Interpersonal skills involve the ability to communicate and build relationships with others. Often called “people skills,” they tend to incorporate both your innate personality traits and how you’ve learned to handle certain social situations. Effective interpersonal skills can help you during the job interview process and can have a positive impact on your career advancement.
What are interpersonal skills?
Interpersonal skills are traits you rely on when you interact and communicate with others. They cover a variety of scenarios where communication and cooperation are essential.
Some examples of interpersonal skills include:
Active listening
