Importance of soft skills

Nyaradzo Mavindidze Motivation for success

THE limited job opportunities in the country require prospective job seekers to have soft skills in order to get ahead of others. What is the use of technical skills ? if nobody knows you have got such skills, I hear you say? The essence of education is opportunity. The essence of your technical ability is opportunity. Use soft skills to cultivate opportunity.
Use soft skills to grab opportunities with both hands. Keep the right perspective: your value, not just your technical expertise, is your power.

Technical skills have little value if you have poor soft skills. Don’t get me wrong, your technical expertise matters.
But they are not the only guarantee to success. Technical skills alone don’t lead to recognition, promotion, and most importantly: opportunity. Tech skills are important but so are your soft skills.

How well do you communicate with your colleagues, management, clients or your employer? Are you perceived as a contributor or just another overqualified person?
Certification is not an end in itself

To succeed you definitely need to have solid technical skills with a good grasp of the fundamentals.
To make any headway you need to be on solid ground with hard technical know-how of your job.

The industry in Zimbabwe and globally requires you to fortify yourself on a continuous basis with up-to-date technical knowledge and concepts.

Training, certification, the Internet, books are all avenues that you can use to achieve this. But what about your soft skills?

As you build up your expertise, what effort are you making to develop your non-tech abilities? Certification is not an end in itself.

Soft skills help advance your career

Your interpersonal skills should be top notch to deliver results with your colleagues and stakeholders.
As a project manager, how do you motivate other members of your team?

You may need to work and interact with accountants and customer service staff to develop the company’s new business software.
And no matter how “good” you think you are you will not get the marks you feel you deserve if you can’t communicate well with colleagues or clients.

In fact, the perception might be that you are not competent. But when you interact better with the people you have to work with, your performance tends to improve and they go away with a positive impression. And the meaning of positive impression is more opportunity, more responsibility.

Soft skills empower you and create opportunities
In my opinion, the main benefit of soft skills is empowerment. How does your technical skill translate into value? How do you create opportunity?

Soft skills are useful for creating and taking advantage of opportunities – jobs, career and business.
No matter how great your technical skills are,
when job hunting, your marketing skills should be first-class.

Otherwise your competitors, who may not be as capable as you but who have better marketing skills, might beat you to that job that you are after.

There are opportunities in Zimbabwe. But there are also challenges and competition. In such a competitive environment, perception often reigns supreme.

If your technical competencies are similar to those of other candidates how do you differentiate yourself?
The problem, however, is how do I know if you are good if you can’t sell what you have – yourself or your ideas?

Your certifications and previous work experience are important. But the issue at stake is this: can you convince the interviewer or clients that you will solve their problems and deliver value?

Soft skills not only improve your career, they also offer personal growth
Interestingly, the acquisition of soft skills also empowers you by allowing you to build flexibility into your future career plans.

How?
Most soft skills are regarded as transferable skills, eg. communication, project management, business and team work, which are needed in nearly all aspects of life, not just for your career alone. You need to grow not just as an expert in your field but also as a person.

• Nyaradzo Mavindidze a motivational speaker is the Managing Consultants at Avodah Consultants which specialises in soft skills training and coaching. For feedback email [email protected]