Skills that do not need a College Degree

Skills that do not need any College degree.

Part 1: Communication.

Developing one’s CV is arguably one of the most important steps to enter and navigate in the professional world. A good CV casts a good first impression, but what happens once you are past this first step?

As a recruiter, we always seek qualities in a candidate that are more than what is documented in the CV which makes them stand apart, regardless the candidate being a fresh graduate or an experienced player.

So, what are those skills? Let’s see – to name some is: Communication, Attitude, Leadership, and many more.

Here we are going to start with one and most important skill : Communication Skill:

We are calling it a Skill – Because it can be learnt, at any point of your life. You are not born with it.

Communication is not only important to convey your message – it is extremely important to make sure the message understood as intended.

When we talk about Communication – we talk about 6 pillars of communication –

1-   Assertiveness 2- Authenticity 3- Open-mindedness 4- Empathy 5- Clarity 6- Listening.

While the names are self-describing, an appropriate understanding of the skill of communication would need a deeper insight to these pillars. Let us move one by one.

1.      Assertiveness: When you have something that you want to convey – convey it with confidence - frame the sentences properly, every time.

“Think before you speak” applies here.

Avoid any kind of fillers; fillers are the sounds/words we use to fill in the gaps while we are collecting our thoughts.

Some people use, "Hmm", "umm", "what to say", "you know", "what I mean is", and many more. Now let us imagine a sentence –

“I wanted to pursue MBA because – I wanted to gain a professional degree and have an edge before entering the business world. “

Now imagine the same sentence with the Fillers.

“I wanted to pursue MBA because ummm, you know, what to say – I wanted to gain a professional degree, and you know – to have an edge, you know before I enter the business world. “

Now decide for your self- which one sounds better.

Long story short – if you want to say something – say it with confidence, sound confident, and avoid the fillers.

2.      Authenticity: Unless you are a very good storyteller or the motive is just to entertain people – do not copy somebody else’s story to paste it at the opportune moment. This will do more harm than good to your conversation, creating false impression and one is more likely to fall during follow -up questions. Unless necessary – depend on your genuine experiences, the story you can stand by.

In my experience in employment market I have witnessed many people who think of something as a good story – and try to use it as theirs during interviews and/or small talks, but when the follow-up questions come, the story is shattered in pieces.

3.      Open Mindedness: As they say, it is hard to fill a cup that is already full. It is for benefit of one’s own growth to keep the cup half filled. The major mistake that one can make is rigidity in approach i.e. – not acknowledging the Point of View (POV) of the other people. My recent experience is with this person – very talented, super confident but stuck with a rigid frame of mind that their experience was the only way things are possible and there is definitely just one side to a coin.

The best way forward to situations like this is Open Mindedness, being able to acknowledge, accept the feedback, and listening to the solutions.

How you react to opposite views is very important and is seen as very important skill. Having a genuine respect for others and other POV is a starting step to be open minded and to also step forward towards the virtue of empathy, which is our next pillar.

4.      Empathy: Once – I was standing with my Japanese counterparts – we were talking in English, suddenly the other Japanese person asked a question in Japanese, and I answered.

To let you know, I do not know how to speak Japanese – but the Skill I used, was – Empathy.

 Empathy is severely underplayed Skill, empathy is something which makes us human, and which will keep us +1 over the AI, and ROBOTS.

We are gifted with an ability to read the emotions and how someone would feel, react to certain words/ actions under given situations. We can read gestures, differentiate a genuine smile form the fake, understand the mood so why not use it intelligently?

Our parents use to tell us- “put yourself is somebody else’s shoes”, who knew this would become a whole new skill in itself.

In-case you still wondering what is empathy, and how to use it – start with putting yourself in another person’s pace and see how will you react to certain situation, would you act any different? This analysis will present an idea how to proceed from there, what decision to make, what to expect.

With empathy one can even understand the context of conversation even though they are not familiar with the language.

5.      Clarity: Have you ever been in a situation where you say something, very clear in your head, but the person in front seems confused, as if you spoke Alien?

Whenever one is speaking, must always keep the audience and surroundings in mind. The thing we are looking for here is, clarity. This clarity can come with the language we use, the volume we speak, the tone we use, and with the speed we talk.

Try using appropriate words, with right tone, right volume and avoid unnecessary jargon.

Break down the content in simple format, this will help to convey the thoughts in an easy manner, without confusing the audience.

Remember, we are talking to achieve some result – even if the result is just delivering a message. If the message is not understood by the second party, the goal is unfulfilled.

6.      Listening: Before we even Jump to what we need to do, what not to do to be a better listener, one needs to understand the difference between Hearing and Listening.

Hearing is a function: if someone has functional ears, they can hear. It is involuntary, no efforts needed. We hear the sound on the traffic, can hear the birds chirping in the morning, and we can hear people talking.

On the other hand;

Listening - is a Skill – it needs voluntary effort to use the hearing plus the understanding, and empathy to listen to anything or anyone.

Now, what one can do to be a good listener.

First and foremost – listen to understand, not to reply or ask question.

When we listen to reply, we only hear – what we want to hear, we often miss the whole context and never grab the essence of the conversation.

Be patient – let the person finish the whole sentence. Half knowledge or half sentence both are equally dangerous!

Use the skills like Empathy and open-mindedness to be a better listener.

Listening is one of the most important Skills – the one that will always be needed to communicate better. One needs to be as good of a listener, as a speaker.

While we discussed and touched the 6 pillars one by one, one can always learn more. With mode of communication evolving with time, the skills and essentials needed with each mode are evolving too. We moved from signs to languages, from letter to phone calls, from in-person to online meetings, one can only think what the future beholds. The only option we are left with is to evolve with time, with the changes in scenario – we might have to evolve faster, learn quicker and adapt even quick.

 “It’s not distance that keeps people apart, it’s the lack of communication”: source Web.

Geetika Mishra