What they don’t teach you at school

For all of you who are career go getters, have you ever considered what makes you valuable in the workplace? What skill set is necessary to progress in the fast growing business world? What about the skills we weren’t taught in a traditional classroom setting?

Throughout our academic years, we learn a lot and we gain a lot from being inside the classroom, the skills you are taught during school are totally different from the skills gained outside of it.

I’m sure by now you have heard the phrase what ‘soft skills’ and ‘interpersonal skills’ you have to offer to my company right? These skills are heavily sought after by employers these days. This kind of skills you don’t developed them during your academic years, but through the experiences and opportunities outside the classroom.

The main most valuable soft skills you  will gain throughout the years not sitting in a classroom are listed below.

• Managing conflict and collaboration

In any position, you will come across working with people in a productive yet collaborative manner and manage conflict with others. This is an invaluable asset.

In any position you will come across different opinion, attitudes and conflicts that you will have to face them, manage them and resolve them. As you progress in your business career you will see different roles of being a supportive member, an executive, a leader. These kind of roles you get to work with everyone in the team in order to provide the best experience and service to the client. You will have to collaborate and manage conflict within the team, communicate with client and manage conflicts. Working with others to achieve a common goal is a productive collaboration. Being part of a team you will come across different conflicts, managing these conflicts, and have a fruitful collaboration with the rest of the team,  have patience, open mindedness and adaptability are always the key.

• Networking

In a fast pace business world, where everybody is busy with their career progress,  networking is very important to nurture relationships and creating meaningful connections with people professionally.

This is a skill you don’t develop in a classroom and its sure thing it won’t take you to places if you don’t learn this. I know it’s sounds terrifying starting conversation with people you don’t know, branding and market yourselves, but pushing yourself out of your comfort zone to become more familiar with the unfamiliar is a great benefit and skill for your career. Practice makes perfect, practicing this, getting yourselves out there, it will become more physically nature.

• Creativity

Have you ever felt  that you are not creative enough? That your ideas are not creative? This can happen to anyone, the positive out of this is that creativity lies within everyone, it just be in hiding. There are always ways that we can find our inner creativity.

A lot of our creativeness comes during our free time, when you are not to focus on other things, when your mind is calm. Take advantage of your free time, spent your energy on reading books that can trigger your creativeness, write, watch TED talks and most importantly teach yourself new skills.

Find something that inspires you and makes you happy. Give yourself the freedom and space to allow it. Surround yourself with things and people that inspire you and you give yourself permission to consider the thoughts you usually push away as unimportant. Set your self free from limitations, this way you will find your creativity.

• Leadership

When you are assigned to lead a group of people, don’t get scared, take this opportunity and make it a strength of yours. Leading a team, consider each member’s strengths, weaknesses and interests so you can delegate the tasks accordingly. Gaining leadership skills will open new doors for your career development, run for leadership positions in an organization you are in or ask your manager for more responsibilities where you will be leading. Try and find opportunities to develop and grow your leadership skills, either by being part of a non profit organization or working on your own project, learn to delegate and manage a team.

• Project Management

Most companies talk about time management, but I don’t think project management gets enough attention. Project management has been defined in multiple ways, but to me, it encompasses the acts of organizing, managing, monitoring a project with a certain goal in mind, and typically also includes managing a team. This is a skill that requires a detail-oriented eye to check for quality and an understanding of time and budget constraints while also being able to see the big picture.

I doubt if we ever learned this type of skill during our academic years, and if we did it might have been very little. For example, I learned from taking on opportunities where I got  to take the lead on projects and had to implement the tactics that make up project management such as creating my own website, creating content and PR plans for clients, or my projects making videos. These experiences have taught me how to boost team morale, best use our skills, and how to communicate with clients to meet their wants and needs, as well as providing them work on schedule.

If you don’t have much project management experience yet, or your company doesn’t provide you the opportunity to be part of a project management, you could start small by running your own projects. See how much time and money you could save in a project for work or on a personal project and figure out the best way to achieve efficiency and quality.

• Public Speaking

Have you ever been into that situation where you had to do a public speaking? Have you felt your legs shaking, losing your words, sweating?

Public speaking is a skill that requires lots of practice and exposure, and something I found to be incredibly helpful is recording a video of yourself presenting something, and then critiquing it. You could set up your phone and give a little presentation by yourself, or if you have a friend or family member do it. Doing this is a way to improve your presentation style. Its amazing how many filler words we humans use when we are nervous and not paying attention to it. Every presentation is a story, and every story requires a beginning, middle and end to help guide the audience. With public speaking, practice is key and its never too late to learn it.

• Communication skills

Last but not least communication skills, is another valuable asset that is not teachable during the academic years, not in such a depth at least. Communication is a skill that can always be improved. If you are a shy and nervous person, remember that people love talking about themselves. If you don’t know what to say, then ask them about themselves. The simplest act can go such a long way.

Another skill I think people don’t practice enough in conversation is active listening. Have you ever found yourself in conversations half listening to someone? Rather than listening to respond, you should listen to understand, while paying attention to others body languages as well. By understanding the conversation your responses will likely be much more thoughtful and this will really help in communicating with others.

The above is some of the soft and interpersonal skills that you will not be taught in a classroom. These are the skills that an employer will ask you in an interview, in an evaluation. Practice your soft skills and get ready to nail every assignment that comes in your way.