You’ll hear the phrase “soft skills” thrown around a lot when looking to build your resume. It can be easy to throw in the words “motivated” and “organised” in your resume bio but taking the time to formally assess your soft skills is a vital part of the application process. Soft skills, also known as interpersonal or emotional intelligence, can be just as important as technical skills in the job market. These skills, such as communication, teamwork, and problem-solving, can be the deciding factor in getting hired or promoted.

According to LinkedIn’s 2024 Global Talent Trends report, 93% of employers consider soft skills to be either as important as or more important than technical skills when making hiring decisions. These interpersonal and emotional intelligence capabilities often determine not just whether you get hired, but how far you’ll advance in your career.

As Neil Carberry, CEO of the Recruitment and Employment Confederation, once said, “Business is clear that developing the right attitudes and attributes in people – such as resilience, respect, enthusiasm and creativity – is just as important as academic or technical skills”.  Employers know full well that technical prowess is useless if a candidate cannot communicate well with others or develop a sensitivity to the needs of the consumer.  

What are Soft Skills?

Soft skills are your interpersonal abilities and behavioral attributes. Unlike technical qualifications, these skills are highly transferable across industries and roles. Essentially, soft skills are the combination of attitudes, abilities and behaviours that help you effectively do your job. Whereas hard skills relate to technical qualifications (such as programming proficiency or languages spoken), soft skills relate to personality and disposition. 

The great thing about soft skills is that they are highly transferrable, so even if your previous position was very different to the one you are applying for, you will likely have developed communicative, organisational, or motivational skills that will help you in your new role.

This isn’t to say that soft skills can’t be learnt, and many people pay thousands of dollars to learn soft skills through online courses. From teamwork to problem solving, these skills can be the real key to workplace success.

Core Soft Skills and Their Real-World Application

1. Communication

  • Workplace Example: A product manager successfully bridges the gap between technical developers and non-technical stakeholders by translating complex features into clear business benefits.
  • Resume Achievement: “Facilitated cross-departmental communication that reduced project delays by 40% through clear documentation and regular stakeholder updates”

2. Leadership

  • Workplace Example: A team lead motivates their group to meet an aggressive deadline by clearly articulating goals and providing support where needed.
  • Resume Achievement: “Led a team of 8 through a critical system upgrade, maintaining 100% team retention while delivering 2 weeks ahead of schedule”

3. Problem-Solving

  • Workplace Example: An employee identifies a bottleneck in the customer service process and implements a new workflow that reduces response times.
  • Resume Achievement: “Developed and implemented a new customer service protocol that reduced average response time from 24 hours to 4 hours”

4. Adaptability

  • Workplace Example: A marketing specialist quickly pivots campaign strategy in response to unexpected market changes.
  • Resume Achievement: “Successfully redirected marketing strategy within 48 hours of major competitor launch, resulting in maintained market share”

What are Good Examples of Soft Skills?

Work Styles 

These skills refer to the way you approach your work. It is important to remember that there is no “right” way to work, but certain approaches might suit different companies better. A small start-up might want self-starters, with high levels of self-motivation and flexibility. An established corporation on the other hand might be looking for excellent team players, with attention to detail and an ability to work to fixed targets.

Skills for Start-Ups and Small Businesses:

  • Self-starter
  • Responsibility
  • Initiative
  • Flexibility
  • Self-motivation
  • Self-supervision

Skills for Established Corporations and Large Businesses:

  • Target-oriented
  • Collaborative
  • Team-player
  • Organised
  • Ability to work under pressure
  • Communicative
  • Dependability
  • Growth mindset

Disposition/Personality Skills

These skills communicate personal character traits that reflect how well you might gel with a team. Employers increasingly care a lot about culture fit, and how you might inspire others with your energy and enthusiasm. These can be more informal for start-ups and small businesses but should be safer and more reserved for established corporations. Make sure you avoid cliches! 

