud computing, analytic reasoning and UX (user experience) design, creativity, persuasion and collaboration.
Through the examination of profiles and jobs, LinkedIn reported that soft skills are actually the most sought after by employers since these skills “make employees flexible," Blue said. "It means they can do a lot of different roles, [it] means they can learn new things."
The future’s most “powerful” careers will all be associated with the tech sector, according to Blue.
“The most powerful roles in the future are the ones which are going to command the highest salaries, which are going to have the highest level of economic opportunity,” Blue said. “Those roles are all coming from technology.”
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Skills and sectors like artificial intelligence, cloud computing and data science will be an important contribution to the future of business, Blue said. That will be true whether the knowledge is used in “hardcore work” or in industries like sales and marketing.
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LinkedIn has a current network of 660 million users who are not all “white-collar professionals.” However, all users share the same needs, according to Blue.
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“They need to find a job, they need to be able to do their work well, they need to be able to make good decisions about their career," he said. "LinkedIn is great for all."
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