What are soft skills?

In trade circles is axiom that suggests that hard skills get a person interview, but soft skills land this person. This means that the applicant with years of education and experience in the field may have difficult skills necessary to occupy the position, but to lack soft skills such as the ability of leaders or self -motivation necessary for good work. The ideal candidate for many jobs has a combination of hard and soft skills, while many human resources directors prefer to see soft skills such as driving time and willingness to be trained. For example, some people easily create friends, which would be considered valuable soft skills in the world of sales. Others are extremely accurate or are able to make rational decisions under pressure. A person may also have a congenital ability to work with collaborators from otje culture or learn a new language quickly. All would be considered valuable soft skills.

Unlike specific hard skills, such as mathematical abilities or mechanical ability, the discovery of soft skills may be notoriously difficult. Some companies use special psychological screening tests to determine whether the applicant has the right temperament or personality for a particular job title, although these tests can not always predict how the applicant would perform under the conditions of the real world. A new employee may have technical skills and experience to work on a customer support team, but lack soft skills such as patience or the ability to work under stress conditions to be effective in position.

Some employers use open questions about conversation about the applicant's work or life experience to determine the desired soft skills. For example, an application for a managerial position could be asked for a previous incident in which he had to take over the leadership. Other applicantcould be asked to remember the time when he had to resolve a conflict or deal with a difficult collaborator or customer. As the applicant addresses such probing questions during the conversation, he can also reveal a number of other soft skills such as the ability to create answers quickly or see the positive side of a negative situation.

Many job experts strongly urge job seekers to improve their soft skills along with their hard skills such as further education or specialized training. Many employers are reluctant to hire technically qualified applications that show small emotional investments in their career or the ability to work well with others under stressful conditions. The right balance of hard and soft skills is one way to balance the conditions when they compete against hundreds of other candidates on the close labor market.