Do you know what sets you apart from the rest of the employee or job seeker? It is your set of soft skills! Well, what are Soft skills? Skills that refers to various personality traits are soft skills. These skills help in capitalizing on your potential and help you stand out, primarily.
Soft Skills are crucial to accelerate your career growth. Hard skills are measured and they help you get a job but soft skills are proven and they act as the key reason to help you get the job, sustain and move ahead.
Developing soft skills is accomplished with awareness and practice. Let me quickly furnish you with the Top 7 2021 sought after soft skills that employers are looking for and tips to develop them.
This isn’t instant, there’s no magic, it is a journey; determination, consistency and sincere efforts pay off big time, trust me! You can be the best yet if success is far off reach, my friend it’s time for you to get started.
Start today! Start from now! Allow this write up to guide you to!
- Communication, was, is and will always be the number one on Soft skills!
This ability covers a lot of ground. When your communication skill is solid:
– it creates a positive image about you
– makes your work productive because you know to express and convey your ideas
– that will help you build constructive relationship at work.
In order to develop your communication skills and to master the same you need to check out the following:
- Be an active listener without interrupting!
Listening is the key to address, guide and solve. You listen by expressing interest and that happens when you make a good eye contact. Listen with the intent of hearing the message and to develop understanding and clarity.
Let’s halt about clarity. We all interpret information differently, what may mean one thing to one person could mean something entirely different to another. So what do we do? If you are on the receiving end of communication, the best way to seek clarity is by asking questions. Don’t guess or assume, just ask questions! Trust me, people won’t think less of you when you make the effort to clarify. As a matter of fact studies show that Managers actually think people who ask questions are smarter than people who don’t. The reason: they say people who ask questions show that they value the boss’s expertise. So ask away!! But before you ask, think through, twice or thrice to find the answer or answers by yourself, keep the question relevant to what is discussed/said. Remember, being an active listener minimize the number of questions. This will save yours and your boss’s time. Don’t shun your curiosity too. It is also okay to ask for things to get your job done, doing this shows your boss that you are willing to be proactive in order to keep your work moving forward. Wait for your turn to question and do not interrupt to put forth your questions or comments until the person before you speaking has come to a stop. Interrupting may lead to either parking your question or ignoring it. Remember!
- Be conscious of your body language!
Hey did you know, studies prove that 93% of communication is non-verbal in nature and 55% of meaning is communicated through body language. Therefore, be conscious of the message your body language is sending through physical behaviour, expressions and mannerisms which is often done instinctively rather intentionally.
Body language involves a host of non-verbal cues or signs such as body movements, facial expressions, tone of voice and gestures in communication and that is why it is crucial to send only positive message through the same. The importance of body language is that it assists us in understanding and decoding what the person is saying. From the smallest movement of your hands to the way you stand, body language is the powerful form of non-verbal communication that most of us express and interpret without thinking twice. But understanding body language and learning to present yourself better can improve your daily interactions at work place and help you build a cordial rapport with colleagues and others.
Well, I hope you now know how to be a good communicator, for starters, to know more you gotta stay tuned to our blog page. Series 2 is on the way.
I hope to see you again on the other side of the click, real soon.
Eucharista Joseph
BD | MyOSin