The 10 professional skills most demanded of students by Spanish companies.

Professional competences are all those skills and aptitudes that people have that allow them to develop a successful job. This is how they define this concept on the Educaweb website.

There is also a book entitled: Guía práctica para el diseño y medición de competencias profesionales (Esic Editorial, 2018), in which the author explains in detail, this concept so fashionable in the human resources departments of large and small companies: professional skills, named above. We recommend reading it if you are interested in learning more about this concept and knowing how to use them and how to measure them.

These are the 5 professional skills most demanded by companies: knowledge, analysis and innovation, time management, organization and communication.

There is a study carried out in 2007 called The Flexible Professional in the Knowledge Society, published by Aneca, which details up to 19 competencies that are aligned with the 5 families of professional competencies mentioned above. This information is very useful for foreign students looking for their first job in Barcelona.

The 19 competences listed are as follows:

1. Mastery of your area of discipline.
2. Knowledge of other areas or disciplines.
3. Analytical thinking.
4. Ability to quickly acquire new knowledge.
5. Ability to negotiate effectively.
6. Ability to perform under pressure.
7. Ability to detect new opportunities.
8. Ability to coordinate activities.
9. Ability to use time effectively.
10. Ability to write and speak in foreign languages.
11. Ability to work in a team.
12. Ability to mobilize the skills of others.
13. Ability to make oneself understood.
14. Ability to assert your authority.
15. Ability to use computer tools.
16. Ability to find new ideas and solutions.
17. Predisposition to question one's own ideas and those of others.
18. Ability to present products, ideas or reports in public.
19. Ability to write reports or documents.

 Do you identify or recognize any of these professional competencies in yourself?

You can clearly identify some of them, but to identify absolutely all the professional competences is a complex task.

Educaweb divides in 3 big blocks, the professional competences, listed above:

Basic competences: in a simplified form, they are the basic knowledge that allows access to a job. Some examples are: knowledge and mastery of the mother tongue, knowledge of a foreign language, basic skills in mathematics.

Technical skills: these are the skills acquired after specific training and are specific to a particular job. For example, a cooking student should have acquired technical skills such as the use of knives, food cooking techniques or the organisation of a kitchen. These skills are different in each profession and are usually acquired through specific training.

Transversal competences: are those skills and aptitudes that make a worker develop his work in an effective way. Transversal competences are used to develop any profession and have been acquired in different contexts (working or not). Some transversal competences are: teamwork, responsibility, initiative, interpersonal relationship, willingness to learn, etc.

To find your first job in Barcelona as a foreign student, try to identify the three types of skills that stand out most in you.