SOFT SKILLS refer to the personal and interpersonal skills that people develop alongside the hard vertical skills. It is a fact that these two words have sparked debate over the ways they can be taught or measured in the modern labour market. While many argue that soft skills cannot be taught and cannot be measured, others insist that they can.

In today’s article at IDEA blog, we are trying to cut through the noise by addressing the following questions regarding soft skills. Which are the soft skills that have played an increasingly important role in recruitment, when combined with hard skills and qualifications? How can both parties in job interviews, candidates and recruiters, measure and evaluate soft skills? Even more, can we develop our soft skills and how?

Words: Tilemachos Kotronis

Graphic Design: Kostas Touboglou

Proofread: Grigoria Simouli

In a previous article at IDEA BLOG, our colleague and member of IDEA’s HR team, Grigoria Simouli,  referred to 3 soft skills, in the context of the European Vocational Skills Week (October 23-27, 2023). To be more specific, in her article Grigoria mentioned 3 of the most in-demand soft skills:

  • Communication Skills
  • Team Work
  • Time Management.

In today’s article, we take over from Grigoria and delve deeper into the term Soft Skills, and into 5 more indicative soft skills and their role in the modern labour market. Moreover, we present a safe and inclusive space for education and consulting regarding soft skills here at IDEA.

What do we talk about when we talk about soft skills

As most of us probably know, in the working environment, hard skills refer to the expertise necessary to complete a certain task, such as designing websites or writing a technical project report.

However, our everyday working life includes more than carrying out technical or intellectual tasks. Soft skills lie in the core of our day-to-day professional activities, that is the way we work and cooperate, interpersonal relationships, our behaviour and communication needs, throughout all work environments, onsite, hybrid or remote. Following on from a previous article by Grigoria Simouli, let us present a set of 5 other soft skills that we consider as the most crucial:

  • Emotional Intelligence
  • Critical Thinking
  • Adaptability
  • Continuous Learning or Lifelong Learning
  • Resilience.

In fact, many of these soft skills, we are proud to develop through our training programmes and career consulting services here at IDEA.

1.Emotional Intelligence (EI)

According to the USA national organization MHA (Mental Health America), Emotional Intelligence (EI) is the ability to manage both our own emotions and understand the emotions of people around us. There are five key elements to EI: self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy, and social skills. Particularly in times of heavy workload, emotions run high. Empathy, respect for our co-workers, understanding as well as an inclusive approach to collaborations of all sorts are key elements in a sustainable workplace.

2. Critical Thinking

Another important soft skill is our critical thinking and logic, which amongst others, reflect the ability to rationalize and prioritize tasks to solve them efficiently. Indeed, every employee happens to, occasionally, receive an awful lot of input and face multiple problems and tasks assignments that must be tackled fast. The ability to think logically, prioritize, analyze problems from various aspects and deal with them resourcefully renders us a trustworthy employee and co-worker.

3. Adaptability

If there is something that confuses most employees, this is unexpected changes and rescheduling. But, amongst others, this is part of our working life. The ability to respond to any changes and challenges flexibly and resourcefully is a very useful tool to have. Adapting to constantly emerging challenges in our day-to-day life and work, quickly reflecting on these sudden demands and managing to cope is one of the most appreciated qualities in today’s fast-paced business landscape.

4. Lifelong Learning

Lifelong learning refers to a culture of learning new skills and gaining knowledge continuously, via (in)formal courses, seminars, coaching, training programmes etc. Both in personal and professional level, continuous learning equals insatiable development, a valuable and distinguishing attribute.

5. Resilience

Most of us will agree that, in all of our working experiences, we have and will always encounter some disturbing moments and undesirable situations. Being able to demonstrate vigor and get through these situations is a noteworthy attribute both in the professional and personal sphere.

Many soft skills but… how can we measure them?

Up until now we have presented some of the most important soft skills and we have seen how we can recognize them. Although this list of 5 soft skills is not exhaustive, it can give us some bonus points not only when applying for a position, but also in our personal life. However, the question always lingers:

How do recruiters evaluate and analyse soft skills?

Honestly, it is complicated to evaluate and measure soft skills via commonly acknowledged ways. Academia and Science have yet to provide a generally-accepted answer on how to measure and evaluate a candidate’s empathy or adaptability.

But, be sure that an experienced recruitment team is equipped with tools that help them distinguish some of the most popular soft skills. In today’s demanding landscape most companies are developing their own tests to measure certain soft skills in cooperation with universities and research institutions.

Soft skills… for everyone?

However, there is a positive side we can hang on to, and that is the fact that soft skills, like any other skill, can be developed! In fact, in a 2022 article published on the official website of the European Employment Services (EURES), it is underlined that we can all boost our soft skills in several simple ways, one of which is lifelong education and training.

Well, that is exactly what we do here at IDEA. All of IDEA’s VET programmes, include training modules regarding soft skills, as an inseparable part of the curricula. For example, IDEA’s VET programme regarding unemployed engineering graduates provides training modules aimed to develop the trainees’ time management, adaptability, and creativity skills. Moreover in IDEA’s consulting services, we use standardized psychometric tools that help our trainees reflect on their own profile and soft skills. During a series of personalized consulting sessions, our trainees can become aware of the importance of soft skills and develop the necessary ones for the labour market or their personal development.

So, if you want to develop your soft skills but the entire process seems too complex and discourages you, here at IDEA we can guide you and offer you the best experience! And keep in mind that in any stage of our professional and personal life, the power of will combined with a supportive and safe educational environment are the only things we need to develop our soft skills.

For more information regarding training and evaluating soft skills, feel free to contact us via email: info@ideatraining.gr

Regarding the 5 soft skills mentioned above as well as the other 3 from our previous article, you can download the pdf with a detailed guide here

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