Definition of soft skills

What are soft skills

Soft skills or soft skills are a set of different abilities, personality traits and attributes that are often necessary to be successful in a particular role.

Best described as personality traits that determine the way you work and interact with others, soft skills play a major role in showing how an individual interacts with colleagues, performs work-related tasks, communicates and builds relationships. 

Why soft skills are important

Soft skills are becoming more and more important in the workplace, and candidates looking for new employment often find that job opportunities now focus more on soft skills with many of the prerequisites for being successful in a particular role.     

The reason for this demand for soft skills is that they are highly transferable skills that can be applied in many situations in a number of different roles. 

We often find the candidates who have the most success in job applications (and interviews) are those who can provide past examples of where they have used their soft skills and then relate that to the question the interviewer is asking. We'll look at some specific examples that support the importance of soft skills:

• Career advancement and promotion

About ninety-four percent of recruiters believe that an employee with stronger soft skills has a better chance of being promoted to a leadership position than an employee with more years of experience but weaker soft and soft skills.

Developing these skills has become vital if you want to advance in your career as they will set you apart in the interview and on the job.

• Personal talk in the workplace

Skills such as active listening, collaboration, presenting ideas, and communicating with colleagues are all highly valued in the modern workplace. Strong soft skills ensure a productive, collaborative, and healthy work environment, all critical attributes for organizations in an increasingly competitive world.

• Customers demand soft skills

Consumers these days have a large number of choices about where to buy from which is purchased through the Internet and smartphones, for these consumers it is easy to get convenience and low prices, so customer service often influences the choice to use a particular company.

Therefore, the ability to communicate on a human level with customers is a vital factor in the success of an organization.

• Dependence of the workplace of the future on soft skills

Automation and artificial intelligence will lead to a greater proportion of soft-skilled jobs. Advancements in technology have caused a decline in hard-skilled tasks, making soft skills a key differentiator in the workplace.

As the cost of robots decreases and AI performance improves, jobs such as manufacturing line workers will become automated, so traditional skills such as teamwork, communication and critical thinking will be more important than ever.

• Soft skills are hard to automate

As mentioned in the previous paragraph, soft skills such as emotional intelligence are difficult to automate and are unlikely to become automated anytime soon. This means that they are expected to become more desirable in the near future.

• Soft skills are highly demanded by the workforce

Soft skills are in high demand in the workforce. According to 2017 research by a Harvard student on the importance of social skills in the labor market, jobs that require high levels of social interaction have grown by about 12 percent as a share of the American workforce.

The most in-demand soft skills

• communication

• work as one team
• critical thinking
• Social skills
• creativity
• Interpersonal communication

• Adaptability

Soft skills vs. hard skills

Soft skills represent an inherent skill set that tends to be more people-centric in nature. Hard skills are usually easier to define and tend to be based on know-how or “how to do something.”

An example of a hard skill could be a computer programmer developing some code for an app or a seamstress making an item of clothing.  

Unlike hard skills, which can be learned (and measured) with relative ease, soft skills are more challenging when it comes to learning and measurement.    

In general, hard skills are easier to teach through training, education, and on-the-job experience.

Personal skills at work

Some examples of soft skills desirable in the workplace include adaptability, cognitive ability, communication, creativity, critical thinking, conflict resolution, decision making, flexibility, integrity, leadership, motivation, research, time management, and problem solving.

Broadly speaking the above soft skill sets can be divided into the following five categories:

• Adaptability
• creativity
• communication
• solving problems
• work ethics

Advantages of soft skills

One of the biggest advantages of soft skills is that they do not limit you to working in one industry. They are transferrable skills allowing you to demonstrate your personality and effectiveness to potential employers even if you have limited experience in their field.

For example, your excellent communication skills may make you good at selling, but many other sectors outside of sales require people who can communicate well whether it is by attracting new customers, building relationships with suppliers or working effectively in a team.

Also everyone has some form of soft skills. They do not require formal training and are usually picked up through previous positions or experience, which means you might already have some great attributes that you can use to your advantage.

Soft skill defects

While valuable, soft skills will not always be enough to get you the job, some industries require more formal qualifications or experience to get your foot in the door, and without these prerequisites your soft skills may not be enough.

Soft skills are very difficult to measure which means some employers don't value them until you can demonstrate them effectively.