What’s the Difference Between Soft Skills and Technical Skills?

When a programmer sends in a job application, the employer looks at both soft skills and hard skills before choosing whether or not to hire them. Both types of skills help to define how successful the candidate is.

• Soft skills are subjective, and it is difficult to quantify them. Soft skills are related to the way a candidate interacts and relates with other people. They are also known as interpersonal skills. Some of these skills are flexibility, leadership, communication, patience, motivation, teamwork, time management, and work ethic.
• Technical or hard skills, on the other hand, are generally thought of as more teachable abilities—one can learn technical skills from a course or from books. These skills are usually most prominently displayed in a programmer’s resume. Some of these skills are degree or certificate, machine operation, language proficiency, computer programming, and typing speed.
  Now that we understand the main differences between soft skills and technical skills for programmers, let’s talk about the importance of soft skills in a programmer’s career.

Why Are Soft Skills Important? There are many reasons why soft skills are equally as important as hard skills for programmers. Having soft skills means having positive interactions with other developers, which has many career benefits. These are some of the benefits:

• Soft skills are important for networking. Soft skills help developers to build a network with fellow industry professionals. They can help you make connections, discover job opportunities, and find a mentor to help improve your performance. Though networking is a challenging task, having excellent interpersonal skills can make it easier.
• Soft skills mean teamwork. As a developer, you may find it easy to just focus on your tasks and solving programming errors. But software development is more than that. It’s about teamwork and how each member of the team can contribute toward the development of a robust product. Therefore, having soft skills can enable software developers to easily communicate with each other and solve errors as a team.
• Soft skills benefit retention. One of the most important reasons why soft skills are important is team retention. Once a software development company finds great talent that works well with the team, they should not let them go. Finding and training a new developer takes a lot of effort, time, and money.

We’ve gone over why you need soft skills, but which are the most important soft skills for developers to have?

The 10 Most Important Soft Skills That Every Developer Should Have

1. Patience
2. Self-Learning
3. Time Management
4. Confidence
5. Language Skills
6. Adaptability and Versatility
7. Accountability
8. Being a Team Player
9. Problem-Solving Skills
10. Communication

Soft Skills Complement Each Other

The great thing about soft skills is that they complement each other. Learning one makes it easier to improve on another.

For instance, having great communication skills can help you to easily collaborate with team members and clients, making you a great team player. In turn, this helps you become more confident and self-aware, which improves your accountability skills.

To develop your soft skills, you first need to figure out which soft skills you need to work on. Have a learning mindset, reflecting on the soft skills you are good at while accepting the fact that there are others you need to improve on.

Afterward, be open to expanding your knowledge and skills, leveraging the LMS software at your workplace. Practice collaboration, teamwork, and communication, and don’t be afraid to accept feedback from your team leaders or managers.

Being a versatile developer definitely requires hard skills, but you won’t succeed without soft skills.

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Copyright By: Vikash Kumar