You must always have heard that you as job seekers need certain required skills, employers need before they hire you. If you know the difference between soft and hard skills, it might help you navigate your career success.
Employers always look for two kinds of skills in the job seekers, namely Hard and Soft skills, that will help the organization grow. Before recruiting, the hiring managers look for proof of the skill sets they require for their company.
We must get to know what soft skills and hard skills are. In this article, we will talk about those Soft and Hard skills required by the companies.
Weโll learn about what they are and how should we learn about them and communicate with the employers. Weโll be having a look at Hard skills vs soft skills.
Hard vs Soft Skills
Hard and Soft skills are the basic skill sets required by job seekers to learn to get a better job and have a better job description. Companies donโt usually give jobs unless it is someone who is trained and completely oriented to the company.
They conduct interviews to find out such things, and they do it by looking at your Soft and Hard Skills.
Hard Skills
Hard Skills are learnable skills and are generally posted in the job descriptions, and you can mention them in your resume or the cover letter. They are deeply associated with the specific program of study and curriculum.
They are called Technical skills, which are required for a workplace and include several skills that fit a certain job. This technical knowledge or training is that you have gained through life experiences or education.
Commonly learned at schools and from books, hard skills are easy to measure and observe. In other words, Hard Skills are Teachable abilities.
These Hard Skills you mention in your resume or cover letters help you prove that you are the perfect candidate for that particular job.
These Hard Skills might be Computer skills, Coding, Budgeting, or any other basic Skill needed for a particular job. They can be mentioned in the resume or the cover letters for the matching job description and skill set.
The hard skills definition is really clear. In the essential sense, hard skills are your specialized capacity. Your hard skills connect with your ability with hardware, instruments, programming, and certain proper cycles. Itโs specific information that you can apply in a set manner.
Hard Skills Examples
It wouldnโt be wrong if we say that your hard skills indeed are the groundwork of your profession.
Mentioned in your resume or your cover letters are the capacities that convince the hiring manager to give you the job and let you tackle your relegated obligations, guaranteeing you know how to move toward normal errands that satisfy industry guidelines.
Moreover, hard skills are ordinarily workable.
Some of the basic resume hard skills and Additional skills the hiring manager of different organizations or different job descriptions require, and how to list those skills are as such:
Technology
In todayโs era, Technology Skills are of absolute importance for tech experts and other employees working in several other fields. These Skills include expertise in IT, engineering, and Science.
Every employer requires such hard skills from the candidates before hiring them. Here are some Technology related hard skills employers need that might be of utmost importance for your resume building:
- Data Analysis
- Data visualization
- Programming languages
- Productivity software
- Collaboration software
- Systems analysis
- IT security
- Testing
- Troubleshooting
- Data mining
- Diagnostics
- Photoshop
- HTML/CSS
Computer Skills
Computer Skills are also extremely important Hard Skill abilities to use computer software and hardware, especially in todayโs world.
And having a look at the companyโs needs, every hiring manager looks for these basic abilities in their employees. Todayโs job market needs the employees to have certain computer skills, which include:
- Microsoft Office
- Excel
- PowerPoint
- Word
- One Note
- Access
- Spreadsheets
- Google Drive
- Database management
- Social Media
- Typing
- Graphics
- Web
Other Computer Skills require In-depth knowledge of computer programming language. Knowing these languages makes the employee a better candidate to stand apart from the crowd. They include:
- MySQL
- SQL
- HTML
- Java
- C++
- Python
Analytical Skills
This is another wide range skill set that is highly professional. It requires Gathering Data and then analyzing it, breaking the information into a form where the data meaning can be easily deciphered.
This also requires a certain skill set to make critical and tough decisions and solve the most complex problems. Another few the analytical skills are:
- Researching
- Data Mining
- Project management
- Analyzing
- Data Interpretation
- Critical Thinking
- Creative thinking
- Theorizing
- Data Engineering
- Diagnostics
Advertising and Marketing
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NgFIKE_vc98
Advertising skills help target the crowd and help inform about and promote certain products. The potential customers must know about the product and its uses. Marketing skills require its employees to understand the problems and grievances of the customers.
Sometimes even before the customers know about the problems. The employees must provide the customers with appropriate solutions with their products and all their services.
