More Than Your Resume, These Soft Skills May Get You Hired

Let’s say you are a qualified dentist, and as a dentist you are expected to know how to fill cavities. That’s your qualification you will mention on your resume. However, when a patient decides to visit a dentist, they make sure that the dentist is pleasant, positive, confident, punctual and, most importantly, someone who treats you like a patient and not just a number. So you get the point, in all situations, it’s the soft skills that are profoundly significant.

During a job interview, employers look for these soft skills in their potential candidates. Gone are the days when these soft skills were considered something fluffy and petty. In the current day and age, while your resume may do a good job in getting you to the interview spot, but it is these soft skills that will help you to get hired.

Read on to find out why are soft skills important in getting hired.

As per a recent article published in The Economic Times, out of 300,000 MBA graduates that pass out each year, only 10 per cent is employable! This means that there are plenty of job opportunities available for graduates but, sadly, only a few of them are fit to be hired.

So where is the problem? Why aren’t these graduates thought to be employable?

According to a survey conducted by the Global Management Consultancy, Hay Group, in India, 74 per cent of business leaders and HR professionals said that they have hired graduates who clearly lacked the essential soft skills required to excel in professional settings. However, the hiring of these candidates took place as there is a dearth of employees with commendable soft skills. If, given a choice, the managers would have undeniably given a higher preference to those individuals with better soft skills.

Why do you need training in soft skills? How do you improve soft skills?

One of the biggest problems is that there is very less training being provided for developing soft skills. Although the pertinence of possessing soft skills in the managerial parlance is unquestionable, most of the candidates are not properly trained in soft skill development. At some level, it is often presumed that every candidate will have a reasonable level of understanding about soft skills and will qualify to employ these skills in their daily work.

Nonetheless, that’s not the truth, since most of the candidates do not have a clear set of understanding and fail to execute their soft skills solely because they are not trained to develop and nurture these skills.

Thankfully, there are plenty of ways to develop soft skills. The internet is a very good place to look for developing these skills. These days, you will come across a myriad of online soft skills training programs that cater to sufficing the needs of providing training in soft skills. Enrolling in such credible programs will help you in gaining a better understanding of the significance of soft skills and how the development of these skills can help you excel at your job.

What are these soft skills? Can we have a few examples?

Most often these skills are intangible and are fetched through practice. Soft skills refer to a set of personality traits that an individual either acquires or is innate. In a corporate world, your resume will only take you closer to receiving an interview call, but it is your soft skills that will help you nail the interview and even survive in that job for a long time. Hard skills are only job specific, but soft skills are prevalent across all roles.

Below mentioned are a few examples of soft skills:

1. Effective communication skills

Your talent to communicate effectively will play a pivotal role in ensuring that the task at hand is completed successfully in the given time. As a manager, your role will expect you to convey information to fellow work mates, which means your soft skill as a manager will lie in your ability to communicate effectively with everyone around you. It is imperative to stay polite and calm while communicating with the company’s stakeholders. Even at times of crisis, you are expected to communicate effectively.

2. Presentation skills

Presentation skills are not restricted to the skills required to present ideas across, but go further into how you present yourself to others. Being neat and tidy in your dressing style and having a friendly body language also is vital to show that you are a self-aware individual and take your personal skills seriously.

3. Carrying a positive attitude

It is imperative to carry a positive attitude even in the midst of crisis as an attitude is infectious and can spread rampantly across the organization in no time. Things like to assist those colleagues who are in despair, owing up to your mistakes and learning from failures are a few of the traits that you should display in order to show that you can take responsibility for yourself.

4. Having self-confidence

Confidence is a choice, a choice that may not entirely be based on truth. The point is, you don’t have to know everything about yourself to feel confident. After all, you will truly never know everything about yourself at any given time of your life, so then why not choose to be confident based on what you do know as of today. Learn to believe in yourself and in your personal skills to help you succeed in your workplace. Practice having faith in your abilities.

5. Problem-solving skills

Companies prefer hiring those candidates who are confident and rational while dealing with problems. Firstly, you should be able to anticipate problems before they even arise, and secondly, even if they do arise, you should be able to take critical decisions to help the organization solve that problem. In simple words, you should have commendable problem-solving skills that equip you to stay prepared for handling all sorts of challenges that may arise at your workplace.

Key Points to Remember!

In today’s work force, it’s simply not enough to have an impressive resume. In addition to being highly trained in hard (technical) skills, acquiring and nurturing the softer skills is equally important for career growth. Since each of these soft skills is essential for the success of an organization, developing these skills is highly important for any candidate who aspires to grow in the organization.

Unfortunately, not many individuals receive adequate training in soft skills, but a few hours of training each week can surely yield positive results. And, remember, the success of the training depends on the candidate’s efforts that is put in the practice each day at the workplace.

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