Why have I chosen this topic and why I am giving so much of importance to it? It is largely based on my experience of Indian subcontinent, largely the Hindi regions.
Majority of people lack these basic skills that area must for any student or a professional.
How does it sound to your ears when you hear Soft Skills? What’s you understanding about soft skills?
Is it speaking softly to people?
Is it handling people with care?
In general, if you ask any person about soft skill they will invariably say talking to people in a soft manner. Pay attention to the two words used here
1. Soft and Manner and
2. Talking.
If we slightly try to understand it deeply, we come across
- Talking: Means communication – We will talk about it in detail further down.
- Manner: This can be better understood with its synonyms which by and large reflect what it means such as be courteous, polite, considerate, etiquette
Manner and soft means the same as far as normal English is considered. The only difference in my opinion is manner is more behaviourial and soft leans towards calm, cool delicate.
It’s not a language class but it’s important to understand these words.
Above what I have explained is just setting up the context about soft skills.
To stand out in this competitive world, a student or a professional is required to hone many skills and abilities which is not a one-day job. A student / professional needs to carve out these skills by practicing every day and this takes a long time. These skills will be helpful not just in schools and colleges, but also in building a lucrative professional career.
What are soft skills?
These are skills that can be used to convey ideas and messages in an effective manner. These skills can also be used to handle serious situations while taking care of overall scenario. The soft skills are very important in today’s world where management and human resources are given prime focus.
Another way of defining soft skills is that they are non-technical skills that describe how you work and interact with others. Unlike hard skills, they’re not necessarily something you’ll learn in a course, like data analytics or programming. Instead, they reflect your communication style, work ethic, and work style.
Soft Skills help to grow a powerful personality. It helps to stand out and to move forward in your every day activities to reach your goals. These skills are thus supposed to be used in every other situation, big or small.
These skills include everything from how you talk to teammates to how you think about workplace problems. In this guide, we cover:
- Soft Skills at Work
- What Are Soft Skills Examples?
- Why Are Soft Skills Important?
- What Soft Skills Should I Include on My Resume?
- How to Include Soft Skills on a Resume
Soft Skills at Work
Soft skills apply to all kinds of jobs and careers. For example, a professor and an investment manager can both be great communicators and have exceptional leadership skills, although how those skills translate into their professions can look quite different. No matter what field you’re interested in, these skills won’t just come in handy — they’ll be integral to your success at a company.
“We all have soft skills because they are part of who we are.” Unfortunately, all too often, the personality traits are overlooked. But they play a role in each job out there.
Soft Skills help to grow a powerful personality. It helps to stand out and to move forward in your everyday activities to reach your goals. These skills are thus supposed to be used in every other situation, big or small.
These skills generally fall into several different categories:
- Communication skills
- Creative Thinking
- Leadership skills
- Teamwork skills
- Problem-solving skills
- Critical thinking skills
- Decision Making
- Time management skills
- Intra personal skills
- Inter personal skills
- Positive attitude
- Listening skills
Communication Skills
Communication skills describe how you interact with the people you work with — from your boss to your friendly colleague to an important client. These skills are vital in getting your ideas across in a meeting, sharing status updates on a project, or effectively negotiating with a coworker about how to move forward.
Be it a student or a working professional, this skill is required for every individual. This is a basic skill required for everyone to communicate. One has to understand how to face people who are aggressive and how to talk to people who can be sensitive. Students will find communication skills very helpful, if they develop them, as it will be useful in almost all the areas. Most of the services that careers offer deal with human beings in one way or another. Thus, having good communication skills is not only important, it looks like a golden star on your resume.
Some soft communication skills include:
- Public speaking
- Negotiation
- Conflict resolution
- Confidence
- Friendliness
- Empathetic listening
Creative Thinking:
Thinking creatively is of great importance as it leads to the expansion of the imagination. Students need to be creative in their approach in every aspect and it helps them understand the world in a better way and come up with answers that might give the rest of the world a new perspective. Ideation and creation are, thus, very elemental parts of education.
Leadership Skills
Leadership skills are essential in all types of roles, even if you’re not directly managing someone. Adding these skills to a resume shows your potential employer that you’re confident in taking charge and leading by example.
For a student, one will always have decision to make. Whether she a follower or a leader. There will be opportunities like class election, and student union election and club president or representative leader that will test who the majority of people like and think should be a leader. But leaders can also come forth due to situations. Someone who is quick in thinking and can make the right decisions, coordinate other people and pull off an event or a situation with smooth functioning can spearhead as a leader. Leadership is an important soft skill, that a student can use further in their career.
