The importance of soft skills, AKA people skills, can set you apart when it comes time to landing your next job. As their reputation continues to grow in the workplace, articulating these intangible capabilities in your CV helps show you understand the company culture and could make a great fit from day one.
You'll want to leave a short list in the skills section because your work experience and summary sections should hint at and hook the reader to look further. For example: how you work with others because we all work differently.
According to LinkedIn's 2019 Global Talent Trends report, 92% of hiring managers agree that strong, soft skills are increasingly important.
What are soft skills?
Before incorporating them into your CV, you must know the difference between hard and soft skills, where you should put them, and what employers want.
You already have many soft skills. Employers are interested in these skills because they can differentiate between applicants with similar experience and educational backgrounds. The most common examples of CV soft skills are communication skills, time management, attention to detail, leadership, and work ethic.
What's the difference?
Soft skills are your ability to work with others and manage your workload, whereas hard skills are learned and technical. Soft skills can also be seen as your strengths. Hard skills are software programmes you use at work, a degree, specialised training needed to perform a task and specific industry knowledge learnt on the job.
A graphic designer must know how to use Photoshop – a hard-learned skill. If there are several applicants for a role with similar technical abilities, the ones who can demonstrate their soft skills, both in their CV and at interview, will rise to the top of the list.
Soft skills examples include:
- Communication
- Collaboration and teamwork
- Critical thinking and problem solving
- Adaptability and flexibility
- Emotional intelligence
- Leadership
- Team management
- Developing strong relationships
Expert Tips
- Refrain from listing soft skills: you need to integrate into the text in your summary, your employment history and a few unique ones in the skills section. Employers will understand the soft skills that went into an achievement.
- An important rule: DON'T Google soft skills and insert the list. They must be relevant and reflected in your work experience or achievements and apply to your target job.
Where should I start?
Create a list of your soft skills and know how to demonstrate them in your CV and at an interview. You’ll need examples, a story, to back them up at an interview [think of your STAR scenarios]. Use your strongest examples.
Next, look at the job description to see what your prospective employer values most and for similarities between your soft skills and those in the job description. Next, research the company's workplace culture, then look at the industry and where this employer fits. You'll get enough insight to narrow it down to the top 5 soft skills to include on your resume.
Expert Tip: Customise your resume. you'll always hear this, but it works. Tweak your resume for each position to highlight your skills and know what the prospective employer is looking for.
Where do soft skills go on a CV?
Integrating your soft skills throughout your CV is vital. They should be in your: Summary, Employment History [particularly in the achievements] and Skills list. Here’s a breakdown of how to include soft skills in these CV sections:
Summary: also called a profile or personal statement. They should be subjective adjectives to grab the hiring manager's attention and be relevant to what the company is looking for.
Example: highly organised and outgoing professionals with more than 17 years of experience in XX and XX working with some of the biggest names in XX industry.
Employment history: this allows you to back up your soft skills with numbers and details. It is not about saying you have excellent communication skills; it is how you prove it and show a hiring manager your soft skills equal gain for the company.
Example: I developed a national network of XX and XX to support work around a system strategy by collaborating and working with XX people across the system to agree on outcomes and outputs.
Skills section: usually for more technical abilities, but soft skills should be here too. It’s a good place for specific soft skills you couldn't expand on elsewhere. They could be mentoring, negotiation and public speaking. You could also include storytelling, dispute resolution, team management etc.
Expert Tip: The most critical soft skill is good communication becuase it means more precise tasks, fewer misunderstandings and increased motivation.
Need help in identifying your soft skills? Then I can help.
