7 In-Demand Skills Recruiters Are Looking For Right Now

People with specific sought-after skills are having an easier time finding jobs.

In fact, they're getting snatched up pretty quickly, according to Brian McCullough, founder of ResumeWriting.com.

Below, McCullough shares some critical employability skills that you need to have on your resume right now:

1. Math, statistics, or data analysis

"Your average company is always trying to figure out how to manage their data stream," McCullough tells us. "It seems to be a major trend across all sorts of industries that big business is looking for smart people to help them manage, organize, and tap into that data."

2. Supply chain management and logistics

McCullough says that these skills are often searched for, because "companies are always looking for ways to cut costs and be more efficient," so if you can "load your resume or [LinkedIn] profile with industry and scenario-specific logistics keywords, you can expect the headhunters and hiring mangers to come to you."

3. Social media

If you claim to be an expert in social media, you better be have an active presence online and have a good number of followers.

"It's more important how active you are," he says. "You can't just be posting tweets, but also be replying to others and joining in on conversations."

4. CRM

"Customer relationship management platforms have exploded over the last 15 years and are key to operations for almost all industries in the private and even public sector," McCullough says.

Keywords showing proficiency with the major platforms — Salesforce and SAP — will be the first things hiring managers search for when looking to fill open sales and marketing positions.

5. Crisis management

Related keywords to this skill would be risk management, emergency management, public safety, public relations, operations management, and brand management.

6. P&L Responsibility

General management candidates can stand out if they have "Profit and Loss" or "P&L Responsibility" on their resumes, because these workers are able to "demonstrate direct responsibility for revenue development and cost control," McCullough tells us.

7. Foreign language

McCullough says that knowing a foreign language is the "most successful keyword on a resume," especially if that language is Mandarin.

"You might be a run-of-the-mill salesperson, but if you have mastery of another language on your resume or LinkedIn profile, you're going to come up in keyword searches more often than you would think."

Whatever skills you have, jobseekers need to think about what hiring managers will search for when creating their resume. For example, recruiters aren't going to search for vague terms like "self starter" or "detail-oriented." Instead, they'll search for the skills that they need in a candidate, so you need to think about your experiences, degree, major, specialties and certifications all as keywords.