8 Revolutionary Soft Skills That Make Students More Employable; Employers are demanding more from their employees. The pandemic has put many business owners and managers on their toes and the subtle evolution of running a business without boundaries has taken solid root in the industry.
They’ve realized that employees are more effective with soft skills or employability skills that are beyond just what the resume / CV covers and many people are either fired or not employed because they lack these skills.
This article is created to aid students who want to become more employable in the labour market.
What Are Soft Skills?
There is no universal definition of what soft skills mean, but soft skills can be characteristics or attitudes that individuals possess that make them more effective through communication, teamwork, logic, etc.
Soft Skills That Make Students More Employable
Communication: This is the ability to express yourself properly and formally through available channels such as emails, fax etc.
Employees are expected to process their thoughts and opinions that team members and management can easily understand.
Teamwork: Applications are created every day to aid team work especially task completion and communication amongst teammates.
Companies are looking for employees who are effectively at working in teams. If you want to be at your job for long then take up skills that make you a “we” person and not a “me” person.
Problem-solving: problem-solving is when you determine a problem, outline the causes of the problem and proffer the solution. Many students have the bad habit of providing only one response when they are faced with any problem, the magic word is “I don’t know”.
Problem-solving is the act of defining a problem; determining the cause of the problem; identifying, prioritizing, and selecting alternatives for a solution; and implementing a solution. In many ways, problem-solving is rather similar to critical thinking.
Time management: Delivering tasks before deadlines is a very important skill employee must possess, also you must be particular about how you spend your time on tasks. Time management is the process where employees plan and exercise control (consciously) over time spent on details activities given by the company to ensure effectiveness and increase productivity.
Decision-making: With decision-making, you have to set up a system of thoughtful and more deliberate decisions by organizing relevant information and providing defining alternatives.
In general, decision-making is the process of using available data to provide choices and alternative resolutions.
Stress management: While we all wish for a “stress-free” work environment, it’s almost impossible not to be overwhelmed by work, and employees are expected to know how to manage stress so they don’t burn out or act out on colleagues at the office.
Conflict management: This is a soft skill that equips employees on ensuring that the negative effects of conflicts during misunderstandings at the workplace are subdued while increasing the positive aspects of conflict management which most importantly is learning from conflicts and ensuring they don’t reoccur again.
Persuasion / Marketing: A company is only great when every member of its staff is capable of selling its dreams to the general public, a previous employer once made a statement that still sticks with me till today, he said ‘’Nobody should come to the office without patronizing or satisfied”. Persuasion is a skill that many companies look out for from employees.
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How To Acquire Soft Skills
Soft skills are easy to acquire and there are hundreds of resources available for free and paid on the internet that can help you acquire various soft skills you require. Here are a few places you can find resources that will help you acquire soft skills.
1. Social media platforms – Especially platforms like LinkedIn and Twitter.
2. Indeed Blog
3. Udemy
4. Coursera
5. YouTube
How Students Can Improve Their Soft Skills
1. Be open to criticism
2. Focus on the soft skill you want to improve (practice makes perfect)
3. Self reflect
4. Listen actively
5. Step outside your comfort zone.
6. Ask questions and communicate frequently
7. Engage in team-like activities.
Conclusion
Soft skills aren’t only exclusive advantages at the workplace, students who adopt them can put them in play in many aspects of their lives and relationships. Most importantly, don’t be shy to include them in your resume when you have acquired the soft skill.
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