Soft Skills vs Hard Skills - Examples, Definition, Differences

Soft skills vs Hard skills - When creating a resumé, many of us tend to lean on our educational qualifications and experiences, which is, granted, an important thing to do. They are the hard skills that highlight our eligibility for the role that we’re applying for. But when looking to hire new employees, recruiters don’t just look for candidates that have the required skillset for the specific job. They also pay attention to other traits and soft skills that complement the type of work done in their organization. A good blend of hard and soft skills is, thus, essential to a standout resumé, so it pays to know exactly what is the difference between hard skills and soft skills. In this article, we differentiate between soft skills and hard skills with a few examples and see what recruiters look for in a candidate.

See also: How to write an impressive resume!

What are hard skills?

Hard skills include the knowledge and technical skills that you develop over the course of your education, and in your career. These are the technical aspects of a particular field that equip you to do a certain task or set of tasks. Taking a software developer course develops your coding skills while studying a foreign language lets you speak it fluently, which are necessary skills in their respective fields. As such, they are specific to the industry and vary based on your field of work. Here are a few examples of hard skills that are high in demand:

• Translation

• Video production

• Data mining

• Database management and software

• Coding

• Accounting and Finance

• Civil engineering

• Bilingualism or multilingualism

Employers assess your eligibility through your education qualifications, experience and assessment tests. Many of them may even look to update those hard skills through on-the-job training ensuring that they’re well-aligned with your job responsibilities and the goals of the organization.

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What are soft skills?

Soft skills are relatively harder to measure or define. They constitute traits and attributes that we associate with positivity, openness, good habits and interpersonal skills. They equip individuals to be a great fit in whichever industry or organization they are a part of. Some of the examples of soft skills are as follows:

• Good communication

• Time management

• Adaptability

• Interpersonal skills

• Honesty

• Empathy

• Creativity

• Problem-solving

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Let’s now focus on the main difference between soft skills and hard skills that you should know so you know what to focus on to further your career.

Difference between soft skills and hard skills

The main difference between soft skills and hard skills is in how they are acquired and used. Hard skills are a reflection of all that you’ve learnt throughout the course of your education. For instance, biomedical engineers have a science and engineering background and have expertise in conducting research, designing medical equipment and providing technical assistance with the same. But because they work in hospitals and laboratories and often with big companies where they have to deal with people, they tend to have (or come to develop) good communication, become empathetic, and learn how to impart their knowledge to others. These soft skills can be attributed to their personality traits, but they are also learnt over time and picked up as good habits that help them manage their way around. This is the crucial soft skills and hard skills difference that is applicable to just about every profession and career type you can think of.

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Developing soft skills and hard skills

Hard skills are easier to learn. One can enrol in a variety of educational courses in a particular field or get on-the-job training to update their knowledge and capabilities. Soft skills, on the other hand, can take some time to develop. They require proactive participation in practical matters, having a positive outlook, being open to learning and feedback, and working through conflict.

There are various books on positive thinking to read as well as courses on developing soft skills that you can enrol into. These will provide you with a deeper understanding of the difference between soft skills and hard skills so you can focus on and better the ones that complement your work well.

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Skills that employers look for

Hard skills are, of course, hard requirements as they are what makes you eligible for the job, but employers are increasingly looking for candidates that have specific soft skills that are relevant to the work as well. Because soft skills take a longer time to learn than their technical counterparts, employers find it is simpler to work with people that already possess those soft skills, provided that they meet the basic requirements.

Soft skills are required not only in organizations and service-oriented careers. Even writers and photographers, whose jobs are more technically demanding, need to know how to effectively communicate with their clients and be self-motivated to work. This is another key difference between soft skills and hard skills that makes the former an invaluable asset to have. At the end of the day, having a good mix of the two should be the goal, regardless of one’s career or field of work.

It goes without saying that you shouldn’t list any skill in your resume that you don’t possess, be it hard or soft, nor should you include any skill that isn’t relevant to the job application. For example, experience in performing arts is not applicable for the position of HR. But, teamwork and communication skills are as important as other hard skills.

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Hard skills let you get a foot in the door, but often it is your soft skills that help you crack the interview and make you a good employee to work with. This is the key difference between soft skills and hard skills. We hope you now know the soft skills and hard skills difference and can clearly differentiate between soft skills and hard skills that you need to include in your resumé and work upon.

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