Some soft leadership skills include:
- Decision-making
- Adaptability
- Team-building
- Reliability
- Delegation
Teamwork Skills
No one works in a silo, even if they’re on a team of one. Teamwork skills are critical in any job to work harmoniously with stakeholders across projects, teams, and departments. These skills aren’t just about getting along, though. It’s also essential to know when to disagree and push back to get the best result. Some soft teamwork skills include:
- Empathetic listening
- Conflict resolution
- Rapport-building
- Decision-making
- Respectfulness
Problem-Solving Skills
Companies hire people to help them solve problems and find the best solutions. No matter what role you’re taking on, you’ll need to think creatively, analytically, and logically to understand why problems are happening and how to solve the issue.
Whether it’s understanding why there’s not enough traffic to a website or how to raise students’ test scores, problems in the workplace are everywhere, and companies want new hires to bring fresh and innovative ways to solve them. Problem-solving skills include:
- Analysis
- Decision-making
- Communication
- Creativity
- Innovation
Critical Thinking Skills
These skills help people identify the root cause of an issue. Critical thinkers analyze, research, identify, and think outside the box to make sense of information. At work, critical thinking helps people solve problems and challenge preconceived notions to help create the best path forward. Some soft critical thinking skills include:
- Analytical thinking
- Research
- Questioning
- Decision-making
Decision-making:
Students have to learn how to make decisions within the given time. By doing so they will have a stand of their own and will not have to depend on other people. By deciding which stream to pick, which electives to chose and which co-curricular activities they must go for, they learn what is best for them, which will form the foundation of this skill. Moreover, the people we choose as friends and the groups we mingle with also help us develop our personality. Even there, decision-making is important.
Time Management Skills
Time management skills ensure employees perform their jobs efficiently and productively. While time management is essential to any role, these skills are critical in hybrid and remote work environments. Employers want to know they can trust employees to get things done even if they’re not physically in an office with them. Some time management skills include:
- Prioritization
- Detail-oriented
- Diligent
- Ambitious
- Motivated
Intra-personal skills
Skills that help you understand yourself, your emotional intelligence, your thoughts, beliefs and opinions on things are known as intra-personal skills. These skills help you mold yourself into better leaders, with adequate knowledge about yourself you will know your stand on many decisions and ideas. Only when you try to understand yourself, will you be able to understand the others. You will need them the most when you will have to work on certain tasks all by yourself, and when you need to know your strengths and weaknesses.
Inter-Personal Skills
Once you understand yourself, you will start noticing how other people work. Skills that help you understand the intelligence and behavior of other people with whom you work are called interpersonal skills. These skills are helpful when it comes to working in groups. You will know how group dynamics work and how each person will react to a certain topic, so it will become easier for you put for the ideas in a certain manner so that it will be in your advantage.
Positive Attitude
When the world is filled with many negative factors, one has to win hearts with a positive approach. Starting from teachers to friends, everyone will look for someone who drives the academic year with a positive attitude. Students have to hone this skill to maintain their friendly atmosphere with everyone at an educational institute. With a positive attitude, students should consider some key areas that will help them develop a positive attitude such as high energy, enthusiastic, confident, cooperative, patient, respectable, respectful and sense of humour.
Listening Skills:
Surely, a good listener enjoys the highest degree of respect in a society. Students should rate this as the first skill that should be honed because it is very important while pursuing a higher education. One should hone this skill by involving actions such as nodding their head and making eye contact. With these skills, any student will be able to reach the heights that they have always dreamed of. So, what are you waiting for?
Conclusion and importance of Soft skills
Soft skills are indispensable to employers because they make you an engaged, communicative employee and a helpful team member. Knowing your soft skills can also help managers understand the big picture of how you work and interact with others.
“Employers want to see how well [potential employees] work with people and can think beyond their learning.”
Soft skills are also integral to your success at a company. According to a Leadership IQ study, 89% of new hire failures were a result of poor soft skills, not a lack of technical failures, which I have mentioned in the beginning of this writeup. New hires were more likely to fail because they lacked soft skills like coachability, emotional intelligence, and motivation. Only 11% of new hire failures were a result of technical incompetence.
These kinds of skills not only show your employer why you’re fit for the job, but also that you’re more likely to succeed once you land the role.
Yet not all soft skills are created equal in employers’ eyes. According to a 2022 survey conducted by the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE), 86% of employers are looking for problem-solving skills on student resumes; 76.3% say they value the ability to work on a team.
Written communication skills are becoming a priority in an increasingly remote and asynchronous workforce.
“In my experience, it’s valuable for students as well as professionals to have or rather hone these skills. “They are most relevant to entry-level success across diverse industries and job functions.”