Do Soft Skills Make a Difference When Getting Hired?
Many different factors can affect your chances of success when applying for a job. You may be over or under-qualified for the post, you may lack experience, or you may not have done very well when writing your CV. One of the areas that can make a real difference when trying to prove that you have what it takes to do a job is the soft skills you have acquired during your previous work.
If you have already proven that you meet the job requirements that the recruiters are looking for, having some of these soft skills under your belt as well can make a real difference to your chances. It is a chance to show where you have additional skills above the core ones that have been asked for, which can still bring massive benefits to employers.
What do we mean by “soft skills”?
“Soft skills” is a phrase used to refer to various kinds of skills that relate to how you interact with other people and how you regulate your own behaviour in the workplace. We have included some examples below that can help you to understand what we mean.
Time Management
When working for an employer, we are being paid for our time and our labour when approaching specific tasks, so it is essential that we are able to successfully prioritise our tasks so that they are all completed within the allotted time.
Ways to assist your time management can include using task lists that you can check off when things are done and the “Pomodoro method”, which divides your time into chunks that you should use to optimise your workflow. Being able to mention that you use these tools in a job interview to manage your time management will be a major plus for most interviewers. Knowing that a candidate for the job is responsible and organised when it comes to time management is something that all recruiters are looking for.
You are also expected not to show up late for work or leave early without permission; this is another facet of time management. If you were never late at your previous job, feel free to point this out to the in the interview.
Communication Skills
If you have good communication skills, you will be better placed to relate well with your colleagues and help them understand any complex tasks you are undertaking. If you are an exceptional communicator, you can also avoid conflicts with colleagues and potentially mediate conflicts between co-workers, which is valued by employers.
Being able to communicate well can also facilitate knowledge transfer between yourself and the rest of your team. Communication skills make it much easier to help colleagues to learn new skills and gain an understanding of how to undertake tasks that are unfamiliar to them.
Communication is an essential skill that underpins any leadership abilities that you may develop in the future. Good leaders tend to have excellent communication, which is why people follow their lead.
Organisational Ability
Having an instinctual understanding of how to organise your own work and that of your team can be extremely valuable. If you are one of these people who always knows what they are doing and where they should be next, this should stand you in good stead all the way through the recruitment process.
You should take the time to explain to the interviewers how you have used your organisational skills in the past to benefit the companies you have worked for. Be sure to use the STAR method to lay this out in some more detail, as this is a top-tier interview technique.
Explain which tools you have used in order to exercise your organisational abilities, and be sure to list any collaborative or cloud-based systems such as Sharepoint or Monday.com, as skills in these areas may have been on the list of things to train you in anyway. If you can demonstrate that you already have these skills, then you are more likely to be given the green light to hit the ground running.
Problem Solving
Being able to look at problems objectively and find a way to circumvent them can be a highly-valued skill in the workplace. The ability to successfully solve problems in the workplace is important in many businesses. It is a skill that not everyone possesses to the same degree and it can be difficult to gauge how good someone is with it until they are tested in the heat of the moment.
If you are someone who thinks outside the box and who is adept at finding ways around most difficulties, you should make mention of this in your CV and cover letter so that you can talk about it once you get an interview.
If you are talking about your problem-solving techniques at the interview, try to give as much detail as possible about examples of times that your abilities in this area have come to the fore and what they have done to benefit your company. Providing these examples will increase your chances of being offered the job.
Stress Management
Nobody wants to work with people who are constantly a ball of stress. It can be like walking on eggshells if someone is ready to explode all of the time because they cannot channel their stress into productivity and work-related results correctly.
Being able to deal with stress and channel it in positive ways to get results is definitely a skill that more people would benefit from learning. This would lead to much calmer work environments for everyone and help with the team’s collective stress levels. Unsurprisingly, the ability to process stress well is one of the softer skills that many employers find desirable.
If you are someone who can show proficiency in this area, it is definitely worth mentioning on your CV, covering letter and in the subsequent job interview. Good stress management is healthy and will be a welcome find for the recruiters.
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