Soft Skills vs. Hard Skills

Hello everyone and welcome back!

 This blog post will be about soft skills and hard skills. I already talked about soft skills in a post before briefly, but this time I’ll elaborate and I will talk about hard skills. But before I start, watch this video below to get an idea about the two skills.

Soft skills

  I talked before in one of my posts about soft skills, and I related them to the emotional intelligence. But just to recap, soft skills are interpersonal skills that make up a good employee. For example, communication skills, good listening, and team-working skills are considered soft skills.

Hard skills:

On the other hand, hard skills are skills specific for a certain job. For example if you want to be a professional soccer player then you should know how to play soccer. Other examples of hard skills or that show that you have hard skills are, a degree (bachelor, masters, etc...), language skills, and computer skills.

Advantages of soft skills and hard skills:

• Soft skills:

1.     If you learn soft skills then you will have the necessary people skills that will help you when you interact with others, like when you do an interview for a job. They will help you get the job.

2.     If you learn soft skills then you will develop 'leader-ship' skills. Developing soft skills will make you be an effective communicator, and leaders must be good at communicating with their team or group members. And because of good communicating skills you, as a leader, will be able to lead your team without negative feelings, like jealousy and hatred.

3.     If you learn soft skills you will be surprised at how good your  body language will be. Body language will be one of the first indicators that tell about a person, and learning to control them or use them properly is important. Soft skills are all about communication skills, and body language is also a communication tool. Learning soft skills will make you a better communicator, and being a good communicator will help you use effective body language.

• Hard skills

 1.     Hard skills will let you have the necessary skills that are needed for the job you are applying. For example, computer skills for a computer engineering job.

2.     Hard skills are easier to develop than soft skills. For instance, you just need to learn about computers, like programming, if you want to be a computer engineer.  

3.     Hard skills are easier to measure than soft skills. Having a degree, resume, and a cover letter will measure your hard skills.

  Disadvantages of soft and hard skills:

• Soft skills

  Generally there are no disadvantages of soft skills but they are harder to develop than hard skills, they need more practice and interaction with people. 

Also, they are harder to measure than hard skills. The employer for example, will need to interview the candidate for the job to be able to figure out if he or she has soft skills.

• Hard skills

Hard skills also do not have disadvantages, but relying on them and disregarding soft skills will not be of help to get a job.

Bottom line is, you cannot regard only one them, you need them both to succeed.

From: http://shubhamtechnicalinstitute.in/soft-skills-training/

Qatar and soft and hard skills:

The education system here focuses a lot on hard skills because I believe that we still live in the era where “getting a degree is all that matters to get a job.” That is why, and it is my assumption, teachers who work at public schools are not fully aware of soft skills. And thus cannot transmit this knowledge and its importance to the students. I believe that the education system should be more aware of soft skills, and not disregard them and focus only on hard skills. Because it is important to teach students to have a  balance between the two skills in order to succeed in life.

What about me?

What about me? Which of the skills I think I am strong at? The answer is, both. I have developed my hard skills greatly because of my school and university, thus I think I have strong hard skills. However, as I mentioned in one of my posts, I am highly interested in the emotional intelligence, and I know and are interested in the relationship between it and soft skills. Thus, I am learning and developing the EQ and my soft skills for about three years (and counting). That is why I think that I have a good foundation in soft skills.

And finally I would suggest visiting the links bellow for more information about soft and hard skills

7 soft skills that will make or break your career

Top 10 hard skills that employers love