Blog Layout

The Four Top Soft Skills That Employers Need Right Now

Admin • April 11, 2019

As businesses become more agile and task-based skills become increasingly automated, employers are now seeking candidates with strong soft skills. How do you shape up?


A report by Wonderlic found that “93 percent of employers said that soft skills are either an “essential” or “very important” factor in hiring decisions”. And demand is set to grow. According to Deloitte Access Economics, “2 out of 3 jobs will be soft skills intensive by 2030”.


So, what are soft skills? Soft skills, sometimes called human or real skills, are a blend of skills that include creativity, collaboration and emotional intelligence.


Soft skills are the human skills that help us to work and create together. They are the skills that help us interact successfully – either in a collaborative environment such as a project team or workplace, or in highly charged emotional situations such as job interviews, debt recovery discussions, managing difficult conversations or asking for a promotion.


A candidate’s ability to display these skills and provide tangible examples in a job interview can be a telling indication of their capacity to collaborate and function creatively and efficiently in their new workplace. It pays to remember that employers watch for this throughout the interview.


Five soft skills that feature highly and repeatedly in surveys of employers and HR directors are as follows:

Creativity

  • Your ability to show imagination, to find innovative solutions to problems and to see things in different ways
  • Emotional intelligence
  • The ability to sense and behave with empathy, to understand the position of others and to connect in an open and honest manner

Collaboration

  • Your capacity to engage with and perform within a team, to share and develop ideas and plans and to deliver on your obligations within the team and assign roles and duties to others

Communication

  • Demonstrate your ability to communicate easily, listen well and clearly and maintain eye-contact. Give examples of situations where you communicated well – especially person-to-person – and resolved a problem or presented an idea successfully.

Persuasion / negotiation

  • Show your ability to persuade and influence others and give examples of ways in which your skills resulted in a change of viewpoint or a situation where you negotiated a strong and equitable deal for both parties.

And demand for these skills isn’t confined to a specific industry or profession. In the US, “44% of executives say lack of soft skills is the biggest gap in the U.S. workforce”. A new emphasis on service now means that soft skills are required in IT, accountancy, law and the medical professions.


The good news is that soft skills work well for employers and candidates. According to DDI Research, “organizations demonstrated an average return on investment of $4,000 for every $1,100 spent developing soft skills”. As a candidate, soft skills can be a fast-track to management.


A recent iCIMS survey found that “94% of recruiting professionals believe an employee with stronger soft skills has a better chance of being promoted to a leadership position”.



The power and commercial value of soft skills are finally being recognised by employers. Make sure you present your soft skills proudly in interviews – they might well make all the difference.

Want to take advantage of the resurgent popularity of soft skills? Book a FREE personal one-on-one soft skills assessment session, and find out how soft skills could benefit you or your workplace.

FREE DOWNLOAD

Presentation Skills - Tip Three

By Admin • December 3, 2020
Light for life When giving a virtual presentation it’s important that you are seen in the best light, literarily! The lighting that you choose to use can make or break a presentation. Too much light and you can look washed out, too little light and you won’t be seen at all. Get the light just right and you’ll shine like a star.  Take one minute of your day to learn more about the importance of lighting.

Presentation Skills - Tip Two

By Admin • November 24, 2020
Space: the final frontier Virtual presenting is all about knowing how to use your space and being aware of how much space you have to work in. Unlike presenting or training in-person where you have a whole room or stage to work with, in a virtual world your space is much smaller and new rules apply, so it's good to know how to fill your space without slipping over the edges. Take one minute to view tip two in our virtual presenting series to see how you can own your space and stay in your virtual box.

Presentation Skills - Tip One

By Admin • November 5, 2020
The eyes have it Whether you be presenting in person, or in a virtual situation its all about making contact with your audience. Connecting with an audience requires us to show our true selves or put another way, to be authentic. One of the best ways to show our authenticity is to reveal ourselves through our eyes, we do this by looking others in the eye, when we do this, they see our inner selves, which sparks a genuine connection. When presenting virtually the lens is the representation of everyone you are speaking with, so the lens becomes their eyes and we must look into that lens and express emotion in the same way we do when we are with people in a physical environment. So, sit back and take one-minute to view tip number one in our presentation skills video training series to help you connect in the virtual world.

