Skill Up: What Soft Skills Do Employers Look For In Job Applicants?
Unlike academic subjects like Maths, English and Science, soft skills tend to come from life experience or as the result of working towards a goal.
Employers often comment that school leavers lack soft skills and this partly down to a lack of life experience in general, compared to older job applicants. So, to help you identify the types of soft skills that employers look for, we've put together this post, listing some of the most common soft skills you're expected to have.
Communication
The one soft skill that every employer looks for is good communication skills. That means being able to give accurate information in a clear and concise way. Although this may sound obvious, communication clearly is tougher than it sounds. Whether we're talking or writing an email, we tend to add in information that isn't always relevant. And by the same measure, we often leave out bits of information that the other person would find important. Having good communication skills is all about adjusting the way you talk and write for your audience. Put yourself in their shoes and ask yourself how they want the information and what do they want to know.
Good manners
This might seem obvious, but we've included it here because having good manners and being polite are two of the best personal skills you can have, particularly when speaking with employers. Every job out there will require you to communicate with other people and doing so in a polite way will make things run a whole lot smoother. The relationships that you form at work are extremely important, so it's definitely worthwhile paying attention to the way you treat other people.