A beginner's list of professional soft skills to put on your resume
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Soft skills are highly desired in today’s professional industries.
Many work environments look for hard and technically learned skill sets but soft skills tend to hold more power over positions. It’s important to know hard skills, like Adobe Creative Suite or book-keeping software, but your soft skills show how you work with others, whether that be a client or a coworker.
If you look at many beginner entry-level jobs, such as food services and retail positions, many people see that soft skills are highly sought out compared to hard technical skills that can be easier to teach.
When I first started working, I was constantly approached by customers and clients. It didn’t matter what job I was performing, I had to know more about my transferable soft skills than most of the technical skills required for the job. I wouldn’t be able to perform most of the job requirements without learning and developing my soft skill set before working on any hard skills I might need.
I learned to keep track of every and all skills I needed while working at various jobs. While it wasn’t always the same, I was able to transfer many of my skill sets over to my next job. Some were even more helpful in getting a job than my technical skills were.
Most of my employers realized, that while knowing the technical skills were important, they couldn’t teach many of the soft skills my previous work experience had taught me.
I’ve started a list for those of you who are beginners at identifying and developing your soft skills that could prove helpful on your resume and job applications. Here are some of the most notable ones.
Soft Transferable Skills: Customer Service
Most jobs have become service-based over the last few decades or so. It’s hard not to find jobs that require customer service skills and many jobs ask that you have multiple soft skills that are based in customer service industries.
These are some of the most desired soft skills that are easily transferable across job industries.
Communication
Communication skills are one of the highest in-demand soft skills for employers. Not only should you showcase your communication skills throughout your work experience, but you should also explain how they served you in the workplace.
As a transferable skill, communication can be shown in many forms. Most employers want to know you can communicate with employees and clients in various ways, such as written and verbal communication.
Teamwork
It’s highly improbable that you’ve worked solitary jobs your entire career. Even if your positions were self-reliant, you would still have to work with a team to achieve the desired outcome.
Teamwork is a great transferable soft skill because it shows that you can adapt and be a team player, no matter what role you play.
Mediator
While you might not be the typical mediator, playing Switzerland in a dispute, you can always showcase your mediation skills with other conflict resolution roles you’ve overseen. Whether it’s mediating a claim with a customer or working around a potential problem, mediation is a great soft skill to put on your resume.
You’ve probably transferred your mediation skills to more than you realize. If you’ve ever mediated a fight between your siblings, you’ve probably showcased this soft transferable skill a few times.
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Soft Transferable Skills: Project Management
While you might not be applying for a project manager position, you’ll need to know how to work through projects over a length of time with various job positions. Some jobs might require longer lengths for certain projects, while others may be short, but you should know how to prioritize and manage various aspects of a project’s production and timetable.
Project management soft transferable skills are great for resumes when learning how to approach and solve problems.
Critical Thinking
Thinking through problems and able to identify solutions is part of every job. While you might have routine work that you need to perform, there’s always the potential for something new to come around.
Critical thinking allows you to see a problem and research it to determine various potential solutions. As a soft skill, critical thinking will help show your ability to dissect projects thoroughly and thoughtfully.
Adaptable
Adaptability will show that you can conform to your environment. Not only will problems arise, but you need to be able to show that you can change your course of action in light of new information.
While in the news industry, we had many instances where we needed to be adaptable, depending on the results or breaking news stories. That experience allowed me to transfer that skill to many of my future applications.
Problem Solver
Once you’re confronted with a problem, you need to be able to find a solution. Sometimes this will require quick thinking on your part, so being the go-to problem solver will help your skillset shine through when transferring jobs or positions.
Problem-solving can take time to develop and the best way to develop it is to become overly familiar with common solutions to common occurrences. Knowing various procedures and routines allows you to adapt and apply them to outstanding circumstances rather than applying completely new solutions to problems that don’t warrant them.
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Soft Transferable Skills: Leadership
You might not be searching for leadership soft skills, but they are great to develop for when you need to be more self-reliant in your position than compared to with a group. Despite your level within a company, transferring leadership skills are awesome additions to any resume.
Transfer these soft skills when you want to move up or when breaching the subject for a management position once you gain some experience.
Delegation
You can’t do everything at once. It’s just not possible. You need to rely on your team and their strengths to help you when you need it.
