Often times we focus on developing our technical skillset, learning the latest framework or technology because it’s on all the job listings. And while this is important as a minimum qualifier for the job, often what differentiates us from other candidates is our soft skills. In other words, technical skills might get your resume on the short list, but soft skills will get you the job.

Research and surveys of employers over many years has shown this to be the case. For example this paper on Industry Expectations of Soft Skills in IT Graduates out of New Zealand which surveyed IT employers on the importance of soft skills:

“Soft skills contribute significantly to individual learning, team performance, client relations and awareness of the business context. Most employers consider these soft skills to be un-trainable in the work-place, making soft skills the critical hurdle for employment. “

…followed by…

“Technical skills are a prerequisite but the point of difference is soft skills — which are hard to train”

Schools and workplaces often don’t do a great job of developing soft skills. A manger once told a colleague of mine that she was a perfect fit for the job because she had “the things you can’t teach”. Is it really true soft skills can’t be taught and learned? Are people just born to be great communicators, team players and organizers?

As an educator, in my experience soft skills can’t always be taught in the same way that technical skills can be taught, with demonstrations, assignments and testing. You might be able to teach a student how to write a good, effective sentence. But it’s hard to teach a student whether sending a bunch of questions over e-mail to their boss is a good idea or not! Maybe they’ll annoy their boss, maybe the boss will be happy to see the enthusiasm… it probably depends on the situation and questions.

These types of social soft skills are often best taught with experiential learning where we conduct some real-world activity that forces us to grow and learn in ways that can’t be captured by “book learning”. When we work on a project as a team, or try to write a tutorial or make a podcast, we go through a series of decisions around communication and collaboration with others that can’t be captured by “book learning” alone.

So when you think about developing your professional portfolio, I strongly recommend keeping an eye towards experiences that will develop your soft skills too! It’s not just about having a GitHub account with projects, it’s also about your time spent organizing clubs, helping others as a tutor, writing articles, and other soft skill oriented experiences.

Because soft skills are so important, we’ll actually be creating courses to teach you how to build your soft skills and showcase them to potential employers! Our first soft skills course, How To Organize Awesome Meetup Events, has now been published on Udemy: https://www.udemy.com/course/how-to-organize-awesome-meetup-events/?referralCode=D98C0AD909E83C38D696. Organizing meetup events where others get together based on a common topic to learn, have fun and network is an excellent way to build and demonstrate your soft skills!