Recently, we’ve made our first hire.

It took a while to find a person with the right combination of skills.

It wasn’t easy. It wasn’t fast.

But we are sure we made a right choice.

Each position is very individual and specific when it comes to hard skills. Moreover, often it doesn’t really matter how good someone is in their field unless they have a set of soft skills that often appear more valuable than simply being great at something.

Today, landing a great job isn’t just about having the technical abilities a certain position requires. If it was only about hard skills, there would be little or no reason to interview the candidates.

Contrary to popular belief, soft skills — your ability to work well with others, communicate your ideas clearly and solve problems — matter much more than many may think.

It’s no longer enough to master a complex skill to become a perfect fit for a company. It’s important to have a very strong set of interpersonal skills to be a remarkable candidacy for a certain position. Because in the long-run, the remarkable team work proves to be more valuable than individual technical skills.

The important soft skills employers are looking for are:

Ability to learn fast.

We live in a very dynamic environment. So the knowledge you acquired yesterday may become obsolete already today. We all must keep learning to stay relevant in the ever-faster world. So the ability to learn fast can both fill the gaps in your knowledge or skills and help you stay a valuable player in your team.

Perseverance.

Difficulties are an integral part of every process. If you are not ready to deliver high-quality results regardless of how difficult and unexpected the tasks can be, you are unlikely to fit a modern business world. Assertiveness is a key. If you give up after the first failure, no employer is going to value you. Employer

Proactivity.

The ability to act in advance and anticipate the further developments is one of the most prominent traits of the key players. It’s difficult to overestimate its value. Proactivity is what differentiates top performers from the mediocre employees. Because the ability to maintain anticipatory, change-oriented and self-initiated behavior allows you to add much more value than while staying in a reactive mode.

Stress-resistance.

The work process is not going to always be smooth and according to the plan. Sooner or later, every business goes through the situations that make everyone feel broken, down, tired, overwhelmed, and stressed out. The employers want to make sure their team member won’t give everything up and quit should some stressful situation arise.

Excellent communication skills.

The ability to convey the important messages in a very simple and concise manner is difficult to overestimate. Most people don’t perceive this soft skill as an important one. However, more and more employers start realizing its long-term value. Because good communication skills make a huge difference when a business has to deal with uncertainty, fierce competition, and scarcity of resources.

Marketing. 

The promotion of ideas, products, and services are no longer a task of marketing and sales team only. Marketing is not a department. It’s a global mission of every business. Therefore, the employers expect newcomers to have good presentation skills and have a good understanding of how to advocate the ideas and sell them to potential customers. This way the employers make sure that the whole team

Problem solving.

The ways to achieving your goals are not always going to be standard and straightforward. It’s not enough to read a few books that talk about best tactics to get job done. When it comes to practice, there are always things no one has ever talked about before. So a great employee should be able to come up with the non-standard solutions and find the ways to deliver the results regardless of the obstacles he may encounter.

These soft skills matter not only when you are in active job search. These are the key skills that help you achieve your ambitions no matter what kind of career you pursue or business you build.