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What are soft skills?

Soft Skills are behavioral, social and emotional skills. These skills are usually acquired through experience over time, not through books and courses.

The term “soft skills” is not about “soft” or “light” skills, as we could understand with the translation, but rather, those that deal with the relationship and interaction with others.

Different from the skills called «hard skills», which are technical and specific knowledge, soft skills are the skills that belong to the personality and behavior of the professional, interesting for any professional area.

What is the purpose of investing in soft skills?

Companies are no longer analyzing the ability of professionals only by the number of courses and diplomas they have acquired. Today, many skills and traits are valued and can determine a greater chance of success.

The CEO of Gama Academy — a school specialized in training talents to work in the digital market — and one of the founders of the Startup Association, Guilherme Junqueira, investigated the “soft skills” most demanded and valued by the market. According to him, there is a phrase that explains the importance of soft skills very well:

“Companies hire for the curriculum and fire for the behavior.” That is, professionals are hired for their “hard skills”, and fired for lack of “soft skills”.

Daniel Goleman, author of the bestselling Emotional Intelligence and expert psychologist on the subject, says that “Skills such as resilience, empathy, collaboration and communication are all skills based on emotional intelligence and that distinguish incredible professionals from the average”

According to the author, unfortunately young people are not giving due importance to the value of emotional intelligence in the work environment. However, the skills it involves are essential for the professional to focus, motivate and collaborate in a productive way.

These are the skills that can enable the professional to occupy leadership positions, for example, since it involves dealing with people and with himself. Nowadays, just degrees are not enough. You need to bet on other skills.

Examples of soft skills on the rise in the market

Good communication

Having effective communication, that is, knowing how to communicate clearly and listen carefully is an extremely important soft skill. Good communication also involves the ability to speak to the most diverse audiences and know how to behave in different situations.

Flexibility

Flexibility is the act of learning to adapt to any situation. A flexible professional can bring many advantages to the company, such as, for example, knowing how to adapt to different situations and acting naturally in different circumstances.

Know how to work in a team

The good performance of a company is closely linked to the ways in which its employees interact. However, companies find it very difficult to establish a staff that truly works as a group.

Therefore, the professional who has and develops the ability to know how to work in a team is one step ahead of others.

Creative Thinking

With the market increasingly competitive, professionals with creative ideas and thoughts can stand out. Companies are looking for professionals who can demonstrate more ease in developing solutions quickly and innovatively.

Many may think that some people are born with the gift of creativity, but the truth is that this ability can be built through knowledge about a certain subject, professional experiences and resilience.

Leadership

Knowing how to lead makes the professional more than good. And this skill is practically a product of the union of all the skills we talk about here: being creative, knowing how to work in a team, being flexible and having good communication. That is, to be a good leader, you must already have all these skills well defined.

How to develop soft skills?

Self knowledge

Practicing self-knowledge is essential to identify your strengths and weaknesses. That way, you will be able to highlight your qualities and work on what needs to be improved.

feedback

Feedback is very important, both for the company and for the professional. If possible, ask colleagues, friends, family, teachers and managers, that is, people who know you professionally and personally, to assess your soft skills skills. Use the answers to improve and evolve.

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