In today’s competitive job market, having a degree or technical skills which are required to perform a specific task with using specific tools is no longer enough to guarantee career success.
Employers are more interested in candidates with soft skills than those with hard skills, employees with soft skills help organizations thrive in many ways such as effectively communicating with clients, and solving complex problems.
Today, we will be talking about why soft skills are necessary in career development and ways that can help you develop these skills.
What Are Soft Skills?
When we talk about soft skills, they are the type of personal skills a person needs to have in order to enhance an individual’s interactions with others and improve their career path.
Some examples of soft skills include:
- Adaptability Skills
- Communication Skills
- Teamwork
- Leadership Skills
- Problem Solving Skills
- Critical Thinking
- Time Management
These skills are very important to help advance one’s career, unlike hard skills, which are usually job specific and can be learned through formal education and training, soft skills are transferable across different roles and industries.
What Is Career Development?
This refers to the ongoing process of managing one’s professional growth and advancement over the course of their working life.
Career development involves assessing your skills, knowing your weaknesses, showing interests, setting goals and developing a plan to achieve them, making strategic career moves.
It also involves engaging in activities like formal education, training programs, networking, job shadowing, volunteering, and other opportunities to gain experience, build skills and also build a professional network.
Also Read: Careers In High Demand In South Africa
Importance Of Soft Skills
Every employer seeks employees who can offer more than just their technical skills but also soft skills which are very necessary for today’s workforce. Soft skills are crucial for a number of reasons:
- They assist people in developing solid relationships with coworkers and customers, which are essential to any business’ success.
- Soft skills can enhance a person’s capacity for productive teamwork and project collaboration.
- Having the ability to communicate ideas and solutions clearly and confidently is essential in leadership roles.
- A person’s adaptability and problem-solving abilities can be improved by developing their soft skills, enabling them to successfully manage challenges and changes in the workplace.
- Career Advancement, Soft skills are often what set individuals apart and help them advance in their careers.
How To Develop Soft Skills
Soft skills are skills a person can develop with time, dedication and self discipline, soft skills are not innate, Identify your strengths and weaknesses and work on them.
The following are some tips to help you develop soft skills:
Practice
Developing or building soft skills takes time, you have to keep practicing the soft skills and eventually you will learn.
Let’s say you want to work on your communication skills, a simple way to do so is trying having conversations with different people every day, mostly at your workplace and be active and don’t limit yourself to your current technical skill.
Every skill can be acquired as long as you are interested, try to find out more on how, why, what and what if, on whatever you think you know. In doing so, you learn more and build your critical thinking skills, adaptability skills and others.
Seek feedback
Asking for feedback from colleagues or supervisors on your soft skills is a great way to keep track of progress. This can help you identify areas that need improvement and areas where you excel.
Learn from others
Observe how others with strong soft skills interact with colleagues, clients, and leadership skills. In doing so it can help you learn better on communication, problem solving ability and how to work as a team.
Take courses
Taking courses online is a great way to improve career skills and stay competitive in today’s job market. Coursera, edX, LinkedIn Learning, and Skillshare are few platforms that can help you on how to go about having soft skills.
There are many courses available online that can help you develop soft skills, and secondly an internship can be of good help too.
List Of Other Skills That Are High In Demand
- Creativity
- Confidence
- Honesty And Integrity
- Friendliness
- Good Manners
- Enthusiasm
- Positive Attitude
- Good Listening Skills
- Attention To Detail
- Self-motivation
- Common Sense
- Making Good Decisions
- Empathy For Others
- Communication Skills
- Difficulty Endurance
- Ability to negotiate
- Ability to deal with conflict
In today’s job market, soft skills are becoming more and more crucial, and those who have them are more likely to succeed in their careers. Soft skill development takes time and effort, but anyone can become more skilled in these area with practice and commitment.
In conclusion, soft skills are important for career development and they play a crucial role, these skills set individuals apart from other peers and enable them to stand out in a competitive job market.
The need for soft skills is not only for individual benefits but also for organizational, personal achievement and growth. It is very important to note that employers are making it a priority, looking for individuals with soft skill to employ. To stand a chance in the job market job seekers should work more on their soft skills in order to succeed.