In my experience as an HR Director, performance issues were most often associated with a lack of soft skills. It wasn’t that an employee couldn’t learn a new software program or had sufficient knowledge in their field. Instead, I saw with performance issues that the employee lacked a skill like relationship building or critical thinking, which made it difficult for them to perform well.

I am not the only one that has observed this. In The Future of Work 2021: Global Hiring Outlook by Monster, one of the biggest challenges that hiring managers feel they face is a skills gap. 80% of those managers surveyed said the skills gap has gotten wider since the previous year.

In this survey, hiring managers cited the following skills as needed in their hires. This was true amongst all industries.

• Dependability

• Teamwork/Collaboration

• Problem Solving

• Flexibility

Do you notice a theme? These are all soft skills.

What Are Soft Skills? How Are They Different Than Hard Skills?

When I say soft skills, let’s be clear about what they are. Soft skills are attributes around how you interrelate with others and how you work. Hard skills, on the other hand, are the knowledge you have acquired or teachable abilities. Technical skills, such as proficiency with a software program or industry-specific knowledge, fall into this category. 

Most jobs will require you to have a combination of both hard and soft skills. Often, you will see the necessary hard skills listed in a job description—such as years of experience or education. These are the “price of entry” to be considered for the role. Yet, when it comes to deciding who is hired, the employer often will look to those candidates that also possess the needed soft skills for the best role fit. That is why someone with ten years of experience but lacking in the required soft skills may not be hired while someone with five years of experience and the soft skills needed in the role will.

Examples of Soft Skills

We use soft skills every day in our professional and private lives, but we often do not think about them because these skills may come naturally. But what comes naturally to you may not come naturally to others. So while people can get better in a soft skill, such as your written communication skills, for others, your internal “wiring” may make anything other than basic proficiency harder in such areas as innovation or creativity.

Here is a list of common soft skills that employers might desire for a role. Notice these are broad categories. Within each is other specific skills that are an integral component of the more general skill.

Adaptability/Flexibility: ability to learn, persistence, resourcefulness, etc.

Communication: listening skills, presentation skills, tact, etc.

Conflict Management: collaboration, compromise, positive competition, etc.

Creativity/Innovation: divergent thinking, ideation, openness, etc.

Critical Thinking: problem identification, information gathering, evaluation, etc.

Decision Making: brainstorming, objective determination, option evaluation, etc.

Emotional Intelligence: self-awareness, self-regulation, empathy, etc.

Leadership: delegation, confidence, decisiveness, etc.

Negotiation/Persuasion: building rapport, strategy, compromise, etc.

Organizational: planning, prioritizing, delegation, etc.

Relationship Building: honesty, transparency, respect, etc.

Teamwork: accountability, open communications, respect, etc.

Time Management: goal setting, multi-tasking, scheduling, etc.

Why Are Soft Skills Important for Career Success?

Each organization has a culture, those spoken or unspoken rules and norms that people are asked to abide by in an organization. Often, the possession of specific soft skills is vital for aligning with the culture. Let me give you an example. Say the culture is very collaborative. People or teams will be working closely together, sharing ideas, and executing those ideas. For collaboration to work, individuals need to be able to develop productive relationships. They need to be able to advocate for themself but also listen to others and try to find the best solution.

In this scenario, it may be imperative for the organization to hire individuals with good interpersonal skills. These may include good negotiation skills and openness to feedback, among others. If the person does not have abilities in this area, it may prove difficult for them to succeed within this organization.

Another example could be being detail-oriented. For example, if you are working as an Accountant, correctly entering numbers could be crucially important. Financial statements must be accurate. If the financial statements are not correct, business decisions may be made with incorrect information, negatively impacting the business. Therefore, an Accountant may need to have strong attention to detail to make sure all entries are accurate.

In my experience, unlike hard skills, it is harder to teach a person how to better build relationships or to find errors they have made (or not make them in the first place). Yes, you can teach techniques to be friendlier or double-check yourself, but most people have innate abilities in these areas while others may not. Therefore, employers may find it more effective to hire people with soft skills and teach hard skills than the other way around.

How to Show Soft Skills on a Resume

While a recruiter or hiring manager may first want to look at your hard skills, like years of experience or specific expertise, they likely will want to get a sense, in addition, of the soft skills you possess. There are several places in a resume where you have an opportunity to provide this information.

Professional Summary

You may decide to include a professional summary as part of your resume. The professional summary provides a quick overview of your experience, achievements, and skills for the reader. There are a few sentences that provide context around why you would be a fit for the role. While this section should focus on the hard skills that the reader is looking for to determine if you are qualified for a position, if possessing specific soft skills also appears to be a requirement, you can briefly talk about them here.

As a rule, your resume will be more powerful if you state you have a skill and show that skill in action through a result or achievement. 

As part of a professional summary, you can showcase important soft skills.

• Adaptable Communicator: Assesses audience, actively listens, and provides clarity to build and maintain relationships at all organizational levels.

• Tenacious: Loves a challenge to build things bigger and better than thought possible.

Skills Section

You may choose to add a Skills or Competency Section, which will allow you to list the skills you possess. You can either use this section to highlight both your hard and soft skills together or list them separately. Having this section can potentially help with any matching the ATS system might do regarding how closely your knowledge, skills, and experience match the job description. The key to success in this section is to ensure that you provide further context about the skill in your Experience Section. It is one thing to say you have a skill. It is another to demonstrate to the reader that you possess the skills.

In this example, hard and soft skills are presented together.

Analysis | Board Presentations | Budgeting | Coaching | Executive Presence | Leadership | Negotiations | Problem Solving | Process Improvement |  Project Management |  Relationship Management | Risk Management | Sales Strategy |

Experience Section

In my opinion, this is the best place to showcase your soft skills. With a focus on results and achievements in this area of your resume, you can show how using both your hard and soft skills together resulted in obtaining outstanding business results. 

One of the best ways to do this is to use bullet points to showcase your successes. A good formula is the following:

Achievement X by doing action(s) Y

In the action Y area, this is where you can add your soft skills, such as decision making or teamwork, and how you used them to get the result.

You can write bullet points that exhibit the soft skills that you possess.

• Achieved one of the highest YOY growth rates for the company, 15% sales and 12% profitability, by upgrading the sales force, constant training, and problem-solving logistical issues.

Or

• Added 600 lbs. a week of cheesesteak meat through collaboration with distributor representative, via product presentation and price negotiation. 

Conclusion

Don’t just focus on hard skills in your resume. The reader, either a recruiter or hiring manager, wants to understand everything that you can bring of value. Smart recruiters and hiring managers know that while hard skills can get you an interview, your soft skills will often get you the job offer. So make sure you are emphasizing both on your resume.

If you are interested in how to write an impactful resume, you may also enjoy reading Show your results: How to get your resume noticed.

Shelley Piedmont is a job search coach. She wants to help job seekers put their best foot forward by providing the tools for a successful job search. If you need career coaching, resume preparation, interview skills assessment, or LinkedIn profile assistance, she can help. Schedule a 15-minute no-obligation consultation.