How Soft Skills Can Help You Get Ahead in a Tech World
Knowing how to code will only get you so far
Source | www.entrepreneur.com | Shelley Osborne
You’ve read the headlines: If you don’t have tech skills, your career is doomed.
While it’s true that technology plays a huge part in virtually every job out there, plenty of other skills contribute to your performance, and being able to code will only take you so far. If you want to set yourself apart as a workplace superstar, either as a manager or individual contributor, you’re going to have to develop into a well-rounded professional.
The road to success is paved with soft skills, an unfortunate label because these skills are anything but fluffy. When you complement technical skills with soft skills, you increase your value beyond any specific job responsibilities. One recent survey of recruiters found that 94 percent believe “an employee with stronger soft skills has a better chance of being promoted to a leadership position than an employee with more years of experience but weaker soft skills.”
With hard skills, once you’ve learned them, you’re responsible for strengthening and maintaining them over time. Soft skills, on the other hand, may not change radically due to technological advances, but you still need to continue to refine and develop them as your career evolves and you find yourself in new situations, with new people and new business demands. One Harvard Business School professor went as far as to say that “deficient soft skills is the No. 1 reason workers are fired.”
