Notes

Presenting Soft Skills in Your Resume
When it comes to your resume, it’s all about wording your experience that also reflects your ability to communicate in a positive way, show your flexibility, multitasking skills and your approach to problems and challenges.
According to CareerBuilder, the top soft skills employers are looking for are: a strong work ethic, dependability, positivity, self-motivation, team-working skills, organisational skills and multitasking, working well under pressure, communication, flexibility and confidence.
Include Soft Skills in Job Duties

It’s all too easy to list what duties our previous roles involved but the secret is to word it in a way that shows off your soft skills at the same time.
For example:

Worked with a variety clients building long-term, positive relationships (shows you’re personable and a good communicator)
Headed several successful projects within a big team (shows team-work ability, dependability and communication)
Was a point of call for relaying and explaining complicated processes to other members of the team (shows flexibility, willingness to help, team-work)
Sought out by managers to edit and streamline training guides for new starters (shows reliability, multitasking skills and dependability)
When it comes to relaying your soft skills within your resume, you’re essentially looking to convey the impact that you have had in previous roles.

Presenting Soft Skills in Your Interview

When it comes to the interview, you have little control over what you’re asked. Believe it or not, not all interviewers are good or ask questions in the right way in order to allow you to show off your soft skills in particular.
But this doesn’t mean you can’t mould your answer to what seems like a ‘hard-skill’ question.
For example, the interviewer may ask you something like “how would you define good team-work?” While this comes across as a fairly closed question, don’t be afraid to rephrase the question in your head to “tell me about a time you worked well in a team.” In other words, don’t feel restricted to just tell them your opinion on what makes a good team – give good examples of why this is so from your own experience.
For example:

“Good team work involves effective communication at all levels and the ability to listen and understand each others needs and roles within the team. I know this because good teamwork was paramount in the major, successful projects I worked on with our biggest clients. I was part of a large team working under pressure and to quick deadlines which meant communication with each other resulted in a much smoother operation.”

Just Get in the Soft Skill Mindset
When it comes to your interview or your resume for that matter, don’t be afraid to inject your personality traits where possible. Don’t always be restricted by the interviewer’s vocabulary or stick to what you think they want to hear. Allow yourself to stand out by telling your story rather than your philosophy – not only will you convey your soft skills effectively but also shape the interview to your advantage by showing them your positive way of dealing with situations.
So remember, while your hard skills are showing your ability to do the job, getting your positive mindset across and showing how you can fit in well to the new job, team and company to promote long-term suitability to the role will more likely land you the job. Not only will the recruiters see this important side of you, but it will inject more of a human and personable level that is just as important to the role as your hard skill abilities.