Guidelines for developing candidate’s soft skills

BY Admin Jul 09, 2018

Student life is the best time to develop many skills to enhance future career and personal living. Currently, students want to excel in every skills to shape their career by getting high level job in leading Multinational Corporation. There are many skills that students learn in academic session such technical skills, soft skills. Technical skills can be taught, learnt, applied and measured to obtain graduate or post graduate degree. Soft skill is a sociological term for an individual's Emotional Intelligence (EQ).

Technical skills are considered as job specific whereas soft skills are appropriatefor multiple roles, domains and careers.Soft skills can also be termed as ‘people skills' because these are the personal attributes that augment an individual's interaction, job performance and career prospects.

Currently, employers give importance to soft skills because they are just as good as indicator of job performance as traditional job credentials. Soft skills for job seekers are a blend of their personality, attitude, and social skills and these are highly significant in an employer’s decision to recruit as a candidate.

Youth candidates who are technically sound also need to incorporate a high soft skills quotient, apart from the domain knowledge in order to thrive in this competitive age. Below are some guidelines that can help young graduates to develop soft skills while they are in academic in college:

1. Students must actively participate in college fests to learn things in social scenario and accordingly develop skills. College Fests are always fun and provide platform for learning in terms of leadership, teamwork and learning listening skills.
2. It is necessary to develop negotiation skills as well as behavioural skills in order to deal in novel business situation.
3. Candidates must be member of many forums or clubs to become social and build capabilities to adjust in social situation and deal with multicultural people. Every college has many forums such as literature, theatre, political, debating. This would help to expand networking, personal relationship, body language skills as well as enhance persona.
4. In order to get success in corporate life, major soft skill is proficiency in English as it is universal language. It is recommended to students to communicate only in English in college life. This will help in developing fluency in language. To gain mastery over English language, it is suggested to watch BBC and English serials and movies. Students must also read one book every month and maintain a journal with thoughts recorded nothing beats reading a good book.
5. Ability to live the values: Self-effacement, Humanity and Honesty are three values that form business decision. Candidates should be unpretentious to be open to learning irrespective of their past successes. Humanity is the mind-set one should have in order to contribute towards the society and put the common goals and the team over oneself. Integrity is established through transparency to own mistakes and the willingness to correct them.
6. Client focus: It is well recognized that there are number of candidates who have technical skill and they can provide technical solutions. But in corporate, it is important to develop the ability to honour the client's outlook and be able to put the clients' preference ahead.
7. Another soft skill which candidates must develop is Passionate entrepreneurship. Though managers manage situations, businesspersons create environment and situations that lead to positive results. Usually employers search for those candidates who have an ability to think big and perform complex task with good attitude.
8. Problem Solving: Candidates must be ready for resolving business issues as they emerge. They must be able to explain what they did, how they approached the problem, and involved others to get positive results.

Types of soft skills of candidates exploring job

Soft skills are important in current business world because companies are expanding globally, and often, technical experts are called upon to do a variety of non-technical tasks which require soft skills. Currently, people management skills are placed higher than strategic management skills and process management.

It is important for students/ candidates to demonstrate their soft skills to succeed in career as well as their personal life.These skills are convertible skills, so they can be used in array of jobs. These are personal qualities and attitudes that can help candidates to work well with other professionals and make a positive contribution to organisations.