Five Softskills That Will Get You Hired

Soft skills represent the less quantifiable portion of your resume. While you can say for certain you oversaw a team of 10 people responsible for 20 straight quarters of 10-percent revenue growth in your managerial job, trying to convince an HR manager that you think forward, communicate and act professionally is a different matter.

If you prove you have these five specific soft skills as you revamp your resume, a potential employer may take a closer look at you. The trick is to turn these skills into hard data that someone else can verify. Some of these skills come out in the job search process, while other types of skills require a look at your past work experience.

1. Effective Communication

One of the most common soft skills involves communication. Prove your written communication skills to a potential employer with a polished resume and cover letter. Seal the deal on this skill with relevant interpersonal communications over the phone, through email and during an interview. Remember that it all starts with the dynamite resume.

2. Professional Attitude

Show your professional attitude by maintaining pleasant tones in your communication. Keep words in your resume strictly to work or work-related experiences. Talk about hobbies or personal pursuits during an interview, but even then, you can keep your face time cordial and professional without delving too much into your personal life. Show confidence by contributing ideas to help the company, even during an interview or a job search. This proves you have a work-minded attitude even before your first day.

3. Ability to Innovate

Prove this set of soft skills by showing any brand-new ideas implemented at any of your previous jobs. For example, mention you created a new employee social media platform, made a new kind of adaptable sales script or wrote software the improved efficiency of your firms IT network by 20 percent.

4. Responsibility

Convert soft skills into hard data by removing passive voice with more active verbs. Instead of "I was responsible for," try "I oversaw," "I managed" or "I supervised." Show precisely what you managed, for how long and to what end.

5. Creativity

This catchall term remains easily provable. Show how you designed a website, converted your resume into an infographic or turned your cover letter into a one-minute YouTube video. Creativity also leads to adaptability. Prove to your future employer you adapt to many different situations by utilizing different media as you revamp your resume and develop a personal brand.

Soft skills are great, but you have to convince your prospective employer that you have what it takes to back up your claims. Put your creativity into overdrive, and turn your skills into provable assets that land you the posh job you networked for over the past several months.

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