What are soft skills?

Soft skills or social skills (also called non-technical skills) are those personal values and interpersonal skills that determine a person's ability to work well with others in a group. These skills differ from 'hard skills', which are easy to observe, quantify and measure, unlike 'soft skills'.

Soft skills include effective communication, leadership and teamwork skills; demonstrating problem solving abilities, initiative, and motivation skills; displaying honesty and strong work ethics.

Soft skills play a vital role in academic and professional success; they help us excel in the workplace and their importance cannot be denied in the emerging information or knowledge society. Soft skills are needed to work in a collaborative manner with one's colleagues.

Types of Soft Skills

There are various components that comprise soft skills. Some are inborn such as confidence, friendliness and some has sociable nature, while others are skills that can be taught or improved upon, such as developing effective communication, organisation and social graces. Following include some of the skills that are needed while working in a corporate environment:

1. Communication skills

2. Team skills

3. Leadership skills

4. Etiquette

5. Cross-cultural skills

How to develop Soft skills?

Soft skills cannot be acquired by merely reading books. They have to be imbibed and practiced in daily routine. It is a continuous learning process. Development of soft skills has two parts. One part involves developing attitudes and attributes, and other part involves fine-tuning communication skills to express attitudes, ideas and thoughts.

Perfect integration of ideas and attitudes with appropriate communication skills in oral, written and non-verbal areas is necessary for successful work.

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Tips to develop soft skills

For running any kind of business, one need to hone his/her presentation skills. As the famous saying goes "You never get a second chance to create first good impression". Following are the points to be kept in mind: Consider yourself as brand. Every brand needs promotion Maintain an eye-contact while talking to someone. Develop positive attitude towards life Don't walk slow. Learn to walk briskly. People who walk briskly project that they are going with the purpose Don't put you hands in pockets while talking to someone. Don't stand with hands folded Sense of purpose should get projected when talking/meeting with people/client Be professional in your dressing Project a promise of prosperity when making a presentation. Promise should be made visible to the client Language - impactful words should be used How you deliver and what you deliver are most important things Select right words to communicate. For that you need to have a good vocabulary...

Blogs

1. Blogs are the websites wherein users can express their views, opinions and beliefs about a particular event. 2. Blogs are part of history of communication and literature and are emblematic of shift from uni-directional media to participatory media. 3. According to the BBC , blog is a website written by an individual or group, typically using free and easy-to-use tools, consisting of periodic articles, normally in reverse chronological order. 4. The first blog apparently came up on 17 th December, 1997 . Blogging became popluar in about five years time, and in 2003, the word ‘blog’ entered the Oxford English Dictionary. 5. According to Oxford English Dictionay , blog is a personal record that anyone puts on their website giving an account and their opinions and discussing places on the internet they have visited. 6. “Blog” was Merriam-Webster’s word of the year in 2004. 7. Blogs are kind of online journals, which allow people to chare information. 8....

Practice of Public Relations

# Definitions (1) According to FORTUNE Magazine , good performance publicly appreciated because adequately communicated. There are about 500 definitions of Public Relations. (2) Public Relations is merely human decency which flows from a good heart - By Charles Plackard ard (3) The purpose of Public Relations practice is to establish two way communications to resolve conflicts of interest and to establish understanding based on truth, knowledge and full information. ...

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