How to Leverage Your Soft Skills
Does your resume stand out? Are you seeing faltering success at the in-person interviewing stage? You may want to ask yourself if you’re conveying your soft skills in combination with your technical skills. Find out why Employers are more interested than ever in your soft skills when making hiring decisions.
Technical skills are important in qualifying your expertise in subject areas. Do you know Excel, Word, or programmes for the job? The problem with technical skills is also the reason why technical experts excel – these skills are learnable. Most people can train themselves, with the right time and resources, on the technical requirements for a job. They are things we can read about, learn about and teach. These skills are undoubtedly important. However, what cannot be taught to others are soft skills.
Soft Skills are the intangible qualities that candidates bring forward in addition to their technical expertise. If you are looking to differentiate yourself from the pack, it is important to start selling your most marketable qualities – yourself.
Employers often times look for candidates who can fulfill these unteachable qualities. For instance:
Are you willing to work until the job is done?
Are you flexible, or adaptable to work changes and settings?
Are you autonomous?
Are you able to be inquisitive and are you not afraid to ask questions?
These are the types of questions that many screening interviews actually seek to answer. Finding the perfect fit is as much about your technical know-how as your qualitative personality. That’s why some candidates, who seem perfect on paper, falter at the front-lines of in-person interviews. So how do you leverage your soft skills in an interview setting?
Know your strongest qualities.
Knowing your strongest qualitative talents will help you identify them to an employer who may be looking for exact your type of personality. Are you a learner? Are you an organizer? Are you a problem-identifier and solver? Market yourself for these talents. Be confident in the skills you have and be able to identify how those skills will help the company you are interviewing for, when speaking with your counterpart in the interview.
Know your weakest qualities.
Knowing your weakest qualities will help you identify areas of improvement. These skills are often asked about in the form of the question, “What are your weaknesses?” By identifying areas that could use improvement, try to phrase these points in a way that expresses how you are working to improve these skills.
Know what qualities the employer is looking for.
Based on the job description and the research you perform on a company pre-interview, you should have an idea of what qualities are applicable to the role your are applying for. For example, if the role is in Customer Service, Patience would be a strong skill to have. If you are working in Human Resources, Organized would be a good trait to possess, and so on.
Know how to Market these qualities.
Job Interviews are akin to Personal Marketing. How do you sell your skills set (both technical and soft skills) to your potential employer? By knowing the above steps, you will be on the right path to marketing yourself as the top candidate for a position. Knowing how your skills fit into the job, knowing what soft skills you have, etc. can make the difference between your application being chosen over others. Be confident in the skills you bring to the table and know how these tie in with your technical skills.
Merge Soft Skills with Technical Skills.
Maybe you’re in sales and you want to sell yourself as the best salesman for the job. You bring up the fact that you’re personable. This may not be enough. Remember to tie in your soft skills with your technical skills to give employers the full scope of your abilities. Did your personable nature and ability to connect with customers help you drive $100,000 in sales last year? These are the types of connections that will help convey your skills as an employee. Technical skills and accomplishments are often the product of strong soft skills. Knowing how the two correlate will be key in Marketing yourself as the best candidate for the position.
By following the above tips, you can help your in-person interview stand out from the rest. To answer the question “What are Employers Asking for in Job Interviews” – they are looking for the perfect concoction of Soft and Technical skills. Knowing how your abilities and personal qualities relate to the job will be crucial in helping you get past the front-lines of in-person interviews as well as landing that dream job.