What Are Soft Skills?

Soft skills are the attributes and behaviors that describe how a person approaches their tasks. You likely use soft skills across all areas of your life—communication, critical thinking, problem-solving, and other interpersonal skills are some examples of soft skills. Your mastery of these skills is also valuable in the workplace.

In fact, soft skills are commonly referred to as workplace or human skills. These alternative names can be a bit more descriptive when you’re thinking about and discussing your skill set.

Explore the high-value soft skills employers look for and discover actionable tips for enhancing your personal skill set. Whether you're looking to advance in your current role or prepare for a new opportunity, mastering these professional workplace skills can give you a competitive edge in the current job market.

What are soft skills?

Soft skills are the qualities that make someone easy to work with, like strong teamwork and communication skills. Soft skills are sometimes called people skills because, they often involve working with others to achieve a common goal. Soft skills include transferable skills, or skills you can apply in many different kinds of careers, like logical thinking and creativity. Even when you are working on a project by yourself, you may rely on a suite of human skills to accomplish your goals.  

Many careers also require hard skills, or technical skills, in order to be successful. These skills are often specific to the type of work you’re doing. For example, a software developer may need to understand Python. If that software developer wanted to become something else, like a biomedical researcher, they would need to learn other technical skills and may not use their Python skills in their new role. However, the software developer could develop skills like organization, empathy, problem-solving, and communication in their workplace, which would transfer over into their new career.

Soft skills vs. hard skills

Hard skills describe what you do, while soft skills describe how you do it.

Your hard skills are your technical skills, relating to the types of tasks you know how to do. Some examples of technical skills are data analysis, computer programming, writing, and UX design. When you complete a task, you often use a combination of hard and soft skills—technical skills to guide your process and workplace skills to encourage effective outcomes.

Read more: Hard Skills vs. Soft Skills: What’s the Difference?

Soft skills examples

Soft skills or workplace skills translate into a wide variety of situations you may find in many different types of careers. Explore soft skills examples:

• Active listening: Active listening involves paying close attention to what others say, including their emotions and behavior, to fully understand their message.

• Adaptability: Adaptability is the ability to shift your plan or adjust your work in response to unforeseen changes. 

• Communication: Communication is the process of sharing information, typically through verbal or written methods. Workplace communication often follows different standards and expectations than personal communication.

• Creativity: Creativity is the ability to generate new ideas by approaching problems in new or novel ways. 

• Critical thinking: Critical thinking involves analyzing information from various sources, conceptualizing ideas, and rationalizing them to determine the best course of action. 

• Empathy: Empathy is the capacity to understand and share the feelings of others by imagining yourself in their situation. 

• Leadership: Leadership is the ability to guide and organize people toward achieving a common goal. 

• Organization: Organization is the ability to prioritize tasks and manage your workspace to meet your deadlines and stay current in your work.

• Problem-solving: Problem-solving involves identifying issues, exploring potential solutions, and choosing the best course of action to overcome obstacles. 

• Resourcefulness: Resourcefulness is the ability to solve problems efficiently or with limited or existing resources. 

• Strategic thinking: Strategic thinking involves anticipating future outcomes and planning the best steps to achieve your long-term goals. 

• Teamwork: Teamwork occurs when a group of people collaborates and coordinates efforts to achieve a common goal, accomplishing more together than individually. 

• Time management: Time management is the ability to plan and prioritize tasks effectively to meet deadlines and achieve goals. 

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What are the top soft skills?

The top soft skills that employers are looking for are work ethic, effective communication, teamwork and collaboration, and critical thinking and problem-solving [1]. For many employers, how you do something is just as important as what you are doing—especially when it comes to long-term learning, growth, and success.

According to the US Department of Labor, employers consider workplace skills more important to work readiness—or the minimum qualifications necessary for a given occupation—than technical skills [1].

Employers may consider workplace skills to forecast a person’s future potential. This type of character analysis may come into play when choosing the leads for a new project or deciding whether an employee is ready for a promotion. Hiring managers also assess workplace skills to determine whether a job candidate will be a good fit for a specific team.

How to include workplace skills on a resume

You can include workplace skills on your resume within your summary, objective, or in a special skills section. Additionally, you can select action words that align with the skills you want to demonstrate within your work experience section. Then, you can use your cover letter to share further details.

Remember that human skills are reflected in how you approach your work, so when you discuss your successes, share what you did, how you did it, and your impact.

Read more: What Skills Should I Include on My Resume?

Ways to improve your soft skills

Since workplace skills are largely tied to behavior, improving them may involve shifting your regular patterns, approaches, or thought processes. This type of work tends to require practice and patience, but over time, you’ll likely notice more ease as you tap into your workplace skills.

You can build upon your existing workplace skills in several ways. If you have a specific skill in mind that you’d like to improve, think about ways you can implement that skill into your daily life. You can also consult a life coach for help developing a personalized plan of action.

More ideas for improving your workplace skills include:

1. Practice different communication styles.

People tend to prefer different communication styles, whether that’s delivery methods—such as conversation, email, or text—or the manner of the delivery, like passive, aggressive, or assertive communication. In addition to your communication skills, considering how you might approach communicating in different situations can be an opportunity to practice adaptability, critical thinking, and strategic thinking.

To practice different communication styles, you might try to express the same idea in various ways, by writing it down, describing it aloud, and putting it into a presentation, or to various audiences.

Read more: 22 Ways to Improve Your Communication Skills in the Workplace

2. Join a group project.

Beyond demonstrating your ability to take the initiative, joining a group project can offer opportunities to practice several human skills, such as teamwork, time management, and active listening. As a bonus, group projects can enable you to bring your technical skills into a collaborative environment.

To join a group project, take an interest in what colleagues are working on and offer your help where it may be beneficial, or look for opportunities within your local community.

3. Learn something new.

Learning something new can expand your typical way of thinking and encourage growth. Learning and creativity are strongly linked, so whatever you decide to learn, you stand to gain technical knowledge and enhance your creative thinking and problem-solving skills.

To learn something new, check out the class offerings at your local community college or art center, or browse popular free courses on Coursera.

4. Socialize with teammates.

You use soft skills in every interaction you have. Simply getting to know your teammates can be an effective way to practice your communication and active listening and can create opportunities for future collaboration.

If appropriate, approach socializing with your teammates with an interest in their lives and a willingness to share about your own.

5. Suggest improvements to processes.

As you build your technical and workplace skills, you may notice some opportunities to improve how things are done in your workplace. Thinking critically about processes, recognizing problems, and finding viable solutions are all valued workplace skills.

To suggest improvements to processes, you may want to ask your manager about their preferred process and what type of information they’ll need in order to assess your suggestions.

6. Ask for feedback.

Many workplace skills have an element of interactivity, and sometimes, an outside perspective can help illuminate things you are doing well and areas you may want to focus on improving. Similarly, offering feedback to others can be an opportunity to practice active listening, leadership, and teamwork.

To ask for feedback, turn to your manager, recent project collaborators, or other colleagues you’ve built relationships with.

Learn more about soft skills on Coursera

Soft skills are important workplace skills that can transfer into nearly any career. Continue working on your workplace skills with Coursera. Browse popular workplace skills courses from top institutions and industry leaders, or check out IBM’s People and Soft Skills for Professional and Personal Success Specialization. You can explore presentation skills, professional development, communication skills, and more. Sign up for a free seven-day, all-access trial and start learning today.

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