Making Sense of Hard Skills VS. Soft Skills

Making Sense Of The Skillset: Hard Vs. Soft Skills

How often have we heard about college dropouts paving up their way to successful careers or businesses? In other instances, people who had been top of their class may struggle in getting a strong footing in their career paths. Scholars, researchers, psychologists, educationists; all have strived to investigate the factors that contribute to a well rounded accomplished and successful human being.Generally, people have to establish a certain skill set to pursue certain career paths. Some qualities come naturally to them and some they have to develop through experience and learning. The skillset could be defined as a set of attributes, traits, and capabilities that people possess or acquire in order to establish a career or to get a specific job. In order to understand the significance of the characteristics that lead to success in career seeking, the skillset can be categorized into two broad categories.

Hard Skills…How Technically Proficient Are You?

Hard skills refer to hardcore knowledge or information that people learn through their educational institutes, teachers, or career experiences. They are sometimes also referred to as “content knowledge.” 

The Glossary of Education Reform describes “content knowledge” as: “the facts, concepts, theories, and principles that are taught and learned in specific academic courses, rather than to related skills—such as reading, writing, or researching—that students also learn in school.”

In order to follow a certain field of work, people have to acquire the technical know-how necessary for that area. For example, an aspiring lawyer will have to go through law course books and certifications/degrees to join his dream career. A web developer needs to have a programming language and design education to follow his career path

Soft Skills….What Kind Of Person Are You?

Soft skills encompass your personal work attitude or the manner in which you conduct yourself in social or workplace settings. They include important personal tendencies like communication skills, listening aptitude, teamwork capacities, organization skills, leadership qualities, adaptability, innovativeness, and many more.

Both of these types of skills contribute to the overall success of a person in any field of work. So, when it comes to developing curriculums and teaching methods for students, it's important that educationists devise ways to sharpen both kinds of skills to nurture holistic and well-balanced individuals.