This hard skill includes the knowledge of Advertising and marketing are already mostly technical fields, and mentioned down below are some of the most important Hard Skills needed if you are looking for an opportunity in the advertising and marketing area:
- Project management
- Creativity
- Media
- Marketing
- Personal Mastery
- Google analytics
- Search engine optimization (SEO)
- Social media advertising
- Copywriting
- Email automation
- Campaign management
- Market analysis
- Content creation
- Graphic design
- Good at Team Work
- Good communication Skills
- Having Active Listening
- Data Visualization
Information security management skills
An organization needs information security management skills to ensure the confidentiality of the data from unknown sources and unauthorized access. It also ensures the availability of the assets and their integrity from threats and vulnerabilities.
Such industries want to hire only highly professional and company-oriented job seekers who can protect the assets and data of the company.
As an employee of such a company, you must be responsible for securely handling the situation. You must be ready to protect the confidential data from any potential threat to the companyโs security policy.
The skills required for information security and management are as such:
- Having Problem Solving Skills
- having Technical Aptitude
- Proficient in communication skills
- Attention to Details
- Well, knowing the practices and methods of security architecture
- Proficient in IT strategy
- Knowledgeable of Security architecture definition and development
- VPN
- DNS
- DDOS
- Routing
Human Resources and Personnel Management
Human Resources and Personnel Management is a branch where you ensure the functioning of the company staff and their right and deserving compensations and benefits.
It is tough to manage people and people skills and way harder than many might assume. The relevant skills required are:
- Scheduling
- Interviewing
- Hiring
- Disciplinary Actions
- Firing
- Training and Skill Development
Medicine and Healthcare
Medicine and healthcare also need several hard skills for it being a wide area needing expertise in many things. The hiring manager might look for many hard and soft skills depending on the role you want to get.
Here is the basic idea for the hard skillset for the medicine and healthcare you would require to fulfil:
- Dentistry
- Patient vitals
- Phlebotomy
- Massage therapy
- Prescription filling
- Nutrition
- Radiology
- Optometry
- Surgery
- Patient histories
- Medical coding
- Medical billing
- Patient records
Administration and Office Skills
While other jobs might require office work, some others require administrative support, which is necessary for the better functioning of the organization. They are required for the customer handling process.
Because they are the first point of interaction between the Customers and Business, the communication should be efficient, flawless, and effective. The required hard skills set for administration and office skills are:
- Typing
- Doing Research
- Generation of reports
- Creating presentations
- Data entry
- Notetaking
- Minute taking
- Business writing
- Editing
Foreign Language Skills
These language skills are required usually in the sales department of the MNC, where you might have to communicate or deal with the other business personnel or the customers in a foreign language.
You might include this one of your skills in your additional skills. Some of the basic ones that might prove to be useful are:
- Speaking a foreign language
- Writing in and reading foreign languages
- Translation
- Multilingual customer support
It would be more appropriate to say that Hard skills are the foundation of any career and career success. Being a good employee needs specific training in measurable accomplishments like the computer program or the other skills.
The employees might be proficient in different skills, but they need to be the right mix.
Soft Skills
Soft Skills are those personal habits and personality traits, attributes, and habits that mold you and shape how you work with others or alone, navigate the workplace, and perform well in your job.
This includes working alone as well as working with others. As we learned earlier, these skills are Non-Technical skills and do not closely associate with any certain program or study, but they apply to all workplaces.
Soft Skills are also referred to as Transferable skills and are more like People Skills which differ according to the different work environments and the crowd you are working with.
Soft Skills canโt be measured, or we can say they are not measurable abilities; they can be associated with the employeeโs behaviour or personality traits.
There are many soft skills examples: interpersonal skills, organizational management skills, social skills, time management skills, critical thinking skills, problem-solving skills, leadership skills, and human relations skills.
It is a commonly well-known fact that the candidates with more soft skills like brilliant management skills and organizational skills and who were more technology-oriented usually outperformed the candidates who didnโt have these personality traits.
Soft skills can not be mentioned in your resume or cover letters. Can they? How do you suppose to put in your leadership qualities or your problem-solving skills?
The hiring managers look for these skills and traits when they interview you. They might ask you behavioural questions to learn how you use your certain soft skills while answering the questions.
A well-known fact is that the candidates try and behave as positively as they can to get through the interview and in the hiring process.
