WHAT ARE SOFT SKILLS?
TOP 10 SOFT SKILLS
MOST SOUGHT AFTER BY EMPLOYERS (from Soft Skills for Hard Jobs)
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Soft skills are difficult to define because they often are characteristics of a person, such as respectfulness, flexibility, or openness to new ideas. They are the interpersonal skills; communication, ability to read social cues, sense of humour, that are developed over time through a person's individual experiences. Soft skills are highly valued by employers because they are universal and transferable from job to job (Doyle, 2019).
Unlike hard skills, which can be acquired in school or from a training program, soft skills are developed over time and through exposure to a variety of academic, personal or social situations. Many people have the skills to produce code, do construction work, and perform lab tests, as evidenced by the hundreds of thousands of people who graduate from such specialized programs every year. But, how is an employer to know if these graduates have good teamwork abilities or can effectively handle pressure and criticism? How many of these people have had international experience or volunteer experience with the elderly? An employee with the necessary hard skills is a dime in a dozen, but an employee with a robust set of soft skills is hard to come by. An employee with hard skills can get the job done, but "an employee with a strong work ethic can be trusted to get the job done, on time, every time" (Lavender, 2019, p. 49). |
HARD SKILLS |
SOFT SKILLS |
+ job specific (i.e. computer programming) + the knowledge needed to perform a job (i.e. C++ language) + developed through education, training, certification + can be developed in a short period of time + easy to define + might be difficult to transfer from job to job |
+ not job specific (i.e. empathy) + interpersonal skills, personality traits (i.e. communication) + developed through training and experiences + developed over time + difficult to define + transferable from job to job |
(Doyle, 2019)