24 skills to help you land a new job in 2024

Explore the must-have skills to make 2024 your year for landing a new job and stay ahead of the competition with the 24 essential skills.
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Article by Horizontal Team
Jan 12, 2024
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According to the National Federation of Independent Business, 87% of HR professionals reported "few or no qualified applicants" for the positions they were trying to fill.

In a market where job seekers are trying to stand out to potential employers, highlighting skills on your resume and LinkedIn page is key. Understanding what skills to learn through online education courses can also help if you are trying to make a career shift in the new year. If you’re a hiring manager, keeping up with the most important skills to match today’s job landscape is critical to quickly identifying the right talent for the role and your organization.

With that said, here are 24 in-demand skills for 2024 to help you along your job hunt or hiring search:

Soft skills

Employers are increasingly valuing job seekers with quality soft skills and have been prioritizing those over hard skills. Horizontal Talent Senior Technical Recruiter Ali Provos states, “If you have someone that can communicate, is a good team player and can learn things, you can develop their hard skills. You can teach most people anything, so having soft skills is going to be huge. Soft skills are important, and you can’t always teach somebody that.” Softs skills like the ones listed below will positively contribute during interviews and as you begin to work with your new team.

1) Communication and collaboration

2) Project management (even if you’re not a project manager)

3) Leadership

4) Active listening and emotional intelligence

5) Creative problem solving and adaptability

Tech skills

According to LinkedIn, contract job postings in the technology industry have tripled in the last two years. Globally, the tech industry is booming.

6) AI + machine learning

7) Data science

8) Blockchain

9) Salesforce

10) Robotic process automation

11) Web programming – JavaScript, CSS, HTML, PHP

Marketing and creative skills

The age of digital marketing has provided a plethora of opportunities for skill development. Many contract marketers base their experience on their certifications and skills learned. Relevant certifications can be found on Google SkillshopLinkedIn Learning and Hubspot.

12) Web design (UI/UX)

13) Graphic design (even if you’re not a designer)

14) Creative and writing

15) Social media marketing

16) Lead generation

17) SEO/SEM

18) Email marketing

Other skills

19) Product management

20) Administrative/organizational training

21) DEI training

22) Budget management and financial analysis

23) Sales and negotiation

24.) Corporate sustainability

Adding just one of these new skills to your resume could be the difference in landing that new job. Find a skill that relates to your role or a future role and an area you’re passionate about improving in and go from there. 

Want to use your skills in a new role? Visit our job seekers page.

Looking to hire? We’ll help find candidates with the in-demand skills you’re looking for.

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