By Neha Fatehchandani, Indore: A 2014 Harris poll of more than 2,100 hiring managers revealed that a whopping 77% believe soft skills are just as important as hard skills when evaluating potential job candidates,. Also 16% said they were even more important. Freshers face multiple challenges in the corporate world.
In addition to the technical and subject matter skills, soft skills are essential part of professional life. Sometimes, soft skills make the life of job seekers easy for cracking interviews.
Here find ten soft skills that a fresher must possess before joining corporate world:
(1) Email Writing: Email is an integral part of communication; hence one has to be careful on writing it. Email should follow 5 C’s of communication that are clear, concise, correct, complete, and courteous. It should have clear subject lines, and should have no grammatical mistakes.
(2) Professionalism in relationships: Professionalism in relationship reflects one’s ability to deal with difficult colleagues at work place. Freshers will come across the blamer, gossip monger, fault finders, back stabbers and not required delegator. One has to have skills to deal with these people, else it will hamper productivity, and ability to perform.
(3) Managing emotions at workplace: It is easy to display emotions, it is easy to show you are sad when you are. Managing emotions at workplace help you enjoy your work and produce positive environment. Relation with peers and rapport with boss will be achieved by only managing your emotional quotient.
(4) Strong communication skills: Communication skills do not mean speaking English. It is way beyond that. It includes conveying your message in a clear way using proper words, tone and body language. Ability to listen and not just hear. Ability to present in front of others.
(5) Take responsibility: As said by John Maxwell “The greatest day in your life and mine is when we take total responsibility for our attitudes. That’s the day we truly grow up”. In movie “Jab we met” when Geet was running from home, Shahid said hasi khel Mazak nahi hai zindagi, life mein serious hona padta hai. She says” Kal mein kisiko blame nahi karna chahati, meri life job hi hogi I will be responsible and hence I will be happy.”
(6) Positive attitude: Complaining, cribbing, speaking against your colleagues are negative attitudes. We ourselves avoid people who speak negative about others, about their lives or who always see half glass empty. A positive person is welcomed everywhere by open arms.
(7) Creating first impression: As said, “It takes 3 seconds, to form an impression”, hence one must possess a skill of creating first impression. One has to know how to greet and meet, art of introduction, art of proper handshake and display positive body language.
(8) Dress for success: People treat you differently as per your attire. Sometimes dress reflects your personality and confidence levels. Even if you visit to a mall and you see two sales persons, 1 who looks shabby, not groomed and other who is well dressed and shaved, with whom you will ask query? Grooming means “what you wear and how you carry yourself”, hence wear anything that you can carry well.
(9) Managing Boss: Accept the fact corporate life is not bed of roses, you have to perform and be at your toes, and if you fail to manage expectation of your boss, you will have face tough situations. One cannot run away each time, one must have skill to build relationship, have assertive communication and manage expectation of boss.
(10) Managing time effectively: “The fact is you will never get enough time to do everything, but you will have enough time to do most important things.” One has to learn to plan things, apply 80:20 principle. Managing distraction and work with focus.
………………………………………………………………………………………..
About the Author: Neha Fatehchandani is Chief Learning Officer of Snowball, an Indore based Professional Training and Life Coaching firm. Previously she worked with Randstad India as a recruiter and YASH Technologies Pvt Ltd (CMMI Level 3) as an HR professional. She has expertise in soft skills training solutions, which enhance employee’s skills which make them productive at workplace.
