It unfortunately happens very seldom that a job candidate who was rejected because of inadequate soft skills is told the truth about the reason for rejection, e.g. “Your body language showed that you seemed to feel very insecure, and you had problems to express yourself and present yourself in a convincing manner”
With the changing educational trends, versatility in educational courses, availability of masses of qualified personnel, the competition for job acquisition and job sustainability is becoming more and more tough. To get an edge over the competitors, students are left with no choice but to add values to their hard skills with soft skills to exhibit their true potential.
Hard skills are academic skills, experience and level of expertise while soft skills are self-developed, interactive, communication, human and transferable skills. Literature suggests that hard skills contribute to only 15% of one’s success while remaining 85% is made by soft skills. Most employers these days want to hire, retain and promote persons who are dependable, resourceful, ethical, self directed, having effective communication, willing to work and learn and having positive attitude.
Speaking on the importance of soft skills, a HR professional says a candidate with proper soft skills has an edge over others in this competitive world. “It is essential to gauge a person’s soft skills before recruiting because behavior is often associated with one’s thought process,” he adds.
With the onset of economic liberalization, the Indian market is also becoming global, so the attributes of soft skills are to be imbibed by Indian youth to show their real potential at intra and international levels. Understanding the importance of this newly raised important aspect, most of the educational institutions in India have initiated programs, projects and activities for developing soft skills in their students. Pinnacle Manpower Services offers a bouquet of modules which are effective for developing students fully equipped with relevant soft skills.