We all know the value of hard skills – the specific technical skills you need to do your job.
We spend a large majority of our childhood and early adult life being educated in those skills. And while these are what you list on your CV, today’s employers (Flawless Inbound included) are looking even more closely at soft skills as having almost equal importance.
Soft skills are the personal characteristics and attributes that enable you to interact, collaborate and fit in well with others (including clients). Below is a list of the top 5 reasons why soft skills are more important than ever — and the 10 soft skills you need.
1 – HARD SKILLS ARE USELESS WITHOUT SOFT SKILLS
The marriage of technical and personal skills is crucial in order to be successful in today’s world. In almost all jobs, technical skills alone are no longer enough to be successful.
A salesperson with exceptional knowledge of their product and market will have little success without the required interpersonal skills needed to close deals and connect and retain important clients. Fewer people will care about that expertise when it's difficult to actually communicate with the person.
In the role of a manager, you need to have active listening skills when working with employees, have excellent communication skills, and be able to think outside the box and use creative skills for problem solving and dealing with everyday situations. Because if you don't take into account that human element, you won't get the best from your people.
All careers require some degree of soft skills which in turn make the hard skills, and the person who has them, even more valuable.
2 – SOFT SKILLS ARE HARDER TO LEARN
Hard skills aren’t necessarily that hard to get. Like any skill, they can be taught and perfected with practice — often relatively reliably through education and training programs.
Not so with soft skills. They are much more challenging since they have more to do with a person’s personality and character than education. It takes conscious effort, practice, and a commitment to self-development to evolve into someone with exception soft skills. It also takes an understanding and appreciation of their value as they're so often overlooked. But it's wort hit, because while hard skills will always be required to get hired for a position, soft skills will set you apart and increase your value two-fold.
3 – TODAY’S WORKPLACE IS INTERPERSONAL
Skills such as listening, collaborating with others, presenting ideas and communicating with team members are all highly valued in the modern workplace. Strong soft skills ensure a productive, collaborative and healthy work environment — all vital components in an increasingly competitive world.
No longer is salary and compensation for hard skills the deciding factor when talented individuals are making a decision about staying with or accepting an offer at a particular company. Retention depends on employees feeling comfortable, valued and respected.
4 – CUSTOMERS DEMAND SOFT SKILLS
The marketplace now offers consumers an almost unlimited choice of products and services online. This makes convenience and low prices much more accessible and almost the norm.
What that means is exceptional customer service is becoming the deciding factor between competing businesses. When everyone's affordable, people will prefer dealing with the companies that treat them well. Making efficient and effective communication more critical than ever to a company’s success and longevity.
5 – THE FUTURE WORKPLACE WILL RELY ON SOFT SKILLS
Automation and AI continue to sweep entire industries — and will only expand further. This means an even greater variety of careers which require employees have highly developed soft skills, because tasks that require strictly technical skills are being replaced by technology.
Once again, if you want to stand out? Soft skills are the ultimate differentiators in the modern workplace.
The Top Most Valued Soft Skills
We're going to explore these more fully in a future article, but for now, work on developing these soft skills if you want to show your value:
- Communication
- Creativity
- Problem-solving
- Collaboration
- Adaptability
- Positivity
- Learning from criticism
- Working under pressure
With awareness and a quest for personal development, you will be well on your way to developing and improving your soft skills. Your value to the workplace and career success has nowhere to go but up.
Want to know more about what we do with all our skills? Flawless Inbound has worked with more than 90 B2B companies to help them succeed in the modern sales and marketing landscape. Check out this page to learn more:
