You’ve probably seen a job description where you got the qualifications.
You’ve got the industry knowledge and the technical training required for the job. While your path may seem clear and that you’re a perfect fit for the role, your competition may also be thinking the same.
Successful candidates needs to have more than technical capabilities. What distinguishes candidates when getting hired is their soft skills.
What are soft skills?
Soft skills are characterised by personality traits. They are those specific set of behaviours and competencies that ‘come naturally to you’. For example, people often say that a particular individual may be ‘a born leader’ or a person has ‘a knack for helping people’ or a ‘way with words’.
Soft skills are characteristics that a person develops which has considerable value in the modern working world.
Why are soft skills important?
Homogenous degrees and qualifications can level the playing field. Choosing a suitable candidate can therefore be challenging. How can companies truly decide on the best person for their team when applicants possess similar qualifications?
The answer lies in evaluating who is applicant is. What is their work ethic like? Can they rise to the demands of this job position? Assessing a candidate’s hard skills indicates what they can do. Evaluating their soft skills indicates how they can do it.
What is the importance of soft skills in the workplace?
Apart from your assigned tasks, you will be expected to interact with different personalities, manage expectations, and handle emotions, opinions and criticisms. You need to also manage yourself – your frustrations and stress as well as use logic to get your KPIs completed.
With such an extensive list of duties, which are usually not all specified within the job description, your soft skills will prove valuable in handling the intangible aspects of a job and the natural complexities that come with the work environment.
How to develop soft skills?
Unlike technical skills, soft skills cannot be taught from a textbook or training session. These are behavioural competencies. Therefore, developing these skills involve changes in behaviour.
Self-Assessment
Evaluate your current condition against the person you wish to become. If the skill you’re aiming to develop is teamwork, carefully assess how are your team working skills presently? Do you enjoy being part of a team? Can you work alongside multiple people without conflict? Can you handle deadlines and not compromise the success of the team?
Set goals
Once you’ve identified the work required, set goals to track your development. These goals allow you to see the progress you’re making and how competent you are becoming in the area you wish to learn.
Create the space to learn
Soft skills are learnt by seeing them displayed by others. Finding a mentor or coach can nurture these skills by providing inspiration, resources, exercises and feedback to develop the expertise you want.
Put it into practice
Seek positions or opportunities to put your skill into practice. This builds your experience. You could apply for positions at work where you can demonstrate what you’ve learnt. The more action and practice you receive, the stronger your skills become.
Keep learning
What is interesting about soft skills is that there is always room for further growth. It is important to track your progress against your set goals and ask for feedback from mentors or coaches. Doing so, you can celebrate your successes, evaluate failures and overcome future challenges.
Top skills to list on a resume
Top soft skills in demand in 2021
In a post-pandemic world, these soft skills are essential in navigating through the work environment.
Collaboration
Getting your message communicated, working remotely and across various time zones, the need for collaboration is vital in a post-pandemic world.
Social listening
Social media is not just for posting images and gaining likes. It is an essential marketing tool for the 21st century. Social listening is one such skill that involves collecting feedback, customer complaints, comments and transforming this raw data into actionable insights and strategies for companies to adopt. It is a marketable skill that transforms online customer conversations into marketing plans.
Adapting to change
Not everyone likes change but regardless, it is inevitable. With economic turmoil, company layoffs, technological changes and governmental restrictions, the ability to successfully adapt and manage change is critical.
Emotional intelligence
Adapting to change requires another crucial skill – emotional intelligence. Change is mostly uncertain which can lead to frustration, fear or stress. Therefore, high emotionally intelligent candidates understand how to masterfully process negative emotions and situations to maintain stability and thrive.
Achievement mindset
This skill keeps the organisation goals at the centre. An achiever’s mindset finds the opportunities in challenges. For example, a recession may mean an opportunities to train the sales team with new strategies or adopt new technologies to cut operating costs.
Innovation
Innovation seeks new ideas and new solutions. How has the job market changed? How has consumer spending changed? Innovative individuals can assess these variable and propose solutions that enables organisations to thrive.
Time Management
Time is money. In today’s world it is the most valuable resource. Firms can always make more money but they can never make more time. Using your time well therefore in a productive way is essential in any job.
Leadership
Firms need competent leaders to motivate, delegate and drive their teams to success. Leaders need to encompass some of the previously mentioned soft skills such as achiever’s mindset, emotional intelligence and collaboration. Other important soft skills for leaders to adopt are:
- Teamwork
- Motivation
- Decision-making
- Conflict Resolution
- Empathy
- Mentoring
- Delegation
- Strategic Planning
How to highlight soft skills on your CV
Given the stated importance of soft skills within the workplace, highlighting them on your CV will be to your advantage. You can list them under a separate heading as ‘Soft Skills’. It would also be to your benefit by clearly indicating how you have acquired or utilised them.
For example, if you have listed teamwork, highlight group projects you were a part of. If you mention conflict resolution, leadership or innovation, illustrate in your work experience teams you led, issues you have resolved or ideas that you came up with to solve problems.
Making your soft skills actionable distinguishes you from other homogenous candidates and recruiters can identify as you their next hire.
