Important Job Skills You’ll Need to Succeed in Your Career

Important Job Skills You’ll Need to Succeed in Your Career You probably have a pretty good handle on the hard skills you’re going to need to get your first job in your career. That much is usually listed on the job posting itself: a bunch of relevant skills and experience for  the work you’ll be doing, plus a handful of more general people skills or organizational talents, etc. What you’re probably less familiar with is the set of skills you’ll need to hone at later stages in your career. Though you’ll be hired on the strength of your hard skills and continually evaluated on them at the junior level, their importance will start to diminish as you progress. There will be a shift to an evaluation of your soft skills around the mid-career mark. Eventually, your promotions to the senior level and beyond will rely almost entirely on soft skills.Such as? Well: likeability, the ability to get things done, and leadership. If you want to go as far as you can in your career, you’ll need to start developing t hese skills early, so you can rely on them when the time is right.What are Soft Skills?Stuck on what your soft skills might entail? Here’s a primer.LEADERSHIPMentoring team members and junior associatesVolunteering to lead tough projects and picking up extra slackParticipating in your industry outside your companyBeing proactive about going above and beyond what is asked of youLIKEABILITYBuilding a reputation as a competent and caring team leader, collaborator, and mentorBuilding strong relationships with your manager and your coworkersMaking sure your efforts and successes are visible to everyone in your office, not just your bossABILITY TO GET THINGS DONEWorking independentlySelf-startingCollaborating with coworkers (and resolving conflicts that might come up)Meeting your deadlines no matter what the internal and external pressures might beHere are three steps toward growing these skills.Take  an honest look at your work personalityA little self-assessment will go a long way. Look at your habits, your strengths and weaknesses, your workplace demeanor and routines. Figure out where you need to grow and prioritize the most important areas to work on.Talk to your managerOnce you have a good handle on where you are, take it to your manager to see where your needs overlap, and where her priorities for your development and performance might differ from your assessment. Get on the same page. And get specific on what you’re being evaluated on at each level of your progress.Be proactive and seek out opportunitiesWithout sacrificing any of your hard skills (or the continued development of your technical arsenal of tools), start figuring out how your current job and position can equip you to advance. Look for collaborative and leadership opportunities. Take on extra responsibilities. Ask your boss what she needs the most and give that to her precisely.As soon as you can start building these skills- in addition to the ones that got you the job in the fir st place- you’ll be well on your way to proving worthy of promotion after promotion.