Having a certificate from Ingressive For Good, Meta, DataCamp, EntryLevel, Geneza or Zuri is great and its even better if you share it in your portfolio, CV and on LinkedIn because it would help you attract potential employers but what happens after you have gotten a job offer?
You’ve probably heard this before “Hard skills get you the job but soft skills keep you there”. We’d like to switch it up a bit. Soft skills don’t just keep you there, they make you relevant, they help you thrive! Every employer wants a team member that is valuable to the organization.
In this blog post, we’d be talking about some skills you need to thrive at work. We know you’ve heard of communication skills, leadership skills and time Management skills. Those are cool skills to have and you definitely need them but there are some other skills you need that you’ve probably not thought about.
1. Digital Literacy
It’s so important that you learn how to use digital tools that will make your work easier and help you be more productive at work. Don’t limit yourself to the tools specific to being a designer or digital marketer, there are other tools you will need. Learn how to use softwares and apps to improve your work and impact the company you work at. When you learn new things, you can introduce it to the company and make work easier for everyone. If you’re introducing new and better ways to get work done, you’d definitely be an asset to the company.
2. Use of Data
No matter the career path you’re on, data is important to your work! While you may not be a Data Analyst or Data Scientist, you can learn how you can use data to make better decisions and improve your work. You can watch YouTube videos or take free short courses to educate you. For example; as a product designer, data can help you better understand the problems users are facing, how they feel about this and how it influences their behavior. With this information, you can design products that improve user’s experience with the products.
3. Emotional Intelligence
You will always have to work with people and people have personalities that may affect your work positively or negatively. Learning how to express and control your emotions will help you! Learn how to deal with conflict and negative behaviors from co-workers/clients/employers. To have good interpersonal relationships, you need to learn to show empathy intelligently.
4.Flexibility/ Adaptability
You might face some unexpected challenges such as a coworker falling ill or leaving the company. This may require you to make some quick adjustments pending the time it’s resolved especially if your jobs are closely related. Technology also has such a huge influence on our lives today, there may be some new technologies that can affect your work. You have to be open minded, ready for change and willing to learn new things. Changes happen even if we don’t want them too and they’re often unexpected.
5. Attention Management
Many times, we talk about how time isn’t enough. We want the 24 hours we have in a day to magically increase but is that really the problem?
You need to learn to manage your attention. Decide what gets your attention and what doesn’t. You can learn how to focus your mind. If you want to get some work done, dedicate some time to it and cut off any distractions. You can keep your phone away or switch it off so you’re able to concentrate. You can even invest in an external internet source if using your phone’s hotspot makes you have your phone close and gets you easily distracted. You can go to a co-working station if working at home makes it easy for you to get distracted. When you’re able to make these seemingly small changes, you’d be surprised how productive you will become.
6. Willingness to Learn
Your ability to learn new things that help you thrive at work is tied to your mindset. Do you have a growth mindset or a fixed mindset? Do you face challenges and feel like you cannot solve them so, you give up?
If you don’t know how to do something, its not because you’re stupid, its because you have a knowledge gap. Develop the habit of learning new things. When you’re constantly reading and learning, you know more and you have more value to give. You can even read about things outside what you do. When you do this, you can make contributions at work that not only improve your work but also other team members too.
We hope you have learnt something new from this blog post. Which of these skills do you need to start working on? Tell us, we’d like to hear from you too!
14 Comments
This is really an amazing article. Thank you for sharing!
You’re welcome
Use of Data, Flexibility/Adaptability
Love it!
Thank you so much for this article this is really nice
Awww we’re so happy to hear that
Surely Attention management and Emotional intelligence, just too many personalities out there who believe their personality is the best
Am inspired by this article.
Awww. We’re so happy to hear this. Share it with someone too
adaptability/flexibility and the use of data in the workplace, makes so much sense to me. Thank you for sharing
Aww you’re welcome
Wow ‘Attention Management’. Its my first time reading that. This was an insightful read. Thumbs up I4G
Thank you! Glad you learnt something new
Willingness to learn!
Never stop learning, it may seem not rewarding at the moment but you’re going to appreciate it