12 Examples of Soft Skills To Master in 2024

According to McKinsey, a global management consulting firm, the most important soft skills to develop for workplace success are leadership, problem solving, project/time management and critical thinking. Here is a breakdown of these soft skills as well as some other honorable mentions.

Leadership

Leadership skills are a collection of all soft skills. Be hands-on, helping your team with big and small tasks alike. Take ownership of team failures. And mentor your team members to help them perform at their best.

Problem Solving

Problem solving goes hand in hand with critical thinking. As an issue arises, you must be quick to find a solution to stay on track to reach your personal objectives as well as your team and company objectives.

Time Management

Employees with time management skills know how to prioritize their most important tasks. They create a to-do list with action items that fall into three buckets: urgent, not urgent but important and low priority. 

Critical Thinking

You use critical thinking skills to approach problems with a strategic mindset. If your team comes across a roadblock, you must be able to gather information about what the problem is, come up with a list of potential solutions and weigh the solutions to choose the right one.

Communication

Effective communication comes in written, verbal and nonverbal forms. You need to feel comfortable communicating with your coworkers about wins and roadblocks, striking the right balance between positive and negative feedback to keep them motivated.

Teamwork

Teamwork is a specific communication skill for coworkers on your direct team. Learn how to spread the work across your team so that each person is contributing a fair amount to the project at hand.

Creativity

Creativity is about thinking “outside of the box.” Don’t get set in your ways just because it is always how you have done things. You should constantly be thinking about how to improve your processes in creative ways to do things better.

Adaptability

Adaptability refers to a person’s ability to adjust to unplanned scenarios that arise. They need to be able to change their priorities for the week, month or quarter if their team adjusts its objectives.

Work Ethic

Good work ethic is about being dependable and reliable. You deliver quality work on time, you actively participate in team meetings and you remain flexible to help your team with additional tasks as needed. 

Emotional Intelligence

Emotional intelligence is recognizing and acknowledging the emotions of your coworkers. You should be able to tell if your team member is stressed — even if they don’t say it — and offer to help them with their workload to unclog their part of the pipeline.

Conflict Resolution

Conflict resolution skills address disputes in constructive ways. During a disagreement between two employees, step in as a mediator so that both parties can feel heard and come to an agreement about how to move forward. 

Interpersonal Skills

Interpersonal skills combine all of the people skills in this list, referring to a person’s ability to interact with others. Build relationships with your team members by communicating with them, working with them and helping them to keep the team operating smoothly.

Soft skills, or transferable skills, are skills that you gain through life experience. Unlike hard skills, these skills are not specific to one job. For example, a designer might need to be an expert at Adobe Photoshop to do their job. However, this designer’s verbal communication skills are useful for this job, their life outside of work and any future job they have.

Recruiters often say that soft skills are preferable to job-specific hard skills. Soft skills contribute greatly to a company’s work environment and culture. They are also harder to train. Therefore, employers often prefer to invest in someone who excels in soft skills but requires a little training on the technical skills front.

Focusing on the employer first, soft skills can improve productivity. When employees have time management skills, they get more done faster, which helps the employer reach their overarching company objectives.

On the other hand, possessing soft skills makes an employee more attractive in their current job and for future ones. For instance, if a hiring manager is between one candidate with relevant experience and another candidate with the same experience plus soft skills, they are more likely to choose the second candidate because they don’t have to worry about training hard or soft skills.

Knowing that soft skills are no longer optional, how do you get started? First, you need to know where you stand when it comes to your current soft skills. You can do this in a couple of ways:

• Take a personality test. Two popular ones are Myers-Briggs and Enneagram.
• Talk to your family members, friends and coworkers.

These two paths should give you an idea of what you do well and what you could improve on.

Despite how many times we’ve mentioned that it’s difficult to train soft skills, it isn’t impossible. Developing these skills can happen naturally by living your day-to-day life. However, if you want to be intentional, here are some steps to follow:

1. List the skills you plan to improve. 
2. Find a formal training for each skill. A simple Google search for “[skill] training” should give you some options. For example, Cornell has a training on critical thinking.
3. After completing the training, practice the tips you learned in the real world.
4. After each practice session, reflect on how it went. Write down what you did well and where you could improve. 

Alongside this formal step-by-step process, you can also seek advice from your peers. Ask them for specific examples on how they apply soft skills in their lives to get some ideas for yourself.

Just announcing that you have good soft skills isn’t going to convince anyone that that’s true. You need to actually show it. Below are some tips on how to do this in three vital areas.

On Resumes

The skills section of a resume should hold a combination of hard and soft skills. Any skills you list here should pair with an example under your job experience section. Pay particular attention to any skills the hiring manager mentions in the job description. If they apply to you, list them under skills, and provide examples under job experience to show the recruiter that you’re qualified for the job.

In Cover Letters

Pair your resume with a cover letter. The overarching soft skill you will be showcasing is written communication, but you can mention some times where you have used other soft skills within the letter. For instance, maybe you want to highlight leadership and adaptability because that’s what the hiring manager mentions in the job description. In your cover letter, start by stating that you possess these skills. Then, provide a past example of each one.

During Interviews 

Hiring managers use interview questions to assess both hard and soft skills. For soft skills, they typically say, “tell me about a time when…” Knowing this, you can practice answering these types of questions beforehand. You may want to use the STAR method, which includes:

• Situation: Describe the context (e.g., the company you were working for and your role at the company).
• Task: Explain the problem or challenge at hand.
• Action: Share how you handled the problem or challenge. Spend the bulk of your time on this part.
• Result: Share what positive outcomes your solution led to.

On the Job

Soft skills are just as important once you get the job. Some soft skills, such as time management, teamwork and communication, will be a part of your day-to-day job. For the others, keep your eyes open for opportunities to use them. For example, you can put your conflict management skills to use by being the mediator for team members who are having a disagreement.

Having strong soft skills can help you in the workforce — whether you are searching for a new one or trying to excel in your current one. These skills are transferable, so you’ll find improved growth potential regardless of where your career takes you.