Skills for Start-Ups and Small Businesses:

  • Humorous
  • Energetic
  • Optimistic 
  • Intercultural sensitivity
  • Lively
  • Friendly
  • Empathetic

Skills for Established Corporations and Large Businesses:

  • Courtesy
  • Enthusiasm
  • Patience
  • Respectful
  • Social
  • Positive attitude
  • Diplomatic

Tailoring Soft Skills to Your Target Employer – examples

For Start-Ups 

  • Initiative and self-direction
  • Flexibility and adaptability
  • Creative problem-solving
  • Entrepreneurial mindset

For Corporations

  • Collaborative approach
  • Process adherence
  • Stakeholder management
  • Strategic thinking

Developing Your Soft Skills

  1. Active Practice
    • Volunteer for cross-functional projects
    • Seek leadership opportunities
    • Participate in team activities
    • Request challenging assignments
  2. Formal Development
    • Join professional organizations
    • Attend workshops and seminars
    • Participate in mentorship programs
    • Take relevant courses

Identifying Your Soft Skills

There are tonnes more soft skills out there to inspire you, but the best soft skills are those you come up with yourself. Employers will see thousands of resumes with the word “responsible” on there, so demonstrating a vital skill that might not be quite so commonly addressed is a good way to stand out. 

That being said, a resume with wacky or overly intense skills is also to be avoided, since it might make you look a little too unorthodox or undependable. For example, avoid writing “work obsessed”, “rockstar” or “unbelievably organised”. 

It’s helpful to look back on your previous work and identify situations where you effectively used soft skills to help achieve a goal. Perhaps you overcame a project roadblock by developing an effective communication strategy between key individuals. Or maybe you managed to complete a task within a much faster time frame than expected, thanks to your organisational and self-supervising skills. 

If nothing comes to mind, try reaching out to colleagues, managers or previous collaborators – who might have a better idea of your key soft skills than you. This is particularly useful for those that err on the humbler side, and struggle to talk about their own abilities! 

Self-Assessment Strategies

  1. Reflect on past achievements
  2. Analyze feedback from colleagues and supervisors
  3. Review successful project outcomes
  4. Document challenging situations you’ve overcome

If you’re struggling to figure out where to start, try some free self-assessments to help you get to know yourself. Take the Emotional Intelligence test to find out your top soft skills and how you work well with others. These tests offer extensive feedback that you can transfer directly to your CV as evidence of your abilities. Take the Strengthsfinder assessment, Cognitive Styles test, or the Communication Styles assessment. 

Measuring Your Soft Skills

  • Track specific instances where you’ve demonstrated each skill
  • Set measurable goals for skill development
  • Gather quantifiable feedback from peers and supervisors
  • Document the impact of your soft skills on business outcomes

How do I Showcase my Soft Skills on my Resume?

You’ve figured out your soft skills – what now? Many people choose to simply list their skills in a dedicated section on the side of their resume. This is useful since it makes them very clear for hiring managers to read. However, many people argue that it is better to back up your skills with evidence, via your “achievements” section. 

The most compelling soft skills on your resume are those you can demonstrate through concrete achievements and measurable impacts. Focus on quality over quantity, and always be prepared to provide specific examples of how you’ve applied these skills in professional settings

Soft Skill CV Best Practices

  1. Incorporate skills naturally into your work experience descriptions
  2. Provide specific, measurable outcomes
  3. Use action verbs that demonstrate soft skills
  4. Include relevant certifications or training

Example Achievement Statements

  • “Collaborated with cross-functional teams to reduce project delivery time by 25%”
  • “Mentored 5 junior team members, with all achieving promotion within 18 months”
  • “Resolved customer escalations with 98% satisfaction rate through active listening and empathy”

If you’re interested in tools that can help you flesh out your unique personality and character traits, your preferences and behavior styles, then you have two great options with Gyfted. One is to try our character and strengths assessments under the “Personal Growth” tab on Gyfted’s homepage, and the other easier option is to use Gyfted’s Personality Resume builder that helps you signal your unique soft skills and traits through a certified personality resume.

Under each previous work experience listing, showcase both your hard and soft skills developed via bullet points or a short description. If you want to communicate that you developed self-supervising skills, write that you “took the initiative to design and implement a new strategy that successfully increased productivity by 35% and was commended by my team”.

The only situation in which you might prefer to list your skills is if the job description is very clear about which soft skills are required for the job. Hiring managers will then likely have a checklist to tick off when scanning resumes, and you want to make this as easy as possible for them.  A good rule of thumb is to pay close attention to the job description in general, since this is usually where you can find clues as to which soft skills are required for the job. Make sure you address every skill mentioned in your resume or cover and be prepared to back them up with evidence!

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