Soft Skills

Soft skills are part of every application process, they are mentioned in every job advertisement and are a topic in every interview. Here we explain the essential functions of soft skills in job applications.

How important are soft skills in the application?

  • The term "soft skills" refers to the most important competencies for professional life.
  • Soft skills mentioned in job advertisements should be interpreted correctly. It is difficult to make general statements.
  • Soft skills are used in an inflationary manner in the application process, both by advertisers and applicants.
  • It is only possible to tell from the context whether soft skills provide essential information about the job or are to be regarded as mere filler words.

Tip:

Compare the job ad you are applying for with others from the employer. If the same soft skills are mentioned for management and temporary positions, they are not very meaningful. If there is a lot of variation, each word has its meaning.

Examples of essential soft skills

The following soft skills are essential for employers in the selection of personnel and the successful entry of graduates. They often appear in job advertisements in this form or in a modified form:

  • Willingness
  • Sense of responsibility
  • Communication skills
  • Ability to work in a team
  • Critical faculties
  • Ability to deal with conflicts
  • Ability to work independently

  • Success orientation
  • Resilience
  • Show initiative
  • Ability to analyze and make decisions
  • Broad knowledge of the subject discipline
  • Learning competence

For each soft skills mention, think about what this could mean for the desired position. The wording of the areas of responsibility and the desired profile in the job advertisement as well as information from the homepage of the desired employer about areas of work, projects and tasks offer good clues to assess this correctly.

How do I use soft skills in the application?

Soft skills can only be demonstrated in the application process by means of concrete examples. The mere reproduction or even enumeration of designations from the job advertisement will not bring you any advantages.

Example:

If you want to prove your "communication skills", then think of a constellation in which you have demonstrated your communication skills. The selected example must of course also convince the recruiters in terms of content. In this way, you can score points both in writing in the cover letter and orally in the interview. The initial word "communication skills" does not even have to appear. The transfer is the decisive factor.