Valuable soft skills for today’s job market
Now that soft skills are being taken seriously, it is best to find out which ones employers are most likely to need, want, and value among their talent base. Here are some various soft skills divided by various applications that are necessary to fulfil one’s role within today’s organisations.
Self-Management
So much about soft skills comes from you and how you see yourself in relation to those around you. Therefore, many of the soft skills come from your own self concept like those listed here:
- Self Awareness: Having this soft skill means knowing what makes you angry or what frustrates you as well as what motivates and drives you, what embarrasses you and what inspires you.
- Self Confidence: Another “you” skill is believing that you have what it takes to get a project done, take on new challenges, and be successful. This is important because others sense your confidence and this helps them feel better and, sometimes, even improve their own confidence.
- Emotion Management: Keeping your emotions in check is vital on the job and the ability to not get frustrated or angry will keep your mind clear. Otherwise, it will interfere in your creativity and productivity, thereby impacting other soft skills.
- Stress Management: With more demands than ever before on the job and more expectations and pressure to perform, it’s easy to let stress take control over you. However, being able to stay calm, cool, and collected when you actually are internally stressing out and you can feel the sense of being overwhelmed rise inside of you is what will help you stay on track.
- Patience: There is not enough that can be said about patience in this day and age. Living in a fast-forward, “I needed it yesterday” world where stress is not always managed well by others means that patience is a must soft skill but often one of the least found. This involves being able to take a pause, wait and let others do what they need to do instead of taking over, and keeping a clear mind when the unexpected arises.
- Resilience: Things clearly do not always go as planned, especially in a world that is in constant flux. That’s why it helps to be able to bounce back and consider those missteps or steps backward as a way to rethink and readjust to become even better.
- Persistence: Along with bouncing back comes the soft skill that helps you bounce back and that is not giving up. Instead, you persevere and know that you will eventually overcome barriers and you can turn challenges into opportunities.
- Lose the Drama: Often, people become caught up in the drama and look at things through the eyes of a television serial, feeling that they have to bring drama to a situation – emotions and conflict that are simply not necessary. Being drama-free reduces office politics and does away with many “time-wasting” activities.
- Forgive and Forget: Too many people dwell in the past and put their focus on grievances and past behaviour. This wastes times, diverts positive energy from what needs to be done, and impacts relationships that are necessary for completing projects and achieving goals.
“In operating a resume company where I design and develop resumes, cover letters, and other documents for people in a wide range of industries and fields as well as for those entering the workforce and those changing their career paths, there is a need to really market one’s skills and capabilities as value attributes for the employer.
It’s not about objectives and a list of jobs; it’s about what can you do for them. It’s highly competitive and it’s important to work on differentiating yourself and widening your skill set and knowledge base to show that you offer more than the average graduate.”
Julie Linstrom
Owner, The Resume Hub
Next: People – sales, motivation, and professional development