How Soft Skills Impact Your Career?
Do you know how the companies choose people for hiring from a list of candidates with similar degrees and experiences? In such situations, employers focus on the soft skills of the candidates and try to hire the candidate with the best soft skills. Time is proving that soft skills are equally important as hard skills for giving better results in companies. Moreover, different Surveys have proved that sometimes soft skills become more important than hard skills, especially in companies involving more public dealing.
What are Soft Skills?
Soft skills are non-technical personal attributes and personality traits that help people to communicate effectively and harmoniously with other people at work. Soft skills affect the way you collaborate with different people at work like managers, clients, vendors, and peers. Soft skills have more to do with who people are than what they do. The soft skills of employees can boost the productivity of the company.
Difference Between Hard Skills and Soft Skills
Hard skills are technical skills, technical knowledge, or training that are acquired through the formal education system. You can prove the possession of your hard skills by showing your documents to any employer but soft skills are none technical skills judged by employers during the interviews or after hiring. Soft skills learning is a lifelong continuous process. As soft skills and hard skills both are required at the workplace for better output and efficiency therefore you are likely to be hired and retained by any company if you not only possess both skills but are also open to polishing your soft skills with time.
Top 10 Non-Technical Skills
The value of soft skills becomes especially significant when equally qualified people apply for a particular post. In such situations, employers focus more on the soft skills of candidates. Although soft skills are not measurable quantitatively employers assess a candidate for possession of the following personality traits;
- Attitude
- Listening and speaking skills (communication skills)
- Problem Solving ability
- Work ethics and way of interaction with peers, clients, and managers (interpersonal skills)
- Time management
- Empathy
- Decision making
- Networking
- Conflict resolution skills
- Creative and critical thinking
Key Benefits of Soft Skills
Soft skills have established their importance in recent times due to the way they impacted and benefited businesses. In the digital competitive world, we are living in, only people with the best soft skills can be more productive. Soft skills can impact and benefit the organization in several ways. The top benefits of soft skills are;
Soft Skills Improve Productivity
Employees with good soft skills can improve the productivity of any company. Because such employees don’t waste their time and energy in useless discussions and arguments with their peers and clients. Moreover, the people don’t engage themselves in leg-pulling and conspiracies. As employees spend their time and energy positively therefore productivity of the company is increased.
Soft Skills Improve Customer Service
Customers are assets of any company and customer satisfaction is the real promotion. Employees with good soft skills possess the emotional intelligence to satisfy the customers and therefore they help the company to retain the customers. No matter how much money you are spending on marketing, if your customers are not satisfied with your service, your business cannot flourish. Only people with good soft skills can provide good customer service
Soft Skills Develop a Healthy Working Atmosphere
When companies hire people with good interpersonal and communication skills, there are fewer chances of misunderstandings and confusion. People are empathetic and understand each other’s problems which establishes a healthy working atmosphere in the company.
Employees Get Retained And Promoted
When employees are productive for the company, they are likely to be retained and promoted in the same company. Employers don’t let good workers quit the job and keep giving them incentives in the form of promotions, bonuses, and certificates of appreciation.
Decision-Making And Problem Solving
A famous proverb says “a stitch in time saves nine”. Identifying a problem and making the decision to fix it timely is very significant at times. Moreover, there are certain decisions that need to be taken on the spot for the smooth functioning of the organization. People with good problem-solving and decision-making skills can accomplish this task efficiently.
Conclusion
In the recent digital world, nobody can deny the importance of possessing soft skills for the success of businesses and jobs. There is a possibility that in the coming day soft skills can become more important than hard skills. Employers may start hiring more productive people than hiring the most qualified people. Whether anyone has aims of doing business or doing a job, acquiring the best soft skills is very important.
You can also read; Productivity is the Key to Success
