To most of us, soft skills are not on the primary list on which we want to work and improve. Soft skills development has been always given the least preference if any in terms of our professional or institutional learning methodology in terms of courses, qualifications, and certifications. How many of us realise that developing soft-skill can significantly improve our way of dealing with things, situations, and people which in turn improves our financial earning capability?

The most important problem is that most of us don’t even understand what are soft-skill. It is obvious that if we don’t have any ideas about the problem, how will we find a solution to it? I am not sure which educational institution you are part of. However, I am sure the environment of your educational institution has played a significant role in developing your soft skills & thinking ability. Imagine yourself as a kid studying in a village and in a Govt. school and college, do you think you will be able to be in a position which you are currently in even with the same educational qualification and certification?

All of this means that for most of us Soft skill improvement is part of education but never was in focus as a primary aspect of development. This is unfortunately the opposite of what the world really needs and wants. According to research conducted by Harvard University, 85% of career success comes from having improved soft skills, and the remaining 15% is because of your technical skills.

For any experience, employee, or executive this is clear and evident, and try to address this by having their children join the best or international schools without thinking or realizing that they are actually paying these schools & colleges a premium fee because of exposure to the soft-skills parameter. Or it would be more appropriate to say the other section of society has not realized this fact and not making any moves towards this soft skill as they can not afford these premium institution fee structures. But then if this other section of the people who can’t afford to join the premium institution can relate to the fact that the premium that these schools and colleges charge is provide an environment which can help them grow their thinking and creative abilities along with other soft skills.

Soft skills development is different from learning and technical skills. It is a comparatively slow learning process. Here is the soft skill development life cycle. Most of the soft skill improvement comes from social learning and it comprises 4 important aspects: 1) Exposure, 2) Imitation, 3) Correction 4) Repetition

As we discussed most soft skills are actually part of unconscious learning mechanisms as we as students get exposed to different things, situations, topics, concepts, and people a student tends to take it as input during their teens in their schools & colleges. It could be any aspect of soft skills like creative thinking, problem solving, public speaking, analyzing, synthesizing, decision-making, developing a growth mindset, social skills, teamwork, leadership, and many other aspects. All of this is working as a background during our studies and even in the working environment. Some of these are coming into the limelight as institutions engage students in different events like working on projects, competitions, hackathons, exhibitions, and other events. By exposing students or individuals to these events where they want to perform differently and they get exposed to many new ways of thinking like others. They try to imitate this behaviour resulting in the creation of something new as a part of the learning process. Anyone will learn faster by doing than just reading, knowing, or understanding. Then by their failures in the completion of the tasks a learner who is persistent to complete the task will move to the 3rd step which is a course correction to optimize the imitation and try to perform better to complete the task. This will enhance their confidence level in performing the task better with their learning during course correction and they move to the 4th step of repeating the tasks with an optimized approach of applying imitation to complete the task with a better success rate.

Understanding the importance of soft skill development, it is very essential for every one of us to push these efforts to the front to make them as deliberate as possible. Creating opportunities for the student to participate in these events as frequently as much as possible will help students to perform better in different areas and tasks in turn boosting their morale toward putting more effort in this direction and continuing to develop their soft skills by repeating the similar behaviour of imitation.

The reality you can relate to your experience in the industry or people pursuing a different career can only move to the next level with their efforts in developing technical and soft skills. But Technical skills will only be the beginning and works as a trigger in the journey of moving to the next level. If you try to relate this to your own experience, if you have completed learning any new tool, that is only one part of your overall performance during your interview to get a job with that technical skill. You should be able to communicate and present your experience and knowledge in the interview where they would gauge your overall performance as a whole in which technical skill is just a part of it. They would try to gauge different abilities like your mindset, presentation, creativity, problem-solving, team player, leadership, analytical and many other aspects that come in to picture.

Most of experienced recruiters will give more weightage to all other skills than just technical skills as these can be easily thought of with practice in a short span. As we discussed soft skill development is a long and slow process and but this is what will decide your future. A person with the least technical skill and great domain knowledge and experience is preferred over a person with only technical skills. This is a fact.

Almost everyone knows that organizations want to hire experience resources. Have you ever thought about why they ask for experience? This is part of presenting your soft skills & abilities, which means a person with experience can make better decisions with their thinking abilities by connecting their previous exposure to different domain-specific situations, things, people, and tasks. We can categorize soft-skill as important however, we are actually developing our soft-skill during our work experience which will significantly contribute to the growth of our professional and personal lives.

So, it is high time we spend deliberate efforts in improving our soft skills to make a significant leap in our careers. Upskillshare.com is a Social Learning Journal helping learners to improve their soft skills, creative thinking, and other cognitive ability by exposing them to different concepts and topics that are essential to their personal growth.

Please use the below soft-skill self-evaluation form to self-evaluate your understanding of exposure to the soft skill of your skill development. Click the link below to participate in the survey: https://upskillshare.com/stage/soft-skills-self-evaluation/