Employment

Highlighting Your Soft Skills to Recruiters

ferfgwHighlighting your soft skills on the cover letter, on the resume, and during interviews can be very tricky. Even though you wish to show that you have all the soft skills needed by prospective employers, you don’t want them to get the impression that you’re bragging.

What is the most effective way of highlighting your soft skills to recruiters? This article comprehensively answers this pertinent question by providing valuable information on the soft skills that most employers look for, and how to effectively highlight them.

Assess the needs of prospective employers

The most effective way of identifying the soft skills that need to be accentuated on your CV is by placing yourself in the potential employers’ shoes. Find out what their needs are and also how you can accomplish them. Carefully look at the job description.

Use power words

When describing your skills, it’s important to make use of power words. Express your soft skills in a way that is impactful, persuasive and also forceful. This can be achieved by making use of action oriented verbs like reduced, conceptualized, pioneered, systemized, targeted and monitored, among others.

Demonstrate how the employer will benefit

It’s important to quantify the benefits that the potential employer will get if they employ you. For instance, you can state how your skills can help reduce the operational costs by 20%, or enhance the net profits by 25%.

Strong work ethic

Ensure you provide proof about your exceptional work ethics by providing examples from your past concerning how you deliberately went beyond and above the calls of duty.

Explain how you always manage to complete assigned projects on time, why you’re always persistent and punctual, and also how you’ll balance the organizations’ goals with your desire for personal success.

Demonstrate a positive attitude

Provide examples about how you enhanced the morale of other employees during previous postings, or how the positive attitude in you naturally motivated other colleagues.

Some people are always upbeat and bubbly, while others have a low energy demeanor. If you’re in the second category, it’s advisable to smile when shaking the interviewers’ hands. Additionally, you’ll need to deliberately add expressions and intonations when responding to questions.

If the interviewers see that you’re just dry and boring, they may not give you that job.

Communication skills

Oral interviews are excellent opportunities for demonstrating your exceptional communication skills. Before attending any interview, it’s advisable to prepare adequately and also practice responses so as to showcase your soft skills. When giving examples, you must be concrete and even provide proof.

Time management

Be prepared to illustrate how you always give first priority to the most important things/ people, how you delegate duties that can be effectively done by other employees, and how you always find ways and means of achieving objectives within the available time constraints.

Self confidence

If you’re looking for a job, you ought to demonstrate how confident you are during the interview. Self confidence can be demonstrated by how you dress, how you enter and exit the interview room, how you shake the interviewers’ hands and also how you speak.

If you are not very confident, why don’t you start practicing today? When talking to strangers, maintain direct eye contact. If your voice is somewhat timid or shrill, make it strong.

Are you aware that prospective employers use candidates’ body language to judge their levels of self confidence? If you like hunching over, ensure that you sit upright during the interview.

Which are the top soft skills that employers look out for?

Most employers seek to employ candidates who have one or more of the following soft skills:

  • effective communication skills
  • emotional intelligence
  • strong work ethics
  • interpersonal
  • process improvement
  • adaptability
  • as well as problem solving skills

If you have any questions, please ask below!