Credit Control - Tip Three (for getting paid)

By Herduard Joy Cetron • October 30, 2020
Do you know the difference between aggressive, assertive and non-assertive? This is an important question for anyone working as an account receivable person / credit controller. You see, a big part of getting invoices paid on time is your voice, your voice has to become an effective tool for encouraging your customers to pay their invoices on time and your voice needs to be used in an assertive manner. When you are assertive people follow your lead and will be guided by you, being assertive creates trust and gives you the authority you need to be taken seriously. Another aspect of being a good account receivable person / credit controller is maintaining your record keeping, using the CRM software or accounting software correctly. Document, Document, Document. If you keep accurate records it will stop your customers from trying to trick you are out right lying to you, because they will know that you have documented what they have promised to do and you can refer back to previous conversations and quote their own words back at them, this has a powerful effect on people trying to mislead you.  So sit back and take one-minute to view tip number three in our credit control video training series to help you get your invoices paid on time.

Credit Control - Tip Two (for getting paid)

By Admin • October 22, 2020
We are here to help you get paid, whilst maintaining excellent relationships with your customers What kind of relationship does your accounts receivable team have with your customers? For the most part credit controllers and accounts receivable teams don’t have much of a relationship with customers except to chase them for payment which means in many cases it’s a negative relationship. We see this as a flawed relationship, wouldn’t it be better for your business and the customer if the relationship between the customer and the accounts receivable team was a positive one? How about starting the relationship on a positive note and keeping it that way, viewing accounts receivable as part of the customer service process can ensure you not only get paid faster but have a deeper more meaningful relationship with customers. In this set of short one-minute training videos we will arm you with the skills to make sure your invoices get paid on time every time.

7 Key Soft Skills for Tech Teams in the Post 'COVID-19 Normal'

By Admin • October 20, 2020
The IT sector has traditionally placed priority on the team members having gun tech skills – sometimes at the expense of other, seemingly less important soft skills. As COVID-19 redefines the way we work, the need for soft skills in this sector is becoming increasingly apparent.  Soft skills now dominate the list of proficiencies needed by our future tech workforce. As Deloitte Access Economics points out, “ten of the sixteen ‘crucial proficiencies in the 21st century’ identified by the World Economic Forum are non-technical”. The days where the technically gifted can get away with operating as a lone wolf are long gone. Technology team members are now expected to have solid non-technical soft skills. If you want to improve the effectiveness of our tech teams or to shine as a team member, here are eight soft skills that will give you an edge. And if you are looking to get into the sector, these skills could make a tangible difference to your employment prospects by making you stand out from the crowd. According to an Australian Department of Employment 2016 report, a quarter of entry level employers report having difficulty filling vacancies because applicants lack employability skills.

Credit Control - Tip One (for getting paid)

By Admin • October 15, 2020
We are here to help you get paid whilst maintaining excellent relationships with your customers. Surprisingly, one of the biggest fears in business is asking to be paid. Many business owners and accounts receivable people have never been taught to ask for payment and the rules around maintaining positive relationships whilst reducing outstanding invoices.  In this short series of credit control videos, we will arm you with the skills to make sure your invoices get paid on time.

Customer Service Tip Three

By Admin • October 8, 2020
We are here to help. Tips to stay cool, calm and collected in Customer Service As Des’ree sang in her 1994 Hit song You Gotta Be. “You gotta be cool, you gotta be calm, you gotta stay together and love will save the day”. This is a wonderful mantra when working in customer service, when you are cool, calm and collected you have power over yourself and power over your role. It's not always easy to keep your head when things are frantic with customers being demanding and the pressure to keep calls to a certain time limit and make, or answer X many calls an hour. Having an assertive tone of voice, great eye contact and body language are important. So, sit back, relax and take one minute to watch this training video to let us help you to be super cool with your customers.

Customer Service Tip Two

By Admin • October 5, 2020
We are here to help. Tips to stay cool, calm and collected in Customer Service Conflict is my friend, now that’s a bold statement, we know, but once conflict is embraced it can be managed and used to build stronger relationships with customers. Conflict is only a problem if it spirals out of control, during this time of COVID-19 many of our clients have reported that their customer service teams are experiencing far more conflict with customers than they have previously, tension not addressed grows and something quite minor can turn into a serious conflict which could mean losing a customer. So, sit back relax and take one minute to watch this training video to let us help you embrace conflict.

Customer Service Tip One

By Admin • September 24, 2020
We are here to help. Tips to stay cool, calm and collected in Customer Service Over the past few months we have had many conversations with our customers and clients about how they can continue to give their customers (internal and external) a great customer experience. COVID-19 has changed the world completely, who would have thought that most customer service teams would now be working remotely or in an office environment that is unrecognisable from this time last year. As a professional customer service person it's part of our role to deal with that stress with humility, style and above all cut through the stress and get to the real issue then help the person to resolve their issue(s). We will be posting short video tips each week. Enjoy, remember to centre and breathe.
More Posts
Share by: