YOUNGSTERS AND SOFT SKILLS

When the gadgets overpowered the face-to-face communication, the youngsters are the first to be influenced. They are born alongside these technologies that made them feel that everything that happened outside those little screens are simply unimportant, or they feel that those events are not worth their attention. For those youngsters that’s reading this blog post of mine, let me ask you guys something, do you refer to a physically printed dictionary to look up those words you don’t understand? I bet the majority of you would answer “no”. you prefer looking up those newly discovered word via Google Translate that is much more convenient and rapid rather than turning the pages of that huge dictionary. In my opinion, this is why youngsters have so low soft skills.

“Soft skills get little respect, but will make or break your career”

-Peggy Klaus-

Research conducted by Harvard University, the Carnegie Foundation and Stanford Research Center has all concluded that 85% of job success comes from having well-developed soft and people skills, and only 15% of job success comes from technical skills and knowledge.

The top 10 of soft skills required by employer these days are:

• ·         Strong work ethics
• ·         Positive attitudes
• ·         Good communication skills
• ·         Time management abilities
• ·         Problem solving skills
• ·         Teamwork
• ·         Self-confidence
• ·         Ability to accept and learn from criticism
• ·         Flexibility/adaptability
• ·         Working well under pressure

These are some of the soft skills that youngsters nowadays lack even though its the most preferred soft skills required from the employees. This pretty much explained the massive unemployment in Malaysia itself. Of course you would say that the mass produced graduates creates the competition in employing new workers and lack of soft skills is not the main reason. That is without a doubt true, but what will ensure that we can get rid of those competition is by having these soft skills to show how professional we can be if we were hired.

What I’m trying to say here is that I am one of those youngsters myself, so I completely understand the reason behind the lack of soft skills they possessed. One of the reason is that the lack of communication skills might be caused by youngsters attitude where they are more used to talking via social media rather than meeting them face-to-face. This creates the awkwardness in the youngsters whenever they are supposed to make a real live conversation.

“The most important thing in communication is hearing what isn’t said”

-Peter Drucker-

Is that magic? NO SILLY! That is soft skill, honey. Soft skills are not only important for when you want to apply for a job. Soft skills are also needed so that you can blend in more effectively and efficiently into the society. Trust me, you would not want to upset your neighbors one day just because you lack soft skills. You will be hated. That is NOT the most pleasant feeling you can ever have. So if you don’t want the whole population to hate on you, then you better get started with all those soft-skill-mastering session from now!!

Remember, even if the future world will be the era of you talking to some emotionless robot, you will still need to practice soft skills.

Be writing more next week. Until next time.

XOXO –sunflower-