Brush Up on These Soft Skills During Your Job Search

When companies face ever more complex challenges that require collaboration to handle, businesses are putting much more emphasis on soft skills when hiring. In fact, in many cases, soft skills are eclipsing hard skills on the priority list for companies.

What soft skills do companies value the most? Four came out on top in a recent survey: communication, teamwork, leadership, and problem-solving. When applying for jobs, these are the skills you need to highlight and demonstrate.

Communication skills

These are the skills you need to express yourself cogently and clearly, both verbally and in writing. You can logically organize your thoughts, develop or present persuasive arguments, and explain something simply and clearly.

To demonstrate these skills to an employer, you need to make sure that your resume and cover letter are well organized and well written, free from any spelling or grammatical errors.

Also, list on your resume the titles of any significant writing you have done – reports, white papers, research, analyses, for example, and include links to them.

To demonstrate good oral communication skills, be sure to practice your answers to common interview questions so you can answer them clearly.

Teamwork

Highlight on your resume any projects or work you have done that involved collaboration or other teamwork with coworkers. One way of doing this is to list this kind of work as a bullet point under the job title.

When interviewing, use the pronoun “we” when talking about collaborative work, rather than “I.”

Leadership

Emphasize any leadership roles you have had. If you were a team leader or supervised a project, be sure to include it on your resume.

Also, highlight any leadership roles you have had outside of work, especially if you have not had any leadership opportunities at your job. Include, for example, volunteer work that involved a leadership position, such as a member of a town council or school board, a civic or community group, or a church group.

Problem Solving

Think back over your previous jobs and times when you encountered any difficulties or adversity and how you confronted it. Highlight significant examples on your resume.

When interviewing, you can frame your problem-solving experience by using the STAR method. First, explain the Situation to provide context and background, next explain the Task or problem you were confronted with, then explain what Action you took to solve and problem, and then finally describe what the Result was.

Find the Right Job

If you are an experienced insurance professional and are looking for employment, Insurance Relief can help you find the right job for you. Give us a call today. We are among the best insurance recruiters in the industry.