Successful Careers Start With Soft Skills

What makes successful careers?

If you ask me what makes a successful career I have no doubt: it’s soft skills. My professional role models not only were really good at things like coding, note taking or even cooking. They also had unique traits that made them more human, reliable, easy to work with, and that’s what made them great professionals in my eyes.

By soft skills I mean intangible competencies that enable your (working) relations, for example: time management, negotiation, leadership. On the other hand, with hard skills I refer to tangible working outputs, and they are typically more measurable. They are both essential to work anywhere, but only soft skills will make you grow as a professional. Why?

When you become really good at something, like accounting, that turns you into a really good technician. But what if you were also really good at sharing the story of your work? That would make you an analyst, a storyteller, or even a leader. In fact, analysing and communicating can help you influence the way people make decisions. That is way more powerful.

To give you a better perspective, I will share two stories from my clients: Andrea – startup founder looking for young hires, and Yasmine – graduate student looking for a job.

Andrea: startup founder looking for young hires

Andrea is the founder of a food startup producing healthy, organic, freshly made meals delivered at your door. He called up The Rebel Company to design the job description of young riders who would be in charge of their delivery service.

As we delved into the requirements of the job, we looked at hard core requirements like owning a driving licence, using a smart device, etc. Then I asked: “Do you think punctuality should be a requirement for the job too?” And he said “Naaa, It’s not really a major thing”. So I asked back: “Isn’t this person required to deliver food in the promised time? What happens if they don’t?” Immediately the client realised that bad time management could impact the business quite negatively – as effectively it was. “When you put it like that,” he said, “that’s actually pretty important.” and then added: “We cannot afford to lose credibility.”

Long story short: punctuality went straight into the top requirements of the job description.

Yasmine: graduate student looking for a job

Students and early stage professionals are also clients at The Rebel Company. My training with them focuses on the importance of telling a truthful, compelling story that will match the job description they apply for. This enables recruiters to recognise why you should be considered a strong match for the role, while allowing you to move forward in the recruitment process. At this point, Yasmine – or any other student of her age – typically asks:

“How do I tell my story? Studying has been my only job for my whole life.
How am I going to look relevant?”

If on the one hand this story looks true, it is also incomplete. For example, when leadership comes up in job descriptions, I always invite my students to reflect on their non formal work experiences, like: volunteering, study groups, small gigs with friends. Ultimately, I tell them to stop worrying about how they will look, especially with young girls. The fear of coming across as too aggressive or presumptuous holds them back from framing their own narrative, and we don’t want that.

Long story short: allow your strengths to be visible.

Conclusion

Hard skills are important, but soft skills make the difference between a good and a great professional. Which one are you going to choose? Whether you are a leader or a young graduate, my advice is to give soft skills the attention they deserve, either in job descriptions or in cover letters. This will empower you to address the job market with clarity and confidence, turning your career into a blooming success.