Differences between hard and soft skills

First of all: what are hard and soft skills?

Hard and soft skills will allow you to function adequately in any workplace. Also, you should know that these skills are very different from each other. Since the former will help you to communicate with your work team, to be more organized and to easily adapt to changes.

While the latter are linked to professional skills, that is, those academic and technical knowledge that make you a professional. For example, knowing the laws to resolve a legal conflict.

Although both skills are very different from each other, it is important that you know that in order to become a great professional it is essential that you combine them. Specifically, if you are very good at resolving legal disputes but do not know how to communicate with your work team and clients, you will not be able to share your knowledge and ideas with others.

3 differences

First of all, you should know that you will acquire or increase your hard skills through training and academic training, such as attending a French course to learn the language.

While soft skills are shaped as you face various experiences. For example, if you work in customer service you will develop assertive communication. However, if you take courses you can develop them even more.

Second, soft skills will help you perform and last in the place where you work. For example, if you are a teacher, it will be essential that you communicate with the interdisciplinary team to make the best decisions for the students. On the other hand, hard skills will enable you to carry out technical tasks.

Third, a fundamental difference between the two is that hard skills can be measured numerically through specific questions. While non-cognitive skills are intangible and are identified through situational questionnaires. For example, the interviewer may ask you what you would do in the face of a certain conflict.

Fundamental resources for the work of the SXXI

As you can imagine, there are currently some hard and soft skills that are essential to enter or remain in the labor sector. Therefore, we will explain some of the skills that you should not stop learning or developing.

• Strategic thinking. This soft skill will help you understand and analyze the problems or challenges facing the company. In this way you can make appropriate decisions according to the context and circumstances.

• Know and master more than one language. This cognitive ability will allow you to connect with people and overcome language barriers to carry out your tasks or even to expand your field of work.

• Mathematical reasoning. This hard skill will allow you to solve calculations and understand numerical and schematic concepts. For example, you can solve equations or create graphs to better visualize some data.

• Know how to persuade. This non-cognitive ability will allow you to convince your work team or clients to accept certain negotiations. And it will even enable you to ask your boss for a promotion.

In addition, it is relevant that you know that soft skills are increasingly valued today. Since, as you can imagine, you can improve or increase your technical skills through training. However, improving emotional intelligence is much more complex.

One last piece of advice

As you will have seen, it is essential that you acquire or increase your hard and soft skills in order to position yourself in the labor market. And it is also essential that you understand that you will need both to be able to perform adequately in the work.

For this reason, we advise you to think about what your strengths are and look for courses or academic training that allow you to acquire tools or resources to develop them even more. In addition, we suggest you read books on emotional intelligence and assertive communication to improve your interpersonal skills.

Lastly, we would like to tell you that at Looper we value the skills of our workers and motivate them to improve day by day. Therefore, if you hire us, you can enjoy an excellent logistics service in which every detail will be taken care of. If you want to hire our service, just write to our social networks or call us at the phone number that you will find in the contact section.