With companies shifting to hybrid or remote work models, soft skills have become just as important as technical knowledge. For example, effectively communicating and collaborating have become a top priority because those skills are vital to succeed in a virtual world. Also, with remote positions in high demand, the talent pool is increasingly crowded. Many job applicants will have similar qualifications and technical skills. By prentisscountyvotech.com highlighting your soft skills, you’ll have a competitive edge so you can land the job you really want.

 

 

Technical skills constantly change, but soft skills remain with you throughout your career. That’s because they are relevant, transferable and keep an individual highly employable. In addition, soft skills are desirable because if you already have them, your employer doesn’t have to train you on them. As a result, you can more easily hit the ground running and make valuable contributions. Rajiv adds, “While companies often offer training in required hard skills, soft skills provide the foundation on which to keep building other skills, which is why they’re so in demand now.” Because of their transferability, soft skills also make it easier to change careers, no matter what industry or company you want to pivot to.

 

 

Technical capabilities can only take you so far in your career. To really soar, you need skills that are harder to measure but critical to success. In LinkedIn’s 2019 Global Talent Trends report, 89% of recruiters say that when a hire doesn’t work out, it usually comes down to a lack of soft skills. While most people are hired for their technical abilities, their soft skills give them “career durability,” says Alexandra Levit, author of Humanity Works: Merging Technologies and People for the Workforce of the Future. Levit defines that term as the ability to acquire the skills, knowledge and mindset needed to be an engaged and productive team member. “For someone to be successful ten years down the road, they need to be resilient and be able to reinvent themselves in different learning environments,” she adds.

 

 

This increasing emphasis on soft skills may unnerve some workers, especially those who are not naturally good communicators or “born leaders”, as Frazer says. But he adds that these are learnable skills, even if some people may have to work a bit harder. “People who want to get better at their jobs, or be better workers, or have better work-life balance, understand and appreciate the value of constantly sort of fine-tuning these mindsets and behaviours.”

 

We tend to be aware of our strengths, but honing interpersonal skills starts with soliciting feedback to identify your weaknesses and blind spots. Improving them may mean forcing yourself out of your comfort zone. If you want to improve your imaginative thinking or problem-solving, for instance, try sitting in on brainstorming sessions with the company’s creatives.

 

In one report, soft skills were the most desired qualifications for 91% of management jobs, 86% of business-operations jobs and 81% of engineering jobs