SOFT SKILLS
By Soozy G. Miller, CPRW, CDCC, CDP
The article title is in capital letters for a reason.
The challenge with soft skills on a resume is that people don’t show them.
So many resumes will say “good communicator” or “team player” or “able to work independently” (which should be a given) or “detail-oriented.” But not everyone can be good at all of these. And something like “detail-oriented” is not necessarily important for every job.
And it’s one thing to say that you’re a good communicator or a team player, but how do you prove that? And if everyone around you is saying that they are good communicators, how do you prove that you really are? I’ll get to that in a moment.
First, why do soft skills matter?
Here’s an example of why. I’ve been helping a company recruit for some technical positions, and for all of the positions the hiring managers require only one technical skill (one piece of software) and all the rest of the requirements are soft skills:
Must be okay with peer review. This is a collaborative team, and we are all always trying to find the best solutions for our customers.
Must be able to lead small and large meetings and make everyone feel comfortable to speak their minds.
Must be comfortable reaching out to all levels of personnel to maintain communication and ensure everyone has what they need.
See what I mean? Hard/technical skills are often not the most important, by far.
And yet 99% of resumes include only technical skills.
If you’re applying for a marketing position, of course you want to show your marketing skills. But if you’re the 90th candidate and the last 89 candidates all had the same marketing skills, what makes you different?
Consider this report that was printed in March 2022:
“Research conducted by Harvard University, the Carnegie Foundation and Stanford Research Center has concluded that 85% of job success comes from having well-developed soft and people skills, and only 15% of job success comes from technical skills and knowledge.”
“93% of employers believe soft skills are “very important” or “essential”, while 97% say interpersonal skills are key to business growth and success. Further, 91% of organizations say they want more soft skills.”
“Soft skills in the workplace enable organizations to effectively and efficiently use their technical skills and knowledge without being hampered by interpersonal issues, infighting, and poor public and market perceptions.”
“SHRP reports that 46% of new employees fail within 18 months and that 89% fail because of a lack of soft skills. A lack of soft skills is often the reason that employees fail to perform at work.”
Ironically, this report is from 1918 (!) but it might as well have been printed today.
If you’re going to say that you’re a good communicator, at least attempt to prove it by showing some success that happened from your communications.
If you’re going to say that you’re a team player, at least try to prove it by demonstrating some way that your team efforts impacted the organization.
If you’re going to say that you’re detail-oriented, make sure that the position actually calls for you to focus on details, in which case you want to prove how your paying attention to details impacted the organization.
Otherwise, you’re just another applicant saying that you’re great at something, which may or may not be true, and may or may be important for the job.
There is a popular expression: “You land the job with hard skills, you keep the job with soft skills.” But there is so much competition now for any given job, let’s first try landing the job with soft skills and then keeping the job because of those soft skills!
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Better job. More pay. More control.
For a free resume review, please contact us at Control Your Career!