Delegation helps you become a better leader by knowing how to effectively and productively perform a job and manage a task rather than becoming bogged down by doing everything. Transfer this skill from other work experiences with leadership roles and you’ll show how you can be a team player while still leading a team.
Takes Charge
You’ll want to show that, as a leader, you’ll be able to conduct a meeting, at the least and oversee multiple departments and employees, at the most. Taking charge isn’t just about bossing people around, but about leading others to their best potential.
Transfer this soft skill when you know you have helped others in your work environment grow and succeed in their professional lives.
Public Speaking
Public speaking is not an easy task, at least for many people. Speaking in front of a crowd and commandeering the respect of the audience is a very sought after skill that many managerial positions seek in new employees.
I’m not a great public speaker. Even when in front of a small group of my peers, it can be nerve-wracking to perform a speech or hold a forum of questions. But knowing that I can do it and can be productive at it when called upon, is a good soft skill that employers look for with manager talent.
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Soft Transferable Skills: Organization
Being organized isn’t only applied to your desk anymore. Being able to show you’re able to organize the way you approach and execute your work is a highly sought after soft skill. Not only will this show you have a plan in mind, but also a roadmap on how you can achieve an efficient and productive result.
Try to determine how you were able to achieve your last professional goal and what the result was to claim these organizational soft transferable skills.
Goal-Setter
You shouldn’t just set a goal in your professional career and not know how you’re going to go about achieving it. To claim this as a transferable soft skill, try to imagine a time where you have needed to work or improve on a skill or performance at work. Now see how you were able to achieve that goal. You’ll want to showcase more of how you achieved the goals you had in place rather than on what.
Goals can be personal or with a team, but showcase perseverance and dedication towards your result when asked about this question.
Self-Starter
Many jobs are a mix of self-reliant and teamwork-based positions. If you’re given a task, some tasks are routine and you should know how to execute them after you’ve learned the routine well enough.
Knowing that you’re a self-starter will help your future employers know you can be relied upon when needed. You won’t need your hand held through every project you’re presented. Nor will you be negligent of other duties that you’ll need to complete throughout your position.
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Productivity
Many employers appreciate a solid way to prove you were considered productive at your previous place of employment. This can be numerical, like earning the highest sales or credit card openings for a month, or gaining a finished product, like setting forth a new routine that helped efficiency.
There are many ways employers view productivity, but showing them with proof will help them see how you will transfer this soft skill in a new work environment.
Soft Transferable Skills: Creativity
Everyone claims to have varying depths of creativity. You might not think you have much of a creative mindset, but these creative soft skills can beg to differ on your resume.
Transfer some of your creative soft skills from your past work experience by seeing how you related and worked through problems. If you created new procedures or found a new product that your company enjoys, give yourself a little credit and transfer your creative soft skills to your resume.
Influencer
Creativity based jobs need a lot of skills being persuasive. Not only do you have to listen to your customers about their needs, but you also need to show them why and what creative approaches are good for your business.
Being an influencer could mean showing employees why it’s good to have a social media strategy or proving why a marketing project will help your company’s sales. Influencing helps promote and secure new ideas throughout the workplace.
Researcher
Researching will probably never go out of style as a soft skill on a resume. This soft skill shows that you can delve into a subject and learn various facts about a project before making an informed, thought out decision.
Some decisions will have to come faster than others, but knowing that you’ve researched ideas beforehand and know what’s expected of you will be a huge plus for future employers.
Outside-the-box thinking
When you’re in a creative environment, you’ll need to come up with novel and unapproachable ideas. Developing an outside-the-box mindset will help you navigate how to come up with and instigate new ways of thinking about procedures and routines.
You won’t always need to have unique ideas when simple solutions will do. Having the transferable soft skill is great to show when you can brainstorm new ideas and approach things in a new way.
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Soft skills are highly sought after in today’s various industries. While technical skills still might be required in many positions, soft skills are easily transferable between industries and across work experience.
If you’re looking for an entry-level or trying to revamp your resume, this is a good starter list to find some soft skills that might apply to your work experience.
If you need more soft skill recommendations to put on your resume, join my e-newsletter for addition soft skills you can add to previous work experience.
