After graduating from post-secondary school, students often begin tirelessly searching the job market before ultimately accepting and attending interviews. Yet, while many candidates are selected for interviews based on the technical skills and credentials on their resumes, some experts suggest that many young job hopefuls often struggle to convey the more personal and less practical qualities.
Failing to properly communicate these more personal, less practical qualities—referred to as “soft skills”—could actually cost you the job.
A 2013 report from Prepare for Canada called “9 Soft Skills No Immigrant Should be Without,” defines soft skills as “the interpersonal, communication, behavioural, and organizational skills that cross all jobs and industries.” These soft skills include communication, leadership, or presentation skills, along with the ability to think critically. They contrast with hard skills—the more tangible, technical skills—such as knowing how to program a website or write an argumentative essay.
Soft skills are just as important as technical skills in the workplace. Soft skills help people communicate and collaborate effectively. Building interpersonal relationships with co-workers, bosses, and customers is essential to the way people perceive an individual in the workplace. An awareness of the possession of one’s own soft skills makes it is easier to establish these interpersonal relationships.
Without soft skills, the workplace would be a dull place. Work would not get done on time, people would be late to meetings, and no one would listen to the ideas of others. Without time management, organizational, and listening skills, how would a workplace function?
More so is the fact that our technical skills—or hard skills—actually depend on our soft skills. Soft skills allow us to use our technical skills and knowledge in an effective and influential way.
In Canada, there is debate surrounding whether Canada has a skills gap. A skills gap refers to the difference in the skills required for a particular job and the skills possessed by the employee.
What is often interpreted as a shortage of skills, or a skills gap, among university and college graduates is actually our inability to convey not only the soft skills we innately possess, but also the ones we have developed while in school. In fact, many recent graduates aren’t even aware of the soft skills they have acquired throughout their education.
“When we talk about soft skills it’s almost like something soft and off to the side. They’re some of the more difficult things to find,” said Robert Shea, associate vice-president of student and academic affairs at the Fisheries and Marine Institute at Memorial University.
Shea has taught in Memorial’s Faculty of Education, specializing in post-secondary and adult education and is the founding editor of the Canadian Journal of Career Development.
He said the term skills gap is often incorrectly used to refer to the difficulty we have communicating our skills.
“When I hear the term ‘skills gap,’ I tend to think of it more as a skills mismatch,” he said.
Shea noted post-secondary institutions should not only teach students theory, but also how to apply theory to practice. He said experiential learning plays an important role in preparing students for the workplace.
“It’s about getting students to reflect on the competencies that they’re gaining from their studies. We need to find more ways of engaging employers in that conversation to say, ‘What are you really looking for?’”
Shea said one way to get students to reflect on the soft skills they possess is through group work. He said when students work in groups, they can reflect on their positions within the group and identify whether they play the role of leader, note-taker, or presenter.
“It’s one of those things that we really have to get students and colleges and universities reflecting on. Not just what competencies students may gain from outside the classroom, but also what happens inside the classroom.”
Alex Usher is the president of Higher Education Strategy Associates. He said he believes Canada needs to have a better transition between school and the labour market.
“For students that are getting into the workplace, they don’t know how to describe their abilities. I think equally businesses aren’t very good at devising questions that will elicit that information,” Usher said.
Usher and Shea agreed that although post-secondary institutions offer practical experiences through things like group work, students aren’t aware of the skills they acquire through these projects.
“We ask students to work in teams without explicitly teaching them how to work in teams,” Usher said.
Usher said when assigning group work, he believes university and college courses need to set aside a portion of the class to explain what a team project means in terms of the different roles each member of the team will take on.
“We don’t build it into the curriculum,” he said. “We just assume in four years of university [students] pick this stuff up.”
Shea said employers should also play a role in establishing the soft skill set needed for the job. While most companies put out job ads searching for candidates with a specific degree, Shea said companies should also assess the competencies they are looking for. This way, students seeking jobs would not only have to determine if they meet the degree requirement for the position, but also reflect on whether they possess the necessary skills.
In addition to students and employers playing a role in redefining the so-called skills gap among graduates, Shea said communities need to rally around the issue of skills shortages in order for it to improve.
“We have to get past this thing that universities and colleges and post-secondary institutions aren’t necessarily preparing their graduates for the world of work. I think we are. I think what we don’t have is the ability to connect the dots,” he said.
Usher and Shea both said the failure among graduates to communicate their skills is slowly improving.
“The whole notion of learning outcomes has got to go a little bit further before people start really assessing that stuff well,” Usher said.
“If we can help students find the skills or the competencies they want to develop, then I think we’ll be richer as a country,” Shea said.for more info, check out
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