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soft skills
plural noun
- desirable qualities for certain forms of employment that do not depend on acquired knowledge: they include common sense, the ability to deal with people, and a positive flexible attitude
Example Sentences
But to really up your income, hard skills like AI proficiency needs to be combined with less tangible soft skills, like interpersonal skills, communication skills, critical thinking and analytical skills, said Lisa Countryman-Quiroz, CEO of JVS, a San Francisco-area nonprofit that provides job training programs.
Enrolling in an AI graduate certificate program might help you land a job that pays more, for example, but to improve your chances of increasing your income even more, it's important to be able to apply soft skills like problem solving while using new technologies.
Soft skills like perpetual learning ability are also critical for boosting your long-term earnings, rather than only relying on hard skills for quick pay bumps.
Instead, employees need to figure out how to combine these types of hard and soft skills, while communicating what they're learning to employers.
To develop these types of hard and soft skills, you don't necessarily have to get a new degree.
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More About Soft Skills
What are soft skills?
Soft skills are traits that some employers look for that aren’t usually taught and are difficult to measure, such as how to communicate with coworkers in a respectful way.
Soft skills are traits that employees exhibit as a part of their character that could assist them and others in their career and day-to-day work. Soft skills aren’t usually taught in school. Instead, they are learned through discipline and interaction with others. Soft skills include time management, communication, team work, critical thinking, and decision-making.
By comparison, hard skills are skills you learn through training and that are measurable. When you are hired as a software developer, for example, your hard skills include knowing specific coding languages and the ability to write code that works. Your ability to work with other software developers, helping each other resolve problems in the code, would be a soft skill.
Example: Do you think I should include a section on my éܳé for soft skills?
Where does the phrase soft skills come from?
The first records of soft skills come from around the 1950s. It was originally a military term that referred to skills that don’t require specialist training, such as completing paperwork.
Over time, the meaning of skills associated with communication overtook the military meaning. Soft skills, sometimes called interpersonal skills, are sometimes seen as more important than hard skills once the employee has become comfortable with their workplace. Many of the most popular éܳé templates include a section for soft skills, and employers may ask about soft skills during a job interview or survey.
Did you know … ?
What are some other forms related to soft skills?
- soft skill (singular noun)
What are some synonyms for soft skills?
What are some words that share a root or word element with soft skills?
What are some words that often get used in discussing soft skills?
How is the phrase soft skills used in real life?
Hard skills get you in, soft skills get you far.
— Sahil Lavingia (@shl)
How come schools don't have a whole year long course about how to interview for a job and on the soft skills that impress after you're hired. No employer cares about 99% of the stuff they teach you.
— Tai Lopez (@tailopez)
The irony of "soft skills" is that they're often the hardest to master.
Leadership, communication, collaboration, creativity, and adaptability may not be technical, but they're increasingly vital.
Behavioral, social, and emotional skills are what make humans indispensable.
— Adam Grant (@AdamMGrant)
Try using soft skills!
True or False?
Soft skills include knowing how to communicate respectfully with coworkers.
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