5 Essential Soft Skills

As a graduate fresh out of university, there is a tendency to focus on sector-specific and academic skills. However, remember that graduate recruiters are looking beyond that: It is the non-academic soft skills – “transferable skills” – that will make you stand out from the rest.

Transferable skills are skills that can be used in every sector, and include communication, teamwork and problem-solving skills. Here are five transferable competencies that most recruiters look for, as well as tips on how you can demonstrate each of them!

Aside from a few notable exceptions, modern employment largely involves team-based work. Effective teamwork means knowing how to operate smoothly and efficiently with others as a collective group.

This will call upon your capacity to communicate well, negotiate and compromise as well as encourage and inspire your team members. Good teamwork is not only about having similar-minded people working together, but also motivating people with different strengths to work towards a common goal.

It is fine to talk about your personal contributions during a project but make it a point to talk about how the team managed to work together to achieve results as a group. If you have anecdotes about how your team pulled through a particularly difficult undertaking (e.g. tight deadlines), then all the better! Stories from your sports clubs, student societies, part-time jobs or any other experience will make for good accounts.

In essence, commercial awareness is the intersection between two areas of understanding: Familiarity with a company or organisation (i.e. its goals, objectives, products and services) and a grasp of broader industry trends out there in the market.

Recruiters want graduates who can put both of these factors together and figure out how external market forces may influence the organisation, as well as how the organisation can best thrive in the current market situation.

That said, commercial awareness takes time (and plenty of research!) to build. Here are some tips on how you can build up your knowledge on the employers you want to work for as well as the industries they operate in.

Find out:

• What the company does (products made/services provided) • Its history and defining moments • Who its clients/customers are • Who its main competitors are

Find out:

• How the major players in the market are performing • How to speculate intelligently about the future • The past, in order to predict future trends

When speaking with interviewers, use words like, “I noticed some discussions about X trend and did some research on it”. Your initiative will definitely set you apart from other applicants!

Problem-solving ability may not be a criterion that employers will explicitly state as a job requirement, but it is something that they will expect out of all their applicants.

Someone with problem-solving skills will also generally have superior analytical and logical thought processes along with the capacity to think outside the box to find solutions to problems they encounter. Recruiters will usually test for problem-solving skills during various stages of the application process such as through psychometric tests.

If you are asked to recount past problemsolving experiences, provide concrete examples to show recruiters how you resolved a situation. Your interviewers will be looking for insights into your thought process, so they will not be able to properly evaluate your ability if you are vague! The STAR Method is a great way to help you keep your responses succinct when you need to showcase your problem-solving skills in your applications:

Describe the Situation.

Describe the Tasks involved.

What Actions you took.

What Results you achieved.

No matter how gifted you are, you will never get anything done if you do not know how to get along with your colleagues! That is why recruiters keep an eye out for emotional intelligence (also known as EQ) in graduate applicants. Emotional intelligence is all about your ability to perceive and evaluate other people’s emotions, and to assess and control your own under a variety of circumstances.

If the job you are applying for is a customer-facing role, then good emotional intelligence becomes even more important. Even if your job keeps you away from customers or clients, recruiters need to be assured that they are not hiring someone who does not know how to deal with others or, even worse, disruptive in the workplace.

For this particular competency, employers will be observing the way you conduct yourself – from the way you introduce yourself to others, to how you cope in social situations. Be prepared to be tested through psychometric tests, role plays and group activities.

A major part of your responsibilities at work will be making decisions even if you only have uncertain or incomplete information to go by. That is where the ability to manage ambiguity comes in: Recruiters want to see that you are bold enough to take action in uncertain situations, instead of sitting around paralysed and waiting for help.

This quality is crucial in fast-changing environments, such as FMCG, where decisions have to be made in a snap even when you do not have all the details. If you can make relatively accurate decisions even without the whole picture and adapt to the changing environment as you go along with your plan, then that is a good example of managing ambiguity.

Draw examples from your studies, extracurricular activities and previous work experiences. Was there an emergency where you had to make a snap judgement? Be flexible during assessment exercises or case studies as well. Always be prepared to modify your plans to accommodate any new information or ideas. Come up with contingency plan Bs, Cs and Ds, too, if you can!