5 Soft Skills Needed to Elevate Your Career Post-Pandemic

The pandemic led to a large number of small-scale businesses being shut down resulting in people losing their jobs. At the same time, multinational corporations too suffered a lot with businesses receiving a no-go for foreign transactions.

Even as we experience the after-effects of the pandemic, today, with the presence of vaccines, the lives of people are finally coming on track. Since people lost their jobs during the pandemic, the question on everyone’s mind revolves around the skills needed to elevate their career in the post-pandemic era. Irrespective of the sector, every individual requires a good set of soft skills to have a flourishing career, pandemic or not. Don’t know which ones you need to learn? We bring you 5 must-have skills to elevate your career in the post-pandemic period.

Interpersonal Skills

Your career isn't only about performing your job well. It is also evaluated on the way you interact with people. Working in a company means that you will be working in teams where you may communicate through our verbal and non-verbal communication. Therefore, it is important that you possess or build strong interpersonal skills as a lack of the same could lead to conflicts between colleagues. A few must have interpersonal skills include active listening skills, body language, tolerance, and empathy.

Communication

“Take advantage of every opportunity to practice your communication skills so that when important occasions arise, you will have the gift, the style, the sharpness, the clarity, and the emotions to affect other people.” – Jim Rohn, Entrepreneur, Author and Motivational Speaker

Communication isn’t performed only through the act of speaking. It is also done via observation and a keen sense of listening to the opposite individual. Similar to other skills, communication skills too can be enhanced over time. You can be a good communicator by being a patient listener and empathizing with the speaker. Now that most of our communication has been shifted to the virtual world, instead of performing it as a face to face interaction, good communication skills are even more critical. You can either take a communication class to brush up your existing communication skills or to imbibe them from scratch. This is one skill that will take you very far in your career.

Critical Thinking

Critical thinking is about analyzing a situation from various perspectives to arrive at a solution after considering all possible consequences. Critical thinkers question ideas and assumptions rather than accepting them right away. This skill is a way to form your own judgment on a topic at hand. Critical thinking helps to understand various perspectives, identify errors in reasoning and solve problems systematically.

How can you become good at critical thinking?

• Try to think of a problem objectively.
• Evaluate a point of view to determine its strength.
• Identify weaknesses and negative points of an argument or evidence.

Emotional Intelligence

Emotional intelligence is all about how you understand, use and manage your emotions in tough times.While it may not be one of the skills listed on a job description, it is a must for any job across industries. Empathy is a big part of emotional intelligence and employers seek to understand the mindset of a potential candidate when it comes to office situations. Therefore, learning emotional intelligence as a skill is of major need today, in a world that is battling the pandemic.

Emotional intelligence helps to handle frustration, think straight in a stressful situation and help a coworker in need.

Five components necessary for emotional intelligence include:

• Self-awareness
• Self-regulation
• Motivation
• Empathy
• Social skills

Conflict Resolution

When you are working in a team, there are chances of conflicts arising between the team members. It is therefore crucial to have a good knowledge of conflict resolution skills. Practice empathy and respect, to get good conflict resolution skills.

Points to consider during conflict resolution:

• Have patience and perseverance.
• Try to listen to other people actively.
• Be emotionally aware.
• Learn to apologize and forgive.

Being a good decision-maker in every phase of life leads to life-long respect. It is crucial to lay down a strong foundation in ethics and learning soft skills as:

“Soft skills get little respect but they will make or break your career” – Peggy Klaus, author

Conclusion

According to Forbes, 94% of the recruiters believe that top-notch soft skills outweigh experience. Soft skills are fundamental things when it comes to your desired job or career growth. Technical skills give you the job but soft skills help you grow and build both your job and eventually your career.