Hide

Take the first step

Create your account to access:

  • Personalized recommendations
  • Resources for going back to school
  • Important updates about your education program

Create My Account

Already have an account? Log In

powered by

InStride Logo

Soft Skills Series: Marketing the Soft Skills Managers Want

4 min read

Showcasing your skills

Soft skills are a collection of non-technical skills that contribute to your work in a variety of ways. They are an essential way to improve your performance at work and to increase your overall job satisfaction. Soft skills impact your relationships, your ability to succeed in teams and your opportunities to make progress professionally.

Marketing the soft skills managers want

If you’ve read the other articles in our Soft Skills series, you’ve learned how skills such as leadership, communication, resilience and critical thinking are key to success in your current job and in advancing in your chosen career path.

A recent report by iCIMS Hiring Insights found that 94% of recruiting managers say that strong soft skills are more important than years of experience when managers decide whether or not to promote an employee to a leadership position.

To help you make progress toward your professional goals, let’s explore how to incorporate your soft skills into your day-to-day work activities.

Why Soft Skills Matter

Even if you aren’t pursuing a leadership role, soft skills matter. LinkedIn’s 2018 Workplace Learning Report found that soft skills such as leadership, communication and interpersonal skills are the most valuable skills for employees to have. Despite their importance, employers struggle to find candidates who have soft skills. The 2019 State of the Workplace Report found that 30% of companies reported that candidates “do not have the right workplace (soft skills).”

Additionally, as more jobs become automated, soft skills will become more critical. “When it comes to managing an entry-level employee or leading a project across many departments, a robot can’t do that,” explains Susan Vitale, workplace expert and Chief Marketing Officer at iCIMS.

How to Market Your Soft Skills

There are formal ways to promote your soft skills such as writing pieces that establish you as an expert in your field or on a particular subject, seeking out public speaking opportunities, and other informal opportunities such as local networking opportunities and industry events, and the comments section of LinkedIn or professional blogs. Some of the informal ways to market your skills include:

  • Demonstrating a learning mindset by being curious and open to new information
  • Building and nurturing a community or employee resource group
  • Offer your services to others in your team or organization
  • Encouraging self-reflection in others and show it in yourself
  • Continuously expanding your knowledge and understanding 
  • Providing opportunities for colleagues to practice their own soft skills
  • Asking for and sharing constructive feedback regularly 

By making an effort to improve your soft skills as an ongoing practice, you will demonstrate to those around you that improving those skills is a priority for you and your progress will be apparent by everyone who works closely with you.

You can also lead with your soft skills in an interview. When an interviewer meets you, they form an impression about who you are. To help them form an accurate impression, showcase your relevant soft skills, not just what you know or your professional credentials. An interview is the time to demonstrate soft skills such as curiosity, communication, openness and preparation.

Showcase Your Soft Skills

Ready to further show off your soft skills or your dedication to honing your skills to your organization? Download this checklist to help you make your case:

Checklist: How to showcase your in-demand soft skills ▢ Keep track of moments where you’ve demonstrated enhanced soft skills. Be sure to note and share how you used your soft skills to yield positive results.  ▢ Add online learning goals to your professional development plan.  This shows your commitment to ongoing advancement and is a concrete way to measure advancement in an area.  ▢ Share your soft skills tips with teammates. Allow your teammates the opportunity to benefit from what you’ve learned. ▢ Add your certificate to your resume and LinkedIn profile. Let your professional network and organization know what you’ve completed and the specific results.

If you’d like to learn more about soft skills, check out the articles linked below. Prepared to improve your soft skills? Review the learning options that can help you increase your ability to lead, think critically or communicate.


Sources
Additional Resources