As we enter 2024, which skills will help international students succeed in their studies and future employment? We shared the top hard skills in a previous article; now, we’ll look at some key soft skills, which are more important than most people realize.
First, what are soft skills? Unlike hard skills, which are often job-specific and learned through education or training, soft skills are personal traits or aspects that reflect your personality and work style.
Often, soft skills are useful across a variety of settings. For example, if you’re an organized team member who excels at communication, those skills will help you anywhere! Soft skills are also important to a company’s bottom line: Research from the Hay Group showed that managers who build soft skills into their leadership style can boost their team’s performance by up to 30%.
Read on to learn five of the most valuable soft skills, and how they can help you succeed as an international student or graduate.
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Problem Solving
How do you approach a challenge? Are you able to look at a problem from multiple angles, or take a creative approach? New grads who can illustrate strong problem solving and critical thinking abilities will stand out from the pack. You might have a deep theoretical understanding of mathematics, but applying that knowledge and translating it into effectively solving real problems is often what will impress others most.
In fact, global consulting firm McKinsey shares that the single skill most HR professionals wish they saw more often from job candidates is problem solving. 83% of employers also report that problem solving ties with teamwork as the most important asset entry-level workers can put on their resume.
Wondering how to build this soft skill? Being well-rested helps, as it supports healthy brain function. Sometimes, though, the answer is to take a running start—literally. The Center for Management and Organization Effectiveness explains that:
When in action, our brains are quickly multitasking between moving, anticipating, strategizing, reacting, and performing. Doing all these things at once requires an enormous amount of brain activity. This can be related to our working world when we plan, reason, monitor our actions, and problem-solve at once…When you play soccer or any other fast-moving sport, you’re rewiring your brain to be quicker at thinking, processing, and reacting to problems.
As we start a new year, here are some more tips for keeping your mind and body healthy through the winter!
Teamwork
For many, the office is a place of camaraderie, learning, and engagement. Though not without its challenges (like interpersonal politics), offices provide connection and community for most adults. So, when the COVID-19 pandemic prompted a pivot to remote work, or required measures like distancing and masks in frontline roles that could not work from home, this feeling of connection changed pretty dramatically.
Fortunately, employees with strong teamwork skills have found new ways to engage their colleagues and customers. This took many forms. In some workplaces, managers implemented 1:1 meetings to ensure their direct reports were staying well and up-to-date with projects. At others, libraries created buttons with teachers’ smiling, maskless faces to wear in class so the students could recognize them.
Team-building can be informal, too. For example, the Communications team here at ApplyBoard connects weekly over our results on a random BuzzFeed quiz, helping us learn more about our colleagues and feel closer to the team.
Helping to create and participate in that team building is more important than you may think. If you prefer to keep your head down and work instead of interacting with co-workers or fellow students, you may risk coming across as unapproachable. Showing that you can work productively and interact with others in a collaborative environment is absolutely vital. Employers will notice, and will often reward you for being a team player!
Leadership
Leadership is a complex trait, and is often difficult to quantify. It includes personal traits like empathy and a collaborative spirit, as well as harder soft skills like being able to articulate a vision and compel others to follow you towards its realization. The ability to balance operational and strategic priorities, negotiation, and conflict resolution are also important leadership abilities.
In fact, the World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs report listed leadership among its top 10 most important skills for workers in 2023, alongside many of the other soft skills we’ve mentioned in this article.
For new grads, it’s important to remember that leadership doesn’t just come from company CEOs. In fact, anyone who has influenced others to act towards a better outcome is a leader. Maybe you took the lead on a school project, mentored others at work, or volunteered as a tutor or coach. Being able to give examples of times where you stepped up as a leader will definitely help you stand out when seeking post-graduation work.
Here’s a simpler way to think about it: a good leader is accountable (keeps promises and gets their work done), and a team player (guides others and wants to make everyone successful, not just themselves). Leadership is not about being blindly confident or “always right.” It’s much more about earning respect, guiding others, and always striving to improve.
Adaptability
United Kingdom-based recruitment agency Michael Page (PageGroup) highlighted adaptability as a vital skill for employees to develop. You might also think of this as flexibility, or your overall willingness to “roll with the punches” and adjust to change quickly.
Whether by adapting to a new meeting style, connecting with your team in different ways, or engaging clients using new approaches, employees that can adapt to (or even suggest!) these changes will excel. Change is inevitable, so don’t be afraid of it—embrace it!
Adaptability also includes being understanding around the shifting reality of work for other team members. Writer and branding expert Wendi Weiner shares that it’s important to be “more accepting of others’ needs and [learn] how to work with those who may have childcare or other critical needs that require flexible work schedules.”
Studying abroad can be a leap out of your comfort zone. It’s also a fantastic way to build vital soft skills, from cross-cultural communication to being adaptable.
Communication
As soft skills go, communication is one of the huge ones. Effective communication isn’t just about being able to speak or write in general; it’s about being able to communicate clearly and make your meaning understood by others. This soft skill will be important for every job you ever work (even if you become a remote lighthouse keeper in rural Canada)!
As many workplaces remain remote or a mix of remote and in-office, strong communication skills can ensure your team’s success. With fewer opportunities for in-person dialogue, written communication skills in particular are increasingly important. Whether it’s a quick Slack message, an engineering blueprint, or a formal whitepaper, new grads who can communicate key messages clearly and convincingly will see their team thrive.
The benefits of good communication extend beyond colleagues, too. Teams that use empathy and humour to connect with their customer base report stronger customer loyalty and an improved customer experience.
These soft skills will get you far, both in your studies and in your future employment. Brush up on these skills, and it’ll help you more than you know. Best of luck with your career progression in 2024 and beyond!
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