Assistant manager/accounting skills for your resume and career

The ability to develop working relationships with a wide range of colleagues who have diverse skills.

The ability to extract information from unfamiliar data sets and then explain conclusions reached in a clear, persuasive manner.

Students that need to take a gap year have several opportunities to make that year count. They should consider doing one or more of the following three things:

Work on honing your soft skills, which include: critical thinking/problem solving, oral/written communication, teamwork/collaboration, technology/digital literacy, leadership, professionalism, time management, organizational, and confidence. These talents are desired by employers and also will help you succeed in your educational aspirations
Take free classes offered online through organizations like edX at EDX. Even Harvard is offering free classes, check out:
Onlinelearning
Also expand your global views or overcome those challenges you may be facing by checking out Ted Talks at Ted
Look for a job (full or part-time) or internship in your chosen career field. Even entry-level positions can allow you to see how this job fits into the larger picture or you could ask to shadow someone for a day. Since I am in the accounting field, I suggest contacting Accountemps; their website is: RobertHalf Occasionally, you can also receive job and skill enhancement training through Accountemps.

With so many employees working from home, it's never been more important to be aware of the most in-demand skills for the future of work.
Data and analytics skills become increasingly valuable. Companies are looking for accounting and finance professionals with predictive model forecasting skills, advanced revenue analytics, cost optimization, SQL programming, real-time model development, and data visualization.

People with healthy analytical and critical thinking abilities to suggest innovative solutions and ideas and solve complex problems will be needed to navigate the human/machine division of labor. It's crucial for accounting students to learn technology skills to stay relevant and competitive in the job market today. Despite their education, many accounting graduates do not have the necessary technical skill sets. As firms are looking for people with data analysis and data analytics, they hire more non-accountants out of school.

With technology leading the way in the accounting industry, it's essential to keep your soft skills up to date. All workers will need to adapt as demand grows for work requiring socioemotional (initiative-taking, growth mindset), creative, and higher cognitive skills. According to a Deloitte's study, while we've recently seen strong attention on technical skills, two-thirds of jobs will be soft-skill intensive by 2030.

Creativity is the most in-demand soft skill of the future since technology is replacing many mundane, process-related jobs. But machines currently can't compete with humans on creativity. In this constantly changing work environment, developing a growth mindset - improving continually - is an important skill. Moreover, having strong interpersonal skills should never be underestimated. Whether it's communicating effectively with co-workers or working with clients, communication is essential to the future of work. People should improve their ability to share effectively with others, which means being able to say the right things, using the right tone of voice and body language. People with high emotional intelligence will also be in demand. As our world and workplaces become more diverse and open, young graduates must have the skills to understand, respect, and work with others, despite differences in race, culture, age, gender, sexual orientation, political or religious beliefs, etc. This ability to understand and adapt to others improves how people interact within the company and leads to a more inclusive and successful company. These soft critical skills could be the deciding factor in your success.

The future of work will be about skills. Interestingly, it will be about hard skills and a broader and more holistic mindset. Employers look for more than just task-oriented or technical skills. It is our job and opportunity to incorporate these soft skills and technical skills into the curriculum and classrooms, to lead students toward successful careers and increase diversity amongst our workforce.

First, Excel. It's the most basic, essential tool for the accounting professional. If you can come in on Day 1 knowing essential keyboard shortcuts, proper formula and reference use, and how to format a spreadsheet properly, you'll have an immediate advantage over your peers.

Second, believe it or not, is writing. People think that accounting is all about numbers, but really, it's less about the math (which Excel does for you) and more about being able to explain the deeper meaning behind the results. Can you explain complex depreciation methods to an audit client? Give bad news to a tax client in an understandable way? These are big deals.

Third is data analytics. Given the immense volume of data now available to firms, someone who can extract, clean, and present that data using modern software tools will have an edge. It's really another form of communication, and one that early-career accounting professionals would do well to familiarize themselves with before entering the workforce.