Assessing Your Defining Skill - Soft Skills for a Soft Job Market

In today's soft job market, we all need at least one ultra-strong skill. Soft skills never go out of favor and are an excellent set of skills to focus on as you work to set yourself apart from other equally qualified job candidates. For example, most job openings have specific educational and certification-related qualifications that each candidate must have in order to be considered for the position. A job opening for a computer service technician may require the CompTIA A+ certification, so the entire pool of candidates will have at least that. How can you set yourself apart from the other candidates? What's your unique skill?

Soft skills like customer service, problem solving, or sales skills can give you an edge over candidates that lack these skills. Using the computer service technician position as an example, all applicants will know how to perform basic computer networking because they have the A+ skills required for the job. However, are they as skilled as you are in working with customers? Can they communicate effectively, get to the root of a problem and solve it? Are they skilled in upselling services? By identifying your strong skill, soft job markets won't be as tough to break into.

During the interview, you may be tempted to discuss your primary qualifications which would be your basic computer support and service skills in this example. However, those qualifications are assumed. You already have the CompTIA certification that proves that you are a capable entry-level computer support technician. Now what? What's your most important skill? Soft spoken candidates don't go far in this job market, so speak up! Tell your prospective employer where you shine! Which skills, soft or otherwise, do you have that your competitors don't have? What is the primary skill, soft or not, that you believe would be of value to the employer?

Determining this skill requires understanding the job position and how your current skills can be adapted to it. Be creative if you need to, but be honest. Don't make up skills that you do not have. Instead, use your creativity to link your strongest skill (soft skills are ideal) to the job. For example, let's say you are going for an IT security position that requires several IT security oriented credentials. You and the entire candidate pool possess these credentials, so look to your other skills and show your potential employer that you stand apart from the crowd. If you're a whiz at solving puzzles and mysteries, bring that up! Security requires an ability to solve complex problems as well as investigative skills. If you love reading Sherlock Holmes mysteries and approach computer security from an investigative perspective, by all means, tell your prospective employer about this unique skill.

Soft skills can get you noticed amongst a crowd of equally qualified job applicants. Give yourself a fighting chance by upgrading these important skills and letting potential employers know how you will put those skills to work on the job.