Now it is the employersโ job to dig as deep as they can to find out the potential employee they are looking for who could help in taking the organization to new heights.
Your behaviour indicates how you deal with certain problematic situations. They assess you based on questions asked about how would you react in a certain business setting and use your soft skills.
Your soft skills are your only way out of the questions. Your soft skills are the additional skills employers need to assess.
The employers may ask you questions based on hypothetical scenarios or games, or activities that might test your specific abilities in certain conditions and pay attention to how you answer them and how you react to them.
Below are given some examples of Soft skills you need to have in you and what you need to improve.
Soft Skills Examples
You need to make sure your soft skills and traits convince your employer that you have something none other has during the interview process. By giving a perfect example of using your soft skill in accomplishing something amazing, you can do that.
You can tailor your soft skills yourself. You need to be aware of the in-demand soft skills and choose the right soft skills to demonstrate your ability.
Some important soft skills employers always look for in their employees are as such:
Communication Skills
The most important thing is that you need to be an excellent communicator and be good at interpersonal skills.
To get better results being good at communication skills is of utmost importance. There are some things you need to be good at for being a good communicator:
- Verbal Communication Skills
- Non-Verbal Communication
- Written Communication Skills
- Active listening
- Public Speaking
- Having Patience
- Having Confidence
- Friendliness
- Having Empathy
- Having Clarity
- Having Diplomacy
- Being Persuasive
- Negotiation
These skills help you in several job-specific areas. May it be communicating with the business officials or the customers.
Teamwork Skills
Teamwork-oriented soft skills are the ones that help you when working with a group of your colleagues on a specific target all need to acquire. The required traits for teamwork are:
- Being Collaborative
- Helpful Nature
- Being Cooperative
- Adaptable
- Supportive
- Respectable
- A better Coordination
- Interpersonal Skills
Leadership Skills
Letโs suppose you are made the head of a project team, and now you need to get the best results by leading the team in the right direction.
How would you do that? It would be all about how you guide the team members while handling your responsibilities. It requires the Leadership Skills that will help you get through.
The Traits needed for being a better leader would be:
- Agility
- Authenticity
- Conflict Resolution
- Team -building
- Mentoring
- Coaching
- Effective Communication
- People Management
- Positive Reinforcement
- Project management
- Motivation
- Sensitivity
- Supervision
- Emotional Intelligence
- Decision making
- Inspiring
- Strategic Thinking
- Accountability
Problem Solving Skills
There will be many problems you face at your workspace, or you will be accountable for resolving customer grievances in your job duties. With your professional experience and problem-solving skills, only you will succeed.
The traits for being able to solve the problems effectively would be as such:
- Having Persistence
- Having Insight
- Having Perseverance
- Having Creativity
- Analytical-Thinking
- Innovative-thinking
- Troubleshooting
- Observation
- Brainstorming
- Having Curiosity
- Having Diligence
- Deductive Reasoning
Work Ethic
Having a strong work ethic means every employer would need you. All you need to do is to showcase your abilities ethically. The traits for being work ethic and doing it quite effectively and impressively would be:
- Attention to details
- Time management
- Being Reliable
- Being Ethical
- Being Focused
- Being Disciplined
- Having Commitment
- Being Responsible
- Being Dependable
- Being Punctual
- Being Self-Motivated
- Being Self-Aware
- Having Resilience
- Being Open-Minded
- Willing to learn
- Having Professionalism
Being work ethic is a very important aspect of the job description. Before hiring a candidate, every employer looks for these qualities in the New Employees.
Organization Skills
Organization Skills are considered most crucial in almost every job description you may find. These skills highlight your organizational capabilities and how well you can perform a specific job.
The traits are as follows:
- Time Management
- Resourcefulness
- Goal-Setting
- Planning
- Systematic way of doing work
- Work in an Orderly way
- Having Work ethic
- Being Scheduled
- Task tracking
- Having Critical thinking
- Being Open to Criticism
When we put them all together in one place, we get a picture of what Soft skills are. Having an idea from these lists, you may find it easy to improve certain qualities. You will be completely ready to make up for your job if you follow those mentioned above.
You just need to tailor your soft skills with utmost clarity. Only then you can showcase them perfectly before your employers and be selected for the job you seek and get professional experience.
By increasing the odds, every job opportunist can stand apart from the other and get through to the job.
Last Updated on by Laveleena Sharma
