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What are soft skills? Do you have them already? How do you get them?

Soft skills are personality traits and interpersonal skills that can directly affect your relationship with other people.

People often overlook soft skills and focus on experience and qualifications to sail them through the recruitment process – however with experience and qualifications being highly competitive you should consider advancing your soft skills to make you a more attractive candidate.

Soft skills are not skills you can learn from google or a LinkedIn course.  They are skills which are innate and that can be strengthened through face to face interaction and confident communication. Here is how you can work on improving your soft skills…

Communication

Having solid communication skills is essential to any position – from sales to engineering. Having knowledge and experience is fantastic, having the ability to communicate ideas, present projects and report to others is just as important. Communication isn’t just about talking, emailing and articulating it also includes listening and accepting feedback.

Improve your communicative skill set by interacting more with colleagues and clients – not only will you improve but you will also strengthen your relationships in the process.

Leadership and teamwork

Leadership alone is not a soft skill; however, it is a blend of several skills that makes a great leader. A great leader must understand time management, attention to detail, empathy and two-way communication of ideas and concerns.

It’s not only leaders that need these skills – these skills are essential for anyone working with other people.  Whether that’s in a team or working one to one with an individual.

Working with others

To work with others there must be some understanding of people you’re working with.  In any professional environment there are ways to behave and not behave, we have discussed this in a previous blog and how it is best to be a professional chameleon to be able to adapt to different situations. The more professional interaction you have the more this skill will strengthen.

When it comes to your soft skills and recognising what needs to be worked on don’t underestimate how important these can be to your current or prospective employer.