What is the difference between hard skills and soft skills?

Hard skills are specific technical abilities acquired through training or education, while soft skills are the personal attributes and qualities that enhance interactions and relationships. Hard skills are typically job-specific, whereas soft skills are transferable and valuable across various roles and industries.

Which are more important, hard skills or soft skills?

Both hard skills and soft skills are important for career success. Hard skills are necessary for performing specific tasks, while soft skills enable effective communication, collaboration, and adaptability. The ideal combination of hard and soft skills depends on the job requirements and the industry, as both skill sets complement each other.

How can I develop my hard skills and soft skills?

To develop hard skills, you can pursue education, training programs, certifications, or gain practical experience through hands-on projects. Soft skills can be developed through practice, seeking feedback, taking on leadership roles, and enhancing communication and interpersonal abilities through workshops or networking opportunities.

Hard and Soft Skills: Understanding the Differences

Q: What are hard skills?

Hard skills refer to specific technical or domain-specific abilities that are acquired through training, education, or experience. They are measurable and often essential for performing specific tasks or jobs.

Q: What are soft skills?

Soft skills, also known as interpersonal or transferable skills, are the personal attributes, traits, and qualities that enable individuals to work effectively with others. They include communication, teamwork, adaptability, problem-solving, and leadership abilities.

Reedact

26 April 2021

Reedact

26 April 2021

Job competencies are often described in two categories: hard skills and soft skills. During the job application and interview process, employers look for candidates with both a hard and soft skills list. Thus, when you’re editing your resume template, it’s useful to understand the importance of hard skills and soft skills for your resume.

In this article, we will cover:

What are hard skills
What are soft skills
The difference between hard and soft skills
Soft skills amplify hard skills
You only need one hard skill to do the job

What are hard skills?

Simply put, the ones you learn through school or on-the-job training. These are specific to a particular job. For example, a hard skill for a teacher is lesson planning, for an engineer is coding. An electrical technician needs to use specialized equipment and tools. Also, a hard skill for a cashier is using a cash register.

You might ask, what are five benefits of having strong hard skills on your resume? Ask no more! Here are the top main reasons why having them is important.

Increased employability: Possessing them makes you more marketable and increases your chances of finding employment in your desired field.
Career advancement opportunities: Strong hard skills can open doors to career advancement and promotion within your current organization or in new job opportunities.
Enhanced job performance: Allows you to perform tasks efficiently and effectively, leading to higher productivity and job performance.
Ability to adapt to technological advancements: In today’s fast-paced world, technology is constantly evolving. Having relevant hard skills on your resume shows you can adapt and stay up-to-date with technological advancements in your industry.
Specialized expertise: You will represent specific knowledge and expertise in a particular domain. Possessing such skills allows you to become an expert in your field, providing unique value and opportunities for professional growth.

Remember, while these skills are valuable, it’s also important to develop a well-rounded skill set that includes a combination of hard and soft skills for overall career success.

What are soft skills?

soft skills and hard skills for your resume

Any job requires them. These abilities are commonly referred to as people competencies or transferable skills since individuals can transfer them from one job to another. Furthermore, people utilize these skills in everyday situations, and they are not limited to a specific job. Some examples include managing your time, critical thinking, reliability, communicating effectively, problem-solving, working on a team, or multi-tasking.

Therefore, these abilities encompass a combination of personality traits and the behaviors individuals manifest.

The difference between hard and soft skills

Hard skills help you get a job, soft experience helps you keep it.

They are the technical, domain-related, or functionality knowledge that helps you get a job. However, in order to keep that job, one needs the others.

For instance, if you can code and you’re an awesome coder but you’re difficult to work with, you won’t keep your job for very long. So, although you have the technical skills to perform a task, you essentially need soft abilities that can improve the workplace culture and even your chance of getting promoted.

Hard skills are frequently developed at the expense of soft skills

Oftentimes, when it comes to building technical know-how, that comes to the expense of building the soft ones. Things that would help build a good soft skills list involve extracurricular activities like sports, music, or painting. These are more people-oriented rather than task-oriented. However, a lot of people end up allocating more time to developing the hard part rather than the soft one. Most commonly met, if they work in a corporate setting.

When entering the workforce, employers often inquire whether individuals possess certifications that demonstrate their competence in performing the job effectively. So that’s how at the beginning of their career, many people focus on getting them on their resume. Doing so, they neglect the transferable ones. Thus, once they enter the workforce, they might feel stuck. Even though they’re experts in their field, they’re not exhibiting the soft proficiency required for being promoted. Not to mention, the interests on their resume lack completely.

The higher you go, the more soft know-how matters

This pattern applies to the vast majority of industries. That means the more tasks that require soft skills you’ll be in charge of. At a mid and upper management level, plenty of the work is dealing with people. Coordinating strategically rather than technically and tactically is a must!

Soft skills amplify hard skills

soft skills amplify hard skills

For instance, although you’re an amazing coder and you’re excellent at using Python to build algorithms, you can only go so far by yourself. Most of the time, people work in teams and have to deliver what they worked on to clients. As a result, communication is essential. Actually, with good communication techniques, you can save a lot of time on coding, teamwork, and client interaction and just smooth out the entire process. Therefore, things like leadership, negotiation, and sales make a huge difference when it comes to getting the job done. People need that soft skills list to nicely amplify the hard ones, in order to solve a specific problem. It will help them do it better and faster, too!

One hard skill will do the job

People are generally paid to do one thing on the task. This is true especially for entry-level jobs at mid-size and big companies. The risk of being phased out arises when the technical ability becomes too narrow. For instance, jobs that solely rely on operating cash registers are now being replaced by machines that customers use to scan their own products. This happens because that particular hard skill is too narrow and it can be easily replaced.

On the other hand, if you have a broader, more complex hard skill, it’s harder to replace it with a machine. For instance, if the job requires breaking down a wall, looking at the plumbing behind it, and detecting if there’s anything wrong with it, it wouldn’t be possible for a robot to do that.

Meanwhile, soft know-how can be developed and transferable everywhere and you can keep building them throughout your lifetime. Those won’t be phased out, because human interaction is key.

Plus, it will be easier to know which soft skills list to add to your one-page resume, so that you stand out among other candidates.

At Reedact, we specialize in building resumes that grab the employers’ attention and increase your chances of landing an interview. Get in touch with us and let’s work on an amazing resume!