In today’s competitive job market, employees go to great lengths to appeal to their interviewers.
Thus, job experience and education are often not enough to land job seekers their dream job.
Instead, soft skills have become increasingly more important to interviewers.
In some circumstances, having certain non-technical skills and abilities will determine whether a candidate gets hired or rejected.
So, it is crucial for potentially recruited individuals to obtain such essential skills.
This article will teach you everything you need to know about soft and hard skills, as well as how job candidates can further their already existent professional skills.
What are Soft Skills? Definition & Theory
Soft skills are described as a vast amount of abilities and these include interpersonal skills, communication skills, time management skills amount others.
However, all of these abilities are non-technical. They are not something that is learned through a degree or formal education.
Rather, they are personal traits and habits an individual utilizes to succeed in the workplace.
They do not have anything to do with cognition and physical ability, as some hard skills do.
Individuals can be excellent at technical skills, such as coding, but fail to communicate or have empathy, leading to crucial problems in the workplace.
This is why soft skills are so important.
List of 20 Most Important Examples of Soft Skills
These skills are beneficial to nearly all industries and can benefit most employees.
The following is a list of just a few soft skill examples:
- Problem-solving skills
- Leadership skills
- Critical thinking/analytical thinking
- Listening skills
- Communication skills
- People skills, such as understanding the needs of fellow colleagues and customers
- Positive mindset
- Creative thinking
- Collaboration and teamwork
- Persistence and perseverance
- Dependability
- Strong work ethic and motivation
- Adaptability
- Empathy
- Confidence
- Honesty
- Organization
- Attention to Detail
- Assertiveness
- Leadership
How to Measure & Improve Soft Skills
Since these skills are not tangible, it is often difficult to measure one’s level of behavioral skills.
However, there are ways to grow your soft skills and track this development.
Firstly, one must identify their current skill sets and how developed these skills are.
Usually, this can be determined by accessing your current situation at work.
See what current feedback you receive for your work, and when it is possible, make a note of that.
Positive feedback and any achievements in career development both show you your current skills.
Additionally, you should look at your prior experiences to see where you have grown the most.
Out of difficult situations, you may have grown and developed a better understanding of the world, leading to skill development.
Then, you must learn to build positive habits.
These habits introduce you to new skills and build apart your existing abilities.
The specific habits you must form depend on the skill you are trying to develop or acquire.
In general, you can find tips from your managers by asking for consistent feedback on your performance.
Specifically, try and focus on embodying your company’s values, as it is somewhat easy for managers to access.
Do your best to handle difficult personalities, understand other employee’s points of view, and become persistent.
While improvements in soft skills are harder to measure than the development of technical abilities, you can collect data beyond your manager’s input as well.
For example, see if you become more productive. If you begin working on your perseverance or critical thinking skills, you will likely see physical improvements in your work.
This is true with most soft skills: there will be a tangible impact on your work ethic and satisfaction, so try to notice this and quantify it by measuring your output.
Focus on Your Most Relevant Soft Skills
To impress potential employers and find long-term success in your career of choice, identify your own skills.
These should be relevant to the particular field you work in.
Learning every skill possible is not only inefficient, but it may end up hurting you in the long run due to burnout.
Make sure you stay true to yourself while developing your skills, meaning you do not overwork yourself or stretch yourself beyond a certain limit.
Rather, you can focus on those which will bring the most benefit to your work.
Important skills will vary from industry to industry.
It is important to pursue a career that aligns with the skills you possess and has work you truly enjoy.
In general, job descriptions provide information on what tasks and skills you might need to accomplish daily.
If there is a specific skill list or the job listing clarifies daily duties, use that information to see which skills would benefit you most in that environment.
Additionally, finding adjacent skills to work on can make you stand out from the rest of the job prospects.
Every industry has a general skills list that applies across employers. Some employers may have a skill gap in their teams.
If you ask them about their current team and any skills they are lacking, try to fill those skills in.
This benefits the entire team as these are the most crucial skills for you to possess.
Consider the ideal candidate for your employer: what qualities do they have? Does the job description mention specific job duties?
If so, think of skills that can make performing these tasks easier and try to acquire them.
This way, you stay focused on only the most relevant skills for your job.
When it comes to soft skills, in particular, create lists of skills that would benefit you in a certain workplace.
To do this, you must understand the company’s culture and what personality of employees they value.
Learning more about social skills should not be the top priority of a radiologist, as a more appropriate soft skill target should be advancing your organizational skills.
