Study: Who will be hired in 2021?

New research from a career website highlights the importance of “human” traits, like likeability and trust, for job seekers to convey.

Now hiring concep — Image: Getty Images/iStockphoto

In this surreal COVID-19 world we are currently living in, it’s a trying time for job seekers, to say the least. What’s more, the recruitment side of hiring has increasingly been pushed over to automation programs, where resumes from potential candidates are fielded not by human hiring managers or recruiters but via algorithms that scan keywords that match-up with the job description.

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And, yet, according to research by Zety, a career website and online resume/cover letter builder and generator, the human side to hiring still matters. Crucially so, the company maintains. As they see it, hiring managers and the like really want potential candidates that exude what it says is the “niceness factor.” And this even goes with showing you have that in a Zoom interview, which has become the de-facto tool for interviews in the COVID-19 era. Giving off a well-wrought, positive sense of yourself is a key factor in an employment pursuit, the study says—even during the pandemic.

In this new survey conducted by Zety with more than 200 US hiring managers and recruiters, the company determined that “getting that first impression right and displaying the most important traits and qualities can skyrocket your chances of landing a job in 2021.” Particularly, it says 83% of hiring managers, when asked, viewed the first impression as one of the biggest factors in the hiring process.

SEE: CompTIA’s 10 trends for 2021. No. 1: There is no normal. (TechRepublic)

So what makes up this “niceness” facet that makes potential employees stand out? According to the firm, traits like “conscientiousness, agreeableness, trustworthiness, and confidence are the essential ‘X factor[s]’ that employers” want. Moreover, it maintains that potential workers who convey their ability to show “loyalty, integrity, sincerity, and kindness” are ones that get placed on the top of the hiring pile.

For Jacques Buffett, a resume expert at Zety and a career advice writer, “employers aren’t just looking for the perfect resume, they’re looking at the person behind the page.” He adds, “The one who’ll be the perfect fit for the role and the team.” And that’s where the above-mentioned traits come into play.

Citing the study, Buffett says that roughly “52% of our respondents use personality tests or psychological profiling techniques to identify desired personality traits in candidates.”

The report emphasizes that showing you are a good, responsible and solid person—even if that is over an online video meeting—remains some of the most paramount features to convey in a job search.

So what tech jobs are spiking this year? According to LinkedIn’s new “Jobs on the Rise Report,” there will be rising demand for careers in SEO, user experience professionals, UX testing, statistical modeling and data visualization, Amazon Web Services, web development, video editing, and Python.