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You’re skilled at executing your tasks at work but is that enough to succeed?
Unfortunately, no, but soft skills can get you there!
What Are Soft Skills?
Soft skills are non-technical skills that enable you to:
Work effectively with with colleagues
Respond constructively to others' ideas
Resolve issues, challenges, problems, and conflicts
Build trust with others
Manage your work
Here are just a few examples of soft skills:
Teamwork and Collaboration
Empathy
Growth mindset
Quiz
Which of these skills is NOT a soft skill?
Fixing a car is a technical skill. It's easy to measure when it's done well and applies to a specific context. When the job is done right, the car will run. No matter how great your conflict management, problem-solving, and teamwork skills are, they won't enable you to be able to fix a car, whereas fixing a car might improve your problem-solving skills.
How Are They Different From Hard Skills?
Hard skills are teachable and easy to quantify:
Compare these with soft skills that can be applied to many contexts:Did you know?
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Soft Skills Are Fundamental
What is the most important soft skill? The quick answer to this question is none!
All soft skills are important as they relate to how we work and succeed on the job, and underlie all of our hard skills.
Team players, collaborators, and innovative thinkers are in high demand and soft skills make the difference between an average performer and a star!
Quiz
Ahmad and Rolake are new hires at a tech company. Which of the following is a soft skill that would help them in their new positions?
The key to soft skills is that they're transferrable to any job. Teamwork shows you're willing to collaborate to get things done and it can be applied to new job contexts. The other skills are hard skills and relate to simply executing tasks well.
Take Action
To gain a competitive advantage in your job search use soft skills to showcase the full potential of your hard skills.
The good news is, soft skills can be practiced and learned!
This week:
This Byte has been authored by
Oluwatofe Adejumo
Learning and Development Specialist
Precious Ajoonu
Head, Youth Engagement & Learning