How To Improve The Right Soft & Hard Skills To Advance Your Career
Perhaps you’ve been out of work for a while, or maybe you’re just looking to switch up your career. Whatever’s driving this decision doesn’t matter; what matters is that you put yourself in the best position to advance your career and find a job you enjoy. It makes the rest of your life far easier when you love what you’re doing and make a decent living out of it!
As you traverse through thousands of possible job applications, you notice a common theme. Every application asks for a set of essential and desired skills – essential skills are ones you must display to get the job, while desired ones are a bonus. This discovery also leads to another running theme: you don’t think you have the skills necessary to apply for all of these jobs.
It’s a sad realisation, though the good thing about skills is that you can always improve and develop them. For any job, you need to focus on two sets of skills in particular:
- Soft Skills
- Hard Skills
Of course, this will immediately throw up a big question: what’s the difference between soft skills and hard skills when applying for jobs?! Don’t worry; we’ll talk about this in just a moment before listing the best skills to develop and how to improve them.
The Difference Between Soft & Hard Skills
The best way to differentiate between soft and hard skills is to think of soft skills as things that help with every job. They’re the habits or traits you develop to interact with others and go about your daily tasks regardless of where you work. Communication is the biggest and most obvious soft skill – you need to be good at it no matter what you do!
On the other hand, hard skills are more technical and job-specific. They include the knowledge needed to do a particular job. For example, if you want to become a coder, you’d need extensive knowledge of HTML, Javascript and other coding language.
Funnily enough, a good set of soft skills will usually give you the edge over your job competitors. Why? Because there’s the assumption that everyone going for a specific role will have the same set of hard skills for that role. You’re all master coders, so the job might go to whoever has the best communication or interpersonal skills.
Best Soft Skills To Develop For Better Career Growth
What are some of the best soft skills you should have in your locker? Some obvious ones jump to your thoughts, such as:
- Communication
- Problem-solving
- Teamwork
- Time management
- Empathy
- Creativity
- Critical thinking
- Organisation
- Open-mindedness
- Integrity
- Leadership
These skills will always put you in a promising position when applying for jobs. You demonstrate an ability to work well with others yet come up with ideas on your own. You’re rarely late and know how to react to challenging situations, regardless of the work you’re doing.
Best Hard Skills To Develop For Better Career Growth
It’s harder to list a set of hard skills because the skills depend on what job you’re going for. Instead, the best idea is to look through different job listings and see the hard skills that are required for your specific role.
In turn, use this knowledge to create your own list of hard skills and start ticking them all off as you develop and improve them!
Top Ways To Improve Soft & Hard Skills
How do you improve and develop soft/hard skills? Both sets of skills can be developed in similar ways, so that’s a bonus. It’s not as immediately challenging as it might seem, either. You should use a combination of education and hands-on experience to hone your talents – and here are the best ways to do just that:
Take Online Educational Courses
Education is the number one way to improve all types of skills. After all, it’s how you developed your initial skillset as a child! When you’re a bit older – and have already finished school/university – you should continue your education through online courses.
A wide variety exists, though an online MBA is one of the most obvious routes to go down. It’s a fairly generalised programme that’ll help you in numerous ways and give you lots of great knowledge to transfer to many jobs. One of the big benefits of an online MBA is the way it develops your soft skills. These courses will directly improve your communication, teamwork, collaboration, problem-solving, networking, time management, global perspective and self-motivation skills. Even if you don’t apply for business-related jobs, the fact you have an MBA qualification is impressive, as are the key skills you develop.
Get more specific with online education to develop hard skills as well. For example, if you’re applying for jobs in SEO and marketing, take a course to develop these skills. Are you hoping to become a professional photographer? Take photography courses to learn all the correct techniques. Do you want a job in the healthcare space? Then, you’ll need to take online courses dedicated to the specific role.
There’s no downside to education. Yes, it comes at a great financial cost, but think of it as an investment in your future. The knowledge you gain – and the skills/qualifications you earn – will help you find better jobs and be more confident in your job applications.
Spend Your Days In Coworking Spaces
You might think this is a strange suggestion, but there are plenty of benefits to using coworking spaces. Mainly, these spaces put you in professional settings and surround you with other working individuals. As a result, you immediately get a chance to improve your communication and networking skills – both of which are great soft skills for any job.
Moreover, being in a busy environment will teach you to concentrate and focus on your tasks. It helps you learn how to block out the noise and solve problems while loads of other things are going on around you. That’s a pretty valuable skill set to have for any role in any industry – and it also gives you the experience of working in a professional setting.
Simply do whatever you would on your computer at home but in a coworking space. This tip is especially effective for people who have spent most of their time working alone at home but want to change careers and enter a more team-focused environment.
Volunteer To Work With Others
Gain valuable job experience by volunteering in as many places as possible. Most employers will value experience over anything else – but why do they do this? Well, it’s largely because the experienced applicants will have all the right soft and hard skills for the job!
And so you enter the job application conundrum – how do you gain experience if nobody will hire you because you’re not experienced?
That’s why you volunteer! Search for volunteering opportunities and start working with others. This is the ideal way to develop all of the necessary soft skills for any job while bulking out your CV with valuable experience. Honestly, any type of volunteering work will help you develop your essential soft skills. If you want to improve hard skills for a particular role, then look for volunteering opportunities within the same industry – or where you’ll perform the same role.
Some companies take on interns or will be open to the idea of letting you volunteer if you reach out to them. After all, they get free help – all you’re asking for is a chance to learn valuable skills.
Look For Workshops or Seminars
Workshops and seminars are somewhat similar to educational courses, only they’re much shorter. You usually attend these for a few hours – maybe a couple of days at most. They give you little bursts of information and help you train certain skills. Workshops and seminars also tend to be more focused on specific things.
For example, you could find a workshop dedicated to time management. Someone hosts it and explains the value of time management with practical skills and tips on how to get better at it. The slight difference between seminars and workshops is that the latter will be a bit more practical and hands-on. Seminars tend to be more like mini-lectures where someone explains things with a slideshow.
Either way, both play valuable roles in developing your soft & hard skills to help you get ahead in your career. They also give you another massive bonus: workshops and seminars are excellent places to network. Networking isn’t just a good skill; it’s a way to create connections that could open up big job opportunities.
Start Developing Your Skillset Today
Take three main things away from this article:
- Soft skills are important for every job, and you can never have too many of them
- Learn the hard skills that are required for your chosen role and develop them as best as you can
- Explore a combination of educational and hands-on opportunities to hone both soft and hard skills
Having a grand set of soft and hard skills will always put you in the best position to apply for jobs. You’ll feel more confident, too – it’s nice knowing you can write a long list of skills to demonstrate your abilities to future employers.
