By Danial Yusof
Nowadays, future employers are putting a certain expectation where they hope fresh graduates have already mastered with the hard skills along with the soft skills. They believe that graduates are well exposed to the skills since they think most of them have joined programmes and events organised by the university. Unfortunately not many of them fulfil the expectation. Graduates might have achieved excellence academically but are not in their soft skills.
Soft skills are now a must for every person to face the real world after graduating. Employers are not only looking at the Cumulative Grade Point Average (CGPA) but they want an employee who can do the work and communicate well in the industry. If an employee can satisfy their expectation, it will be a relief for the employer. Of course it will be an advantage if the employee has a good CGPA.
Soft skills are defined as “activities that sit at the intersection of these two, such as teamwork or strong presentation skills, according to Pratt & Richards (2014). From the statement, scholars define soft skills as activities where a person needs to do some actions that lead to something positive and enhance others’ confidence. It is not an easy job for everyone to do but they can be learned and acquired although to some it might be take some time to develop.
Nick Noraani in a book entitled “9 soft skills, no immigrant should be without” highlighted, among others, the importance of the following: communication skills, presentation skills, leadership and initiative, conflict resolution and negotiation. Future employers are likely to hire a person with the best personality and it is important for fresh graduates to demonstrate such skills during job interview.
As mentioned earlier, soft skills are needed for a person to do his or her job. Apart from that, soft skills are also important for a person when handling a crisis. For example, in the case of MAS flight MH370, a spokesperson of the company is the one who should be in the front line. The person needs to update himself with latest information and should know how to handle the situation like victims to all family members involved in the incident as well as the media. The spokesperson needs to control the situation and handle the press conference well.
From the situation stated, we can see that the spokesperson needs to master some forms of soft skills and certainly this is not an easy job. When we look into the good aspect of it, having soft skills enhance our confidence level in managing a crisis and people would surely have greater respect for the person. When we are asked to present a research paper in front of a respectful professor and prominent person, surely we will feel quite nervous, but if we have already mastered our presentation skills, things like that should not be a problem. And when we managed to get the attention of the audiences, it means that our presentation is good enough.
Soft skills are not an easy thing to master but it must be learned thoroughly. It also requires some techniques in order to apply it and it must be applied accordingly and a person must not use it wrongly. Soft skills can be acquired through organising events, programmes and presentations. Sometimes, students do not know how to use the opportunity given by lecturers while presenting a research paper.
A person needs to do a good preparation so that the presentation will run smoothly and would thus get the audiences’ attention. A rehearsal should be done early before the presentation day and only key points should be included in the slides and not long sentences because audiences could be bored.
Besides, soft skills need to be used accordingly and it can’t be used to do something that is not ethical like bribing, persuading and others. It can be used to promote an organisation’s product or services to the client through face to face interaction. The words chosen must be appropriate and it must show that the organisation is good in the eyes of customers. The element of persuasion is mainly used to attract the customer’s interest so that they will be keen to buy the products.
Soft skills are recommended for all regardless whether they are students, fresh graduates or even staff members in the organisation. They are important not only when seeking for a job but also useful when you are already at workplace. It might happen where a person managed to get a job although he or she is lacking in soft skills, but when the person enters the industry, one would surely need to use the soft skills at any time. Hence, it is advisable for each one of us to learn and acquire the soft skills while studying in the university.***
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