People often ask me ‘What are soft skills?’ The term is written all over the internet, in business articles, company job descriptions, lifestyle publications, etc. It’s everywhere! But what exactly are soft skills?
The official definition reads:
“Soft Skills are a cluster of personality traits, social graces, communication, language, personal habits, interpersonal skills, managing people, leadership… that characterize relationships with other people “
After fifteen years of working as a business and English language teacher, nurturing the talents of young business professionals, I would define them simply as:
“Essential skills to survive and prosper in today’s business world”
From the moment you are born you are developing your soft skills, observing the interactions of your parents, playing with your friends and communicating with people. You form personal qualities that help you to understand and work well with others, build relationships and make positive contributions. Developing these transferable skills will help you to meet the needs and challenges of university life, successfully find a job and advance within the workplace. They make up the key skills for professional and personal growth in an ever changing and ultra-competitive world and their importance continues to grow every day.
Soft Skills v Hard Skills
So, what exactly is the difference between soft skills and hard skills? Soft skills focus more on the person we are rather than the things we know. Explained from a scientific perspective, hard skills are a measurement of your IQ (intelligence quotient), whilst soft skills relate to you EQ (emotional quotient) or emotional intelligence. Hard skills are developed from the left side of the brain, the logical centre, whilst the right side of the brain is the emotional centre and the source of our soft skills abilities.
Let’s look at some examples of hard and soft skills:
Hard Skills:
A person’s ability to perform a certain type of task or activity.
Soft Skills:
Personal attributes that enhance an individual’s interactions, job performance and career prospects.
For example, doctors need hard skills such as knowledge of the anatomy and illnesses, how to identify symptoms and interpret test results but they also need the following soft skills; empathy, understanding, active listener, good bedside manner.
Hard Skills are skills where the rules stay the same no matter what company, department, situation or people you work with. On the other hand, Soft Skills are skills where the rules change depending on the company culture and people you work with; i.e. communication skills are the rules for how to be effective at interaction and are dependent on your audience or the content.
For example, computer programmers use the same rules for creating code regardless of where they work, but they will use different rules to communicate effectively with other programmers on technical matter compared to when they are trying to report clearly and concisely to senior managers about their project.
Traditionally, the education system focused on hard skills that are easily quantifiable and measurable; a qualification in a certain subject, software understanding, legal or financial knowledge, maths rules, statistical awareness and engineering expertise. All of these follow specific procedures in order to achieve the exact result every time. Hard skills can be learnt and perfected over time. However it can prove more difficult to acquire and change your soft skills since they require you to adapt and deal with the situation you face and the people you interact with. Due to this, the greater the skillset you have, the stronger your performance and consequently the better the results you achieve. The path to a successful career is changing.
Competition in the world is greater than ever; more university places, Erasmus placements, job opportunities and career progression. With every step you make you can expect to face hundreds and often thousands of people all competing for the same position. It is therefore no surprise that soft skills have become invaluable to prospective companies, who select candidates according to the soft skills they possess.
Want to know more? Read our next article: THE IMPORTANCE OF SOFT SKILLS ...
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