“What other software skills, I know a bunch of languages and a whole bunch of frameworks, I can do things that only a few can do except me, and in general I don’t have time for this ...” - one of the developers will say. And really, isn't it too much to expect from engineers something beyond technical competence? But soft skills are not a whim of the humanities, but a very real opportunity to make that very technical work more comfortable, first of all, for the developers themselves. And, judging by the survey conducted by the Habr.Career portal, the importance of soft skills in work will only grow.
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We recently held a meeting for our students with a Senior Data Scientist from Facebook's London office. The main conclusion was something like this: “You can be an impeccable professional with unique knowledge and experience. But, if you do not have developed Soft Skills, you will not be able to work in the company. Hard Skills can be developed, but in order to become a real team player, you need to make every effort. Not everyone is ready to work on themselves. "
A study by scientists from Harvard, Stanford and the Carnegie Endowment confirms that "soft skills" provide 85% of success in the profession, while hard skills make up only 15%. As much as we want hard skills to decide everything, the world is changing, and in order to live normally in it, you need to adapt.
What are these - soft skills?
Precisely because almost every company understands something of their own under soft skills, everything is not so obvious with them. This article explains this term comprehensively.
Why an engineer needs soft skills and how to measure them
This post explains how such skills help specialists work more efficiently, for example, communicating more comfortably in a team. But communication is not limited to one thing: soft skills allow a specialist to grow, substantiate their proposals and pump a personal brand by speaking at conferences.
I personally have a couple of such friends, talented reclusive specialists who simply “fix their primus and don’t bother anyone,” moving extremely slowly through work due to their inability to talk about themselves and present their solutions to a wide range of people.
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But what if the number of soft skills is comparable to the huge tech tree in Cyberpunk 2077? What "perks" to download first? Of course, I want to pump all of them, but, as in the game, here it is necessary to highlight a number of priority areas, concentrating on what is the most difficult and what you need. This recent article helps a lot with this:
7 soft skills that you need to start pumping right now
The post presents the same software base that can be recommended to specialists of any level, from June to team lead.
In general, the question "what skills to develop in the first place" is very individual and depends not only on your character, but also on the path that you choose(expert, leader or founder).
A whole complex of "soft skills", which goes by itself, is the ability to defend one's rights without infringing upon the rights of others, or "assertiveness." It is well described in this post:
What is assertiveness and why is it needed
The most common manifestation of assertiveness is when we have to politely refuse, for example, to our project manager, to roll out a release on Friday evening. There are people who simply do not know how to refuse correctly, which is successfully used by cunning colleagues and not particularly correct leadership.
Another guideline for what to develop, first of all, can be the list of skills from LinkedIn, which they publish.annually. For example, the most relevant skills of 2020 are:
- Creative thinking that allows you to find non-standard solutions to work problems
- The power of persuasion - it's not enough to come up with a good idea, you still need to correctly present and defend it.
- Collaboration - most developers work in teams, including multilingual and multicultural teams, without collaboration there will be no sensible work.
- Adaptability - this year, with its total “remoteness”, has shown how important this skill is.
- Emotional intelligence is how you evaluate, display, and respond to emotions, both yourself and others.
From this top you can see that skills are very compatible and generally reflect global changes in the world.
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The importance of verbal communication can hardly be overestimated, because this is the main way of exchanging information in a team, and in society as a whole. Even if you don't like communicating with people, this skill must be developed.
How to pull an IT guy out of a swamp, or about communicating in stressful situations
A detailed tutorial on working with negative emotions and difficult situations, which contains examples of communication. The material can help prevent conflicts and will be useful for both technical team members and those who interact with them, from HR to PM.
About the harm of silence
A small post, with the main thesis of which is difficult to argue. Silence is a lack of communication and is often even worse than mediocre communication. If there is a problem, it is important to talk about it!
How to give feedback: 9 rules
And if you are aiming for a team leader (or have already become one) - this post will teach you to give your team the most correct feedback so that no one thinks they are being judged. There are even examples of communication.
Getting along with Generation Z
A guide to engaging with the younger generation, who are already starting to get a job. The author of the material shows that it is quite possible to work normally with "buzzer", it is just that they need a special approach, as, by the way, to all previous generations too.
Fear of public speaking
Incidentally, it is an extremely common phenomenon that occurs even among self-confident people. In the post, the author shares his life hacks that help to cope with the fear of public speaking.
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Write it all down
If you still don't. It seems to be an obvious thing, but not everyone does it. But memory has a limited resource, and you need a kind of backup, the role of which can be played by records.
Why engineers cannot estimate development time
The author analyzes in detail the reasons why people set incorrect deadlines, and explains the setting of erroneous deadlines in engineering projects using statistics.
Task List vs Calendar - Comparison of Task Management Tools
A person who seriously wants to get involved in time management is sure to come across a variety of applications / programs for task control. In the post, the author offers to compare two types of such tools, analyzing the pros and cons of each.
As a bonus, there are recommendations for specific tools in the comments.
For more than 10 years I have been setting goals for the year: I tell you how to do it effectively and Statistics on the logging of life and an annual report
Two posts that I put aside in my bookmarks and which describe the experience of planning for a long time.
Application of soft skills in work
Here I would like to focus on the high-level application of soft skills and start by mentioning these must-have materials for team leaders and those who want to become them.
Advice to the leader from the leader and Commandments of the team leader The
articles show the importance of "soft skills" for leaders, since without their proper development, following these advice simply will not work.
Separately, I would like to mention the universal material on how to manage conflicts in a team . I think it will be useful not only in work.
How to develop soft skills?
There are three main ways of developing soft skills.
The first (the longest and most painful) is the path of personal experience and learning from your own mistakes. Throughout our lives, we do certain repetitive actions, which gradually become necessary skills. Things will go faster if you analyze what you are doing, note what helps or hinders, and carry out “correcting mistakes”.
Secondthe way is to study thematic literature. This can be both motivational literature and specialized materials on your profile, or even posts on Habré like this one. This method requires high self-organization and the ability to actively use knowledge from books in practice. If with this ability of complexity, then, unfortunately, reading books will be ineffective.
Below the spoiler is a whole list of literature recommended by the experts of our Career Center.
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The third way to develop soft skills is to learn from practitioners (these can be courses, trainings, seminars). They usually give the most concentrated knowledge that can help you move faster than if you chose the first or second method. But even here there are pitfalls, because such training should be chosen almost more carefully than literature, since there is a risk of running into a "typical info-businessman".
There are many online courses on the market, including those from foreign universities, that will allow you to immerse yourself in a topic of interest. Here are three options that I found interesting:
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Sometimes one-on-one online courses are not enough because developing communication skills, for example, requires participation in group exercises. This format makes it possible to understand what internal barriers and limitations a person has, makes it possible to try a new strategy of action, to get positive emotions from new experiences.
There is no single right way, the truth, as usual, is somewhere in between. Combining reading special literature, applying it in practice, introspection and training sessions - this is the only way you can pump your soft skills to the maximum.
Outcome
Soft skills in the IT environment are in no way more important than hard skills, but they are important for professional success. You can have very deep knowledge, but without "soft skills" you cannot become a tough specialist today. They make it easier to solve not only work, but also life tasks, and therefore it is so important to develop them.
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