You may ask yourself, what differentiates a good employee from a great one in an increasingly IT-driven world of work? The answer to this question lies in the important skill sets that employees need to learn and make use of to not only be effective in their job, but to be a good team player. These are known as hard skills and soft skills. Let’s explore these further.

First off, in entering a new job, one would need to have a good grasp of the hard skills that are essential to the role. These are the talents and abilities that employees are specifically trained for, through their experience and through schooling. Think of hard skills as those you list on a resumé or the areas in which you hold certifications. These can be proficiency in a field, like dev-ops, front- or back-ends and so on.

The importance of hard skills is that they provide the foundation for the services a business provides or the products it creates. One would not hire a developer who doesn’t have the hard skills to perform this role. Hard skills training ensures that your employees are equipped to do good work in their field.

On the other hand, soft skills are also key in every work environment. It may be helpful to ask recruiters which of these they pay attention to during interviews. This is because these far more abstract and often apply not only to one specific job but are universal. These help you build longer-lasting co-worker and customer relationships. Although these are much harder to measure, they are vital interpersonal skill-sets that ensure that people get along with each other and collaborate successfully. They are crucial as they include things like traits, a person’s ability to relate to others, the ability to work in or lead a team, and one’s overall understanding of and participation in one’s company culture.

Reviewing different examples of soft skills can help to better understand this concept. These can be creativity, collaboration, adaptability, patience, time management, multitasking. Arguably, one of the key soft skills is emotional intelligence as this enables a person to work very well with others. A person with a high emotional intelligence has a strong sense of self-awareness which positively impacts their ability to regulate their behavior effectively to suit their team.

At BrainRocket, we value both skill sets immensely. In fact, we are always looking to welcome new employees to add to our fun and friendly company culture. Have a look at our Careers Section to become a BRO.