5 Best Soft Skills You Need to Get Hired & Succeed in Your Career
In today’s job market, bold soft skills can significantly improve candidates’ recruitment chances. While technical expertise is undoubtedly valuable, job seekers capable of interacting and collaborating efficiently with others in a team are in high demand as they can positively contribute to the company’s success and culture. Consequently, developing substantial soft skills is important to boost your hiring chances. This article will outline the five best soft skills you should aim to develop to get hired.
What are Soft Skills?
Soft skills are non-technical abilities essential for success in one’s personal and professional life. These skills are often developed over time through experience and practice and encompass a variety of attributes such as communication, emotional intelligence, personality, adaptability, and motivation. They are a valuable asset to your career as they increase your employability and enable you to navigate complex situations efficiently.
Soft Skills vs. Core or Hard Skills
Hard or core skills are job-specific skills and knowledge necessary to perform a job. For instance, programming, data analysis, and computer proficiency skills. These are easy to measure and often require formal education, industry-specific certification, or training.
On the other hand, soft skills are related to interpersonal abilities and relationship-building that enable individuals to adapt, work, collaborate, communicate, resolve conflicts, and thrive in the workplace. Even with exceptional hard skills, a candidate can fall short without strong, soft skills. Unlike hard skills that can be evaluated through assignments and resumes, soft skills are difficult to measure and quantify. They are often assessed by situational questioning or evaluating a candidate’s personality.
Soft Skills That Will Get You Hired
1. Communication
Communication is effectively conveying your thoughts and viewpoints to others. Strong verbal and written communication skills are crucial for effective team collaboration, ensuring mutual understanding among team members, and successfully resolving any issues that may arise. These skills positively influence your career and are fundamental for any profession.
Communication skills include:
- Written and oral communication
- Non-verbal communication
- Negotiation
- Proposal and report writing
- Public speaking
2. Leadership
Effective leadership is a crucial aspect of a successful career, irrespective of one’s job title. It is one of the most valued and best soft skills that can help highlight your ability to take charge, make well-informed decisions, and inspire others. Recruiters often look for candidates who can assume responsibility, exercise critical thinking, and demonstrate strong leadership abilities.
Leadership skills include:
- Decision-making
- Empathy
- Delegation
- Reliability
- Employee motivation
3. Teamwork
Teamwork means collaborating effectively, sharing ideas, and supporting colleagues in achieving common goals. Employers highly value strong teamwork skills as team players are reliable and tend to be key contributors to the growth and success of an organization. Employees with teamwork can effectively leverage the strengths of their colleagues, work seamlessly with others, create a positive work environment, and help their team achieve its objectives.
Teamwork skills include:
- Collaboration
- Problem-solving
- Responsibility
- Flexibility
- Conflict management
4. Adaptability
Adaptability indicates coping with change and remaining productive despite unexpected situations, uncertainty, and ambiguity. With the rapid pace of technological advancements, globalization, and the recent shift to hybrid work models, companies require employees who can quickly and effectively adjust to such changes. Employees with such skills can thrive in any role, maintain their focus on the organization’s goals, and effectively prioritize and manage their workload.
Adaptability skills include:
- Open-mindedness
- Resourcefulness
- Organization
- Curiosity
- Fast learning
5. Positive Attitude
A positive attitude is one of the best soft skills that can significantly impact your success in the workplace. Your attitude towards work impacts your productivity, creativity, and mental health. A positive attitude can help you approach work with enthusiasm and energy, and these can, in turn, inspire others and foster a productive and enjoyable work environment.
A positive attitude includes:
- Patience
- Energy
- Enthusiasm
- Honesty
- Confidence
How to Measure Soft Skills
They can be a bit complex as they are hard to quantify. However, there are some methods for evaluating these skills that both professionals and recruiters can employ. These tools provide an assessment of strengths and areas for improvement.
Used by Professionals
- Self-Assessment Tools: These can be useful for measuring your best soft skills. These tools are typically presented in questionnaires or surveys that can be completed online to gain insight into your competency level across various soft skills.
- Creating Rubrics: They can be assessed using detailed rubrics that establish clear standards for each skill’s exceptional, acceptable, and unacceptable proficiency levels.
Used by Employers and Recruiters
- Employee Engagement Survey: These surveys evaluate the level of engagement and motivation of employees. They can allow you to understand the employee’s thought process toward their job and locate areas for improvement.
- 360-Degree Feedback: This is a process in which you receive feedback from people you interact with frequently, such as managers, colleagues, and customers. Feedback provides a great insight into your strengths and areas that require improvement.
- Behavioral Interviews: This is a tool recruiters often use. This involves asking open-ended questions to encourage the interviewee to share real-life examples of how they have handled specific situations or challenges.
Additionally, some skills assessment tools that can provide insight into a candidate’s skillset include EdApp, Vervoe, Brilliant Assessment, Kahoot!, and Skill Base.
ALSO READ: Wondering How to Measure Soft Skills Effectively? This Guide Can Help!
How to Add Soft Skills to Your Resume
- Identify your skills that are relevant to the position you are applying for
- Add soft skills in your professional summary or objective statement at the top of your resume
- Mention them in the skills section of your resume, along with hard skills
- Use action words—such as implemented, accomplished, directed, and improved—in the work experience section to demonstrate how you applied your skills in the past
To conclude, soft skills play a vital role in getting hired and retaining a job, developing positive relationships and successful careers, and contributing to the growth of an organization. By developing the above-mentioned best soft skills, you can become a more well-rounded and valuable employee and position yourself for long-term success. If you want to upskill in these or any other areas, check out Emeritus’s diverse range of online courses in association with the top global colleges.
By Krati Joshi
Write to us at content@emeritus.org
