“Soft skills” What are they? Why do you need them and why are they important?
Soft skills are qualities that focus on personal traits and cognitive capabilities. They include empathy, communication skills, and self-awareness to name a few.
In today’s workplace there is a new emphasis on one specific quality that makes you more valuable as an employee. This quality is empathy.
What is empathy?
In everyday terms, this is the ability to put yourself in someone else’s shoes, to understand where they’re coming from.
This kind of understanding gives you the ability to look at the other person’s point of view. It helps you to find common ground. When there is common ground, you are more able to build trust and to connect in an effective way.
Because the workplace is changing rapidly, the ability to adapt to people and situations is more important than ever.
Self-awareness
A simple explanation for self-awareness is knowing how you show up in different situations. For example:
- Being able to give credit to coworkers shows fairness.
- Being open to feedback shows desire to learn and grow.
- Being on time and dressing appropriately conveys of certain level of respect for the situations and persons involved.
Communication skills
Being able to articulate what you are thinking or giving a presentation is what usually comes to mind when talking about communication skills.
An equally valuable part of communication is the ability to listen to what the speaker is saying. These skills are highly important when it comes to both problem-solving and generating new ideas.
How do you know if you have these soft skills?
If you are going on a job interview, how do you let the interviewer know that you have these skills?
Think of a time when you may have had a disagreement with a coworker. How did you resolve the situation? Did you ask for more information? Did you try to elaborate on your own point of view?
If you can tell a story about a situation that you may have handled, it will give your interviewer an example of your own soft skills at work.
Can you think of a time when you asked for more information or feedback? Whether or not you share this with your interviewer, it will let you know how open you are to learning and improving.
Just thinking about these things, and asking questions of yourself, will give you an idea of the soft skills that you already have. Putting them into story form is a much easier way to bring them to the attention of an interviewer.
Putting a little thought into how you can answer job interview questions regarding soft skills will go a long way toward helping you pass that job interview.
Cynthia Becker & Bill Weber
Life Coach/Wellness Coach
NLP Master Practitioner and Trainer
Professional Psychic
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