Hard Skills vs. Soft Skills

Hard Skills vs. Soft Skills Hard Skills vs Soft Skills The Difference (& Why You Should Care)June 6, 2019 By Matthew Kerr Reviewed by Mark Slack, CPRWTo help you refine your skills section, differentiate between your hard skills and soft skills. Read on to find out how to showcase your most marketable skills to potential employers.Build My Resume NowLets break down the difference between hard skills and soft skills, and explore the importance of these two main types of skills for resumes.Table of ContentsThe Difference between Hard Skills and Soft SkillsWhich are mora important?How to Showcase Them on Your Resume and Cover Letter1. The Difference between Hard Skills and Soft SkillsHard SkillsHard skills are specific concrete professionalabilitiesyou can either perform or you cant.Theyre techniques or knowledge you usually learn at school or through on-the-job training. Theyre usually quantifiable and teachable such as accounting strategies, computer programming, or plumbing techni ques.Once you acquire a hard skill, it usually stays with you throughout your entire career.For example, once you learn how to drive a semi and you hold a CDL, you carry that skill with you for life. The only way you might lose it is if you run into trouble with the law.A few examples includeError-free 70 wpm typing speedExpert-level proficiency with WordPress blog writingRed Cross certification in first aid, CPR, and AEDProgramming languagesForklift verarbeitungsschritt TipFor more details, take a look at our hard skills list and guide to putting them on your resume.Soft SkillsSoft skills are usually related to your personality and your people skills.They are more subjective and emotion-based than hard skills.Most of the ones you possess were not taught to you but are the natural result of your emotional intelligence and experience.You cant quite quantify your soft skills either, such as how good you are at communicating, even if you took a communications class in school and inter act with customers daily.Some, such as your work ethic, take time to demonstrate to your employer.By contrast, you could demonstrate a hard skill like Photoshop techniques right away.Some notable soft skills worth mentioning on your resume include the followingSelf-motivated personalityAbility to use time effectivelyActive listeningResilience TipNot sure how to highlight skills on your resume? Our guide will teach you how to use a hobbies and interests to section to showcase your relevant skills.Hard Skills vs. Soft SkillsLets take a look at how hard and soft skills compare for one specific profession, an executive assistant position.Our candidate possesses both hard office management skills and soft interpersonal abilities.Their hard office management abilitiesincludeExpert-level proficiency with Google Calendar, Docs, Sheets, and Slides.Planning and reshuffling complex travel and event arrangements for three top executives.Researching and writing various executive materials inclu ding announcements, agendas, and slide decks.Their soft interpersonal skills includeMaintaining a calm demeanor despite tight schedules and other difficult situations.Organizing personal and professional schedules for three top executives and three level II executive assistants.Ability to think on my feet, changing venues, presentation slides, and meal options, often at the last minute.Remember that on an actual resume, these skills will be mixed together and spread throughout the page. Heres what some of the above skills might look like on an actual resumePROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCEResearched, wrote, and planned announcements and agendas for 3 top executives, resulting in optimal utilization of all executives time.Facilitated last-minute venue changes for important events on 4 separate occasions flawlessly, ensuring all events went off without a hitch.ADDITIONAL SKILLSGoogle Suite expert, with advanced proficiency in Google Calendar, Docs, Sheets, and Slides.Superb Organizational and S cheduling AbilitiesWhats the difference between hard and soft skills? From this list, you can see how cut-and-dried hard skills are and how nuanced soft skills are.So, which is more important? TipFor details on hard skills related to technology, take a look at our technical skills list and examples for resumes.2. Are hard skills or soft skills more important?As you can see with our executive assistant, both are equallycrucial. If they couldnt stay calm under pressure or use organizational software, they would find keeping up with the demands of their job difficult.Likewise, if you think about a teachers job, you can appreciate how both their teaching credentials (hard) and classroom disciplinary abilities (soft) are necessary to run their classrooms.Every job requires a nuanced balance between hard and soft skills.The Value of Hard SkillsHard skills are mandatory for certain jobs.You probably wouldnt land a graphic artist position unless you knew how to use editing software.You nee d to have a certain level of proficiency in your profession to competently perform your job.Even though hard and soft skills are equally valuable, some careers have a higher demand for one over the other.Even though hard and soft skills are equally valuable, some careers have a higher demand for one over the other.For example, the hiring personnel at a small geschftlicher umgang may distributions-mix more importance on the hard programming and computer abilities of their IT applicants than on their interpersonal strengths, especially if the IT staff mostly work alone.If youre applying for a position that values hard over soft skills, make sure to emphasize your hard skills accordingly.The Value of Soft SkillsYour hard skills demonstrate your ability to perform a job, but they dont indicate how well you work on a team or how organized you are. Your soft skills help define the type of person you are to work with. If youre a self-starter, for example, your employer knows youre not goin g to need a lot of hand holding.Some positions place a higher value on soft skills than hard ones, such as sales or human resources positions that require you to interact face-to-face or possess savvy interpersonal abilities. TipCustomer service skills are their own category of soft skill, so people pursuing customer service careers should emphasize their soft skills on their resume.3. Three Tips for Showcasing Hard and Soft Skills on Your ResumeSo, just how do you showcase hard and soft skills on your resume? We have three tips that will help you toenhance your resume skills sectionTip 1 Consult the job descriptionKeep the job description next to you as you refine your resume for each position. Make sure to mention every skill from the description that you have. The closer your skills match whats listed on the description, the more suited for the position you appear.Tip 2 Show, dont tellElaborate your soft skills with examples to lend some objectivity to your subjective abilities. For example, instead of listing strong teamwork in your Skills section, you can say Coordinate daily with marketing team to develop new sales tactics.Which sounds more powerful to you?You can also use your soft skills, especially the soft skills in highest demand, to make up for hard ones you dont have.Lets say your prospective employer is looking for someone with WordPress experience, which you dont have. You can say I currently possess advanced proficiency with SquareSpace and could easily adapt to new CMS platforms such as WordPress on your titelseite letter.Tip 3 Think outside the skills boxDont just highlight your strongest abilities in the Skills section of your resume. Use your cover letter, Qualifications Summary, and resume appearance to further demonstrate your expertise.For example, you could showcase your attention to detail by creating an error-free and correctly formatted resumeas well as your communication prowess with a well written cover letter. TipFollowing these tips will make bypassing applicant tracking systems a breeze.What to Do NextNow that you understand the difference between soft and hard skills, take another look at your resume. Get out your resume and our comprehensive skills for resume guideand give it a touch up.Take a look at the hard and soft skills you have listed.Make sure you balance both and that they align with your employers requests. Use the examples on our skills list to help guide you, and make sure your best qualities shine through in your resume.