Likewise, artists may value creativity skills far more than conflict management skills.
It truly does come down to your profession, passion, position, and company culture.
Asking an HR director about a company’s values not only makes you more clear about which additional skills you should learn, but it also makes you seem engaged and passionate.
The Importance of Soft Skills in the Workplace
Some individuals believe that education and technical savvy alone will land them the job of their dreams.
This cannot be further from the truth.
Soft skills make an immense amount of contributions to a team.
In fact, most HR directors agree that soft skills are more important to a team than hard skills (57% compared to 43%).
Conflict resolution is a necessary part of maintaining a healthy and productive team.
With the encouragement of traits like listening skills, empathy, a positive attitude, and communication, teams can work together to solve problems and overcome obstacles.
Additionally, today’s customers and clients need workers with soft skills.
Customer service and verbal communication have become huge beneficial traits in the technology industry.
This is so because technology is becoming more and more advanced while being affordable, so consumers start looking to buy from businesses that differentiate themselves in a unique way: having an incredibly customer-oriented and helpful team.
Soft skills help employees stay true to their core values while being valuable to a business.
For instance, many individuals value hard work and dedication.
By using a soft skill such as stress management, they can continue working hard without burnout.
Additional benefits of this technique include more career satisfaction, meeting deadlines with greater ease, and an improved work-life balance.
Differences Between Soft Skills & Hard Skills
Hard skills must be learned through job training, education, or practice.
Like all skills, they improve an employee’s performance and make them more competitive in a job market.
Thus, those who acquire hard skills find their work more satisfying and have high job retention rates.
Of the two skill types, hard skills are much easier to teach and are far more measurable/easy to track growth.
This means that learning a hard skill could be far easier for the average worker, for it demands virtually no changes in one’s personality.
On the other hand, soft skills are far less measurable and more difficult to teach.
They are traits and job habits that contribute to an employee’s long-term success in an industry, including how they work and communicate with others and how one leads.
In a LinkedIn study, 69% of HR directors also agree that behavioral skills are hard to access, but that a resume composing of experience and hard skills is not enough.
These valued skills include traits like open-mindedness, people skills, effective communication, critical thinking, empathy, love of learning, teamwork, integrity, among other behavioral skills.
What are Hybrid Skills?
If a candidate has hybrid skills, they possess both hard and soft skills.
The ideal employee has varying levels of both types of skills depending on the industry they work in.
In the technical sphere, software development agencies may require lots of education within a particular field, like computer science, as well as coding knowledge.
But, they may value a hybrid candidate who has critical thinking skills over someone who is purely technical.
Being someone with hybrid skills does not mean obtaining a perfect balance between the two skill sets.
You can still have these strengths in varying proportions.
However, it is crucial for both hard and soft skills to contribute to your success at work.
Soft Skills FAQ
What are the 7 essential soft skills?
There are a plethora of soft skills that you could acquire. However, some are more common and more often demanded than others.
7 soft skills that are now considered essential include: communication skills, teamwork, adaptability, problem-solving, leadership, work ethic, and time management/organization.
There are also skills within these broad categories. For instance, active listening is a part of communication, and creativity is a part of problem-solving.
What are 10 examples of soft skills?
With so many soft skills out there, it can be difficult to narrow down which ones you should focus on.
If you are having trouble, consider the following 10 soft skills for inspiration: communication skills, organization, commitment, teamwork, critical and creative thinking, adaptability, leadership, work ethic, emotional intelligence, and time management/organization.
What are the top 3 soft skills?
The top soft skills for you will depend on the field you are trying to enter and your specific employee. However, in general, some soft skills are universally beneficial.
The top three soft skills that you should focus on are teamwork skills, adaptability, and work ethic. Team work includes empathy, communication, and listening.
Adaptability is crucial in a constantly changing environment; it incorporates critical and creative thinking. Finally, work ethic ensures that you work hard. You cannot accomplish your goals without putting in the effort.
Overall Conclusion For Soft Skill
Soft skills are no longer abilities that are only necessary for teachers or customer service personnel.
They will soon be a deciding factor for hiring employees, and the popularity of soft skill-based hiring is already on the rise.
Developing these skills may take time, effort, and a change of heart to some, but it will be well worth it in the end.
Personal growth and skill development is an extremely motivating and fulfilling experience for many employees.
It impacts people for the rest of their life, not just assist you in a job interview.
You will not only become a more productive employee but a happier individual in general.
