Hacks to scoring a job

You’ve all heard a lot about hard skills and soft skills or ‘human skills’ as some people prefer to call them.

Sometimes it’s hard for students to demonstrate that they have the technical or professional skills for a role because they haven’t had the workplace experience. As well as these “hard skills” learned through your education or training, we all know more employers these days are focusing on the soft skills like critical thinking, problem-solving and collaboration.

While soft skills aren’t explicitly tested in interviews, they can be a huge part of the hiring decision – not to mention playing an important role in making you successful in any work environment. To help you land that new job, below is a list of the top soft skills and hacks in the areas that employers look for.

1. Critical Thinking

Critical thinking is the ability to objectively assess, analyse, and break down a problem into its core roots in order to come up with solutions. A successful critical thinker is able to look at a problem from multiple angles, as opposed to having only one perception of the problem, giving them the ability to create multiple solutions.

Hack
An easy way to improve your critical thinking skills is to grab a few puzzle books and work your way through them. Try to select books that don’t solely rely on logic, but rather contain more complex problems. Have an example of critical thinking or problem solving ready to share in an interview, or even add it to an application where it suits.

2. Collaborative Spirit

The ability to work well with others is important in any work situation. It can affect a team’s mood, workplace atmosphere and business outcome. Knowing your role within a team and having the ability to fit in and collaborate well with others is a skill that is always highly regarded by employers.

It’s important to prove that not only are you a team player but also have the ability to manage, delegate and take on responsibilities while building positive working relationships that help everyone to achieve their goals.

Hack
Provide examples of where you have demonstrated you’re a strong team player – it could be in any situation – volunteering, playing sport at school, being part of a club or society, or some other leadership role. Try to also include the outcomes of this engagement when you are describing it.

3. Communication Skills

The ability to communicate and present is an exceptionally valuable skill in today’s job market. Public speaking is a common fear of many people but is becoming more important in business. Many businesses expect their employees to be able to present confidently to clients and other team members.

Communication skills are not just verbal. Good writing, grammar and spelling are also important if you want to get ahead in your career. Everyone has to write work emails and as you progress up the promotion ladder you’ll probably need to write reports. Both writing and verbal communication skills can be improved through practice.

Hack
For public speaking, it’s true that the more you do it, the easier it becomes. Try public speaking in front of people you feel comfortable with, this will help you to build your confidence over time. There’s a lot of good advice on the web on how to help overcome the jitters. The main thing to remember is to be really proud of yourself for doing something that scares the hell out of most people because a lot of them will never even take that chance.

For written work, use free online spelling and grammar tools like Grammarly to help you, but always proof-read to ensure it makes sense, sometimes these tools aren’t 100% right.