In order to succeed in your work, having the necessary skills to grow is key. So for many employers and hiring managers, choosing people with these both sets of skill types can make their job much easier. Technically, by knowing how to do the job is certainly not enough, and by knowing how to deal with others while doing the job is what you are missing.
Many people often get confused and they don’t know the difference between what we call our hard skills and our soft skills. Each one is as important as the other, and for that possessing both is crucial to further your career. So what is the difference between these two skills? And what can we do to improve them both?
What are Soft Skills?
- Your soft skills are your own personality traits and character attributes along with other features that allow you to communicate and interact with others. They are related to your own emotional intelligence.
- They are those you are born with and cannot change, and there are others you acquire and learn along the way.
- These skills cannot be quantifiable and thus we cannot say that someone has better skills than another one.
- Examples: creativity, teamwork, communication, time management, adaptability…
What are Hard Skills?
- They refer to your technical abilities and talents. You generally require these skills in school and during training.
- As they can be measured and defined, people can get competitive and very ambitious when working on their careers.
- Hard skills can include; accounting, graphing designing, coding in python, speaking a different language, and many others.
- The better you are at something, the more likely you get chosen for the job.
How can we improve our skills?
- Hard skills:
- Get assistance from professionals in the field: You have the chance to speak to your business peers and explore abilities that you might like to build.
- Practice! Practice! Practice! : Arrange yourself a daily routine and stick to it every day. Make sure your progress is regularly analyzed and evaluated, and test yourself frequently.
- Take continuing education courses: Continuing education courses are needed for certain careers in order to remain current in the business. Many higher education institutions offer continued education classes in different fields.
- Soft Skills:
- Teamwork practice: whatever skill you want to improve, sit down with some friends and practice with them. Have them play the role you need and then give you feedback about your performance.
- Seek feedback from people around you: Gaining awareness of personal strengths and weaknesses is the best way to achieve those skills. Make sure you learn from your mistakes and take new strategies at all times.
- Take an online course: By taking an online course, you can teach yourself anything. A lot of coaches and life mentors these days offer their classes online, for free, or for a certain amount of money. Some popular websites that are providing soft skills training courses include; Coursera, Lynda.com, Udemy, and edX.
According to Forbes, 94% of recruiters agree that top-notch social skills outweigh experience when it comes to cultivating leadership roles They are vital to getting the job you want and important to career development. Since the world is changing and automation is expanding, soft skills become an even bigger differentiator for employers.
References: http://www.stucredblog.com/how-to-improve-your-soft-skills-and-hard-skills/
https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/career-development/how-to-develop-your-skill-set
