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Interpersonal Skills: Why do you need them?

by | Jan 10, 2021 | Communication Skills | 0 comments

Interpersonal skills are also known as people skills or soft skills. They are related to the way you communicate and interact with others. Reason why hiring managers give top importance to interpersonal skills when hiring candidates. Regardless of the type of job you have, it’s important to be able to get along well with co-workers, managers, customers, and clients.

A huge part of the hiring process is trying to figure out if you’ll fit into the company, it’s culture and with your new coworkers. You should be able to collaborate, meaning you should be able to listen to people, meld different ideas together, and work towards a shared objective – all significant aspects of interpersonal skills.

There are many Interpersonal skills let’s consider a few valuable ones are:

Interpersonal skills That Matter

Communication ranks among the most important skills for anyone to have. This includes both verbal and written. Strong communication skills help you work effectively with others and get results.

Listening is a skill that goes hand in hand with good communication. While it’s important to express your own ideas, you also need to listen to the ideas of others. This will help you in all interactions, whether its clients, employers, colleagues, family or friends. You will be respected and valued.

An inherent part of being a good manager, colleague, friend is the ability to understand others and be empathetic. Being able to hear out another person and listen thoughtfully to their concerns and express compassion for their issue is a trait that will make you invaluable to others.

A positive attitude, is another valuable interpersonal skill. If you are able to stay positive in nearly every situation you encounter and collaborate with others, you will stand out from others and be sought after.

Being open to others ideas and not rigid about your views goes a long way to bonding with coworkers, friends and family. It doesn’t mean you are a “yes’ man’, it indicates that you are willing to consider others views, that you are flexible and open to diversity.

Problem-solving skills are another kind of interpersonal skills that everyone values. A person who can present creative solutions to complex problems creates tremendous value for his/her employer and makes himself or herself irreplaceable.

Whether at work or in your relationships you will likely need to resolve conflicts at some point. This might involve solving an issue between the company and client, two friends or with spouse. To be able to listen fairly to both sides, without judging and using creative problem-solving to arrive at a solution is a skill that will make you the person approach to resolve issues.

Resolving issues requires patience, elements of counselling and talking diplomatically – Traits that are integral to being good with people. You can’t find an amicable solution without caring about the people and the outcome.

Interpersonal skills can be defined as traits, personal attributes, and other non-technical abilities that help you work and communicate with other people. It’s the reason why a potential employer looking to hire you would want you possess at least a few of these attributes.

You will definitely add hard skills to your resume. Hard skills as in specific knowledge and abilities that are required for success in a job. For example, computer programming, accounting, finance, writing, mathematics, legal and others – all quantifiable skills that are included in the requirements for a job. But remember to add and give importance to your interpersonal skills, skills that make you stand apart. These are the skills that tell the how and why you performed the way you did and the intricate relationship building that went into your doing well. After all companies are looking for people who will fit in. This is true even for jobs that favour introverted personalities and independent work styles. For even if you’re a writer, or creative designer, you still need to be able to communicate and collaborate with your team.

Good luck!