Top soft skills than can help new-age employees beat competition from machines

• Employers across industries are looking to hire professionals with soft skills to keep up with the growing automation, shows the latest report by LinkedIn on ‘Global Talent Trends 2019.’
  
• Creativity has been the most in demand, since this is what machines can’t replicate.
  
• The World Economic Forum report on ‘The Future of Jobs’ forecasts analytical thinking and creativity as the two most sought after skills over the next three years.

India adds 12 million people to its workforce every year. In an era where technology is eating away jobs, soft skills are now much-needed to give people an edge over machines.

Employers across industries are looking to hire professionals with soft skills to keep up with growing automation, shows the latest report by LinkedIn on ‘Global Talent Trends 2019.’ Creativity has been the most in demand, since this is what machines can’t replicate. Others include persuasion, collaboration, adaptability and time management.

In fact, the World Economic Forum report on ‘The Future of Jobs’ forecasts analytical thinking and creativity as the two most sought after skills over the next three years.

According to Vivek Chachra, Country Manager (India), Harvard Business Publishing, “Millennials understand the impact of technology and automation on the future of work and highly value knowledge over current credentials.”

Here are the most in-demand skills and platforms to learn them.

Critical and Analytical thinking

Come 2022, analytical thinking will be the most in-demand skill followed by creativity, according to the World Economic Forum.

The ability to think critically and analytically helps employees analyse data and draw trends from it. With the advent of big data and machine learning, data analysis forms the basis of assessment.

Creativity

According to LinkedIn, creativity is in-demand as this is what machines can’t replicate. In the job market, employers look for employees who can assess and solve everyday problems with creativity and problem solving skills.

Emotional Intelligence

Emotional Intelligence is a new entrant in the in-demand soft skills in the job market. It is the introspection of emotions and feelings so as to be able to take responsible decisions.

This is important in situations of high work stress and deadlines. It also helps to gel up in across teams, projects and roles.

Business communication

Communication and interpersonal skills are one of the top elimination criteria across job roles as communication between coworkers and clients is the basis of networking.

Indian job aspirants can now benefit from the internationally recognised English test offered by the British Council — EnglishScore.

Negotiation techniques

Negotiation is one of the key skills, essentially for sales and business development roles. These skills are related to ‘soft leadership.’ It analyses the convincing power of employees to drive business.

A study by UC Berkeley found that people who believed negotiation could be learned outperformed others.

See also:
Learn these 4 skills to become a top notch digital marketing expert

Three data scientists reveal what it takes to transition from physics to a data science career

The hottest AI jobs will need you to know these programming languages and tools