Soft skills are increasingly becoming the hard skills of today’s workforce. It’s just not enough to be highly trained in technical skills, without developing the interpersonal and relationship-building skills that help people to communicate and collaborate effectively. While your technical skills may get your foot in the door, your people skills are what open most of the doors to come. For years, the widespread belief has been that technical knowledge and technical certification contribute most to career development success – it matters but employers are now putting more focus on soft skills.
It’s one thing to have the skills that will get you a job, it’s another thing to have the skills that will help you keep the job. Now, soft skills certification can be a difference-maker for many organizations and individuals.
In every department and job role, employees must hone their interpersonal expertise to improve customer service stats and build a stronger team dynamic. Still need to be convinced? Here are 3 benefits of having a Soft skills certification –
You can be a valued employee because you have all the essential technical skills to do your job, but you will basically become “unsackable” when you have the soft skills to make you a top performer. Soft skills give you the initiative, confidence, and self-awareness employers look for. Employers need team players, emotionally intelligent professionals, and critical thinkers – it’s one thing to include these as skills in your CV, it’s another thing to actually be put to the test and have proof to say you’re qualified.
Your technical skills will help you get the job but soft skills will help you keep the job, sometimes, it does both.
Soft skills help you master the art of teamwork and communication which is needed to succeed in any field and any role. The acts of listening, presenting ideas, resolving conflict, and fostering an open and honest work environment all come down to knowing how to build and maintain relationships with people, in other words, it all comes down to effective communication, It is human nature to assume that we have all these figured out, but do we really?
This is what every employer looks for in a candidate, a team builder. What better way to grow and show you have the skills by having a solid training and a certification to back it up.
Believe it or not, Soft skills open doors. Technical skills might get you to the door but those soft skills will get you through it. We have had interviews where candidates are brilliant on their CV, they have all the technical skills to get the job done but when it comes to soft skills, Zero. These skill sets aren’t just for paper, any professional hiring manager can tell how competent you are in this area just from the first interview. As simple as it might seem, it’s a lot more complex.
Ask yourself these questions – Employers want critical thinkers, are you one? They want team players, are you one? They want innovative and smart working decision-makers, are you one?
It is is not just about you working hard, it’s also about you working smart. We aren’t born with these skills, we develop them over time and it can also be learned. It’s high time you acquire these skills and have the certificate to back it up.