Today’s competitive job market demands a lot more than just having  the skills and education to do the job well. To be successful in a career, one must attain soft skills! These skills are especially important for young people and new immigrants.

Soft skills are something that is not taught in formal education but rather are personal traits that are learned from throughout one’s life. These are the basic qualities as greeting someone in a certain fashion or able to conduct short talks around the water cooler. Avoid talking about politics and religion.

In an interview, one’s soft skills could come through the way one dresses, firm handshake, eye contact and even self-confidence.

Again new immigrants often struggle finding employment because they do not always view soft skills important as hard job skills. In many ethnic cultures, there is a false sense of belief that saying very little or being soft spoken is favored by employers, which is not always true in the western culture.

If you want to be successful in today’s fierce job and climbing the corporate ladder then sharpen soft skills.