“Soft Skills” is a term that all of us hear every day;
But what does it means?
What are the differences with the “Hard Skills”?
Why are they important?
In this article we are going to understand the meaning of those terms.
First of all, we need to define the notion of Hard Skills: The Hard skills are the ability that we learn through education, training programs, certifications etc. They concern skills that generally are easily quantifiable and measurable.
For example, an hard skill for a software engineer might be computer programming.
The Hard Skills are the first factors that your potential boss notes during an interview. Even so, they are not the only ones: there are others elements that your boss will analyze, that could be more important than all your education and all your certifications, the soft skills.
Soft Skills are the personal attributes, personality traits, communication abilities. Such abilities are necessary to obtain the job and especially to maintain it!
For your principal, is it better an employee over-prepared but that practically
isn’t capable to carry out his job, or an employee less prepared but full of soft skills, smart, understanding, charismatic?
Obviously, these abilities are much harder to measure and evaluate, but above all… to gain.
They also include: attitude, creative thinking, teamwork, networking, decision making etc.
All skills that nobody learns at school, that do not depend on education, but that are at the same time key issues in order to be competitive in the labour market.
Do you have soft skills?
Have a look in our online platform, in section “ complete your profile “ you will find a full list of abilities that could describe yourself.