Whether you’re looking for a new job or trying to improve performance at your current one, everyone could use a skills refresher.
According to Investopedia, “Soft skills are character traits and interpersonal skills that characterize a person’s ability to interact effectively with others. In the workplace, soft skills are considered to be a complement to hard skills, which refer to a person’s knowledge and occupational skills.”
Needed soft skills change from time to time, and some are more valuable than others.
Here are three soft skills that a career coach said are worth paying double for:
Career coach Grace McCarrick knows a thing or two about soft skills. As she said, “I teach soft skills for a living.”
In a TikTok video, McCarrick shared what she considered to be the top three most important soft skills of the moment. “There are three soft skills right now that I think are so underrated that I would probably pay double for,” she confessed.
1. Reading a room
First up on McCarrick’s list was the ability to properly read a room. “And by that, I don’t just mean ‘Is everyone in here anxious or upset or whatever?’” she clarified. “Like, read a room and figure out how to get what you need out of it.”
Career coaching platform Better Up said, “To read the room means to pick up on the subtle, nonverbal cues of a group of people. In practice, you become adept at noticing and responding to micro-reactions. These might include body language, minute facial expressions, and context clues.”
This is, of course, essential for business. “When you’re able to tell that a conversation is going really well (or really badly), you’re more likely to close deals and win over clients,” Better Up added.
If you’re able to tell what kind of mood a room or individual is in, you’re more likely to communicate effectively with them. This could be what puts your presentation or conversation over the top in the best way.
2. Taking different data and creating your own theory from it
“Two is the ability to intake a bunch of disparate data, meaning research articles and TikTok videos and newspaper articles and comments on those newspaper articles — like a bunch of really different data,” McCarrick said. “Intake it, analyze it, apply your own point of view, and then give someone back out a theory.”
KATRIN BOLOVTSOVA | Pexels
An article from the College of Liberal and Professional Studies at the University of Pennsylvania discussed why it is so important to be able to do this.
“By using a data-driven decision-making model, leaders also set up their organizations to be more proactive in identifying opportunities because they can be guided by the validity of data rather than simple intuition or industry experience,” they said.
Doing this means that you’re showing your ability to interpret data from different platforms and actually understand it. Presenting your own theory is like the icing on the cake, showing just how deep that understanding goes.
3. Communicating concisely
“And then third, communicate concisely,” McCarrick concluded simply.
Communication is obviously an important skill in the workplace, but we often think of it in terms of who can communicate in a way that makes everything sound nice or who can explain something in detail. Rarely do we talk about the merits of concise communication.
However, it’s important to keep communication succinct whenever possible. Authors may be praised for their more long-winded communication skills, but employees rarely are.
Communicating concisely shows your employers that you are able to get your point across easily and quickly, which is invaluable to many.
Developing these three soft skills will increase your value as an employee to an organization.
Everyone wants to be that one employee that the organization just can’t do without.
By developing these skills, you’ll be one step closer to being that person where you work or where you hope to work.
Mary-Faith Martinez is a writer with a bachelor’s degree in English and Journalism who covers news, psychology, lifestyle, and human interest topics.
