While engineering students realise the importance of
technical expertise and mathematical proficiency for a successful career, they
tend to underestimate the value of soft skills. To make a mark in today’s
workplace or even for job placement, soft skills are becoming an indispensable
requirement. Even if you a highly able engineer, you will need soft skills to
be able to thrive in the demanding technological and corporate landscape.
Technical
Skills versus Soft Skills
Technical skills or ‘hard skills’ as they are called
refer to the knowledge-intensive abilities of individuals such as the technical
know-how of tools and techniques. This includes the ability to operate particular
machinery, ability to analyse data or use software programs, and so on. On the other,
soft skills cannot be easily defined. They more closely refer to interpersonal
or character traits of individuals such as leadership, creativity,
communication, attitude, adaptability and other people skills. It is important
to note that when choosing between two individuals with equally good hard
skills, recruiters during job placementprefer the one with better soft skills.
This is because individuals with good soft skills have better workplace
attitude, work ethic, emotional intelligence, and other attributes that make
him an important asset for an organization. Soft skill development thus is as
important as technical training.
How Soft
Skills Help
Individuals with good soft skills emerge as leaders in
their work spheres. Even if you are an engineer, a doctor or a banker, you need
to know how to get along with people. You need to be able to delegate, display
positivity, solve problems, build teams and motivate colleagues. All projects
at a workplace involve team work and it is people with great soft skills who
emerge as team leaders. While technical skills help you stay on the team, if
you lack soft skills, there is lesser possibility of you climbing the corporate
ladder.
Organizations tend to assume that people know the
importance of taking initiative, how to behave on the job, being punctual,
friendly, diligent and reliable. However, on the contrary, these qualities need
to be acquired through experience or training. Most graduate students lack work
experience and subsequently, soft skills. To make up for the loss, they can opt
for soft skills training. Opportunity, promotion and recognition cannot be
achieved by hard skills alone. Organizations want someone who can contribute
towards their success, not just another techie. For employers, knowledge of
functional area is important but so is the ability to manage relationships and
possession of strong team skills. Graduates should thus focus on soft skill
development as well to be able to secure placements.
Most Valued
Soft-Skills for Engineers
Teamwork, good communication skills and adaptability
are the most valued soft skills for employers today. Most engineering projects today
are large and complex and their success depends on the collaboration among
large teams. Engineers are required to
be able to effectively communicate with other members of the team and work as
part of a team. Because of the constantly evolving engineering industry,
individuals need to be able to quickly adapt to unexpected changes at the
workplace.
Engineers
working for an organization are also expected to communicate with co-workers,
other engineers and the senior management. To be able to effectively communicate
through emails, reports, presentations and in meetings, engineers need great
communication skills. They are often required to communicate with those who do
not have a technical background and so, they should be able to simplify complex
technical concepts for others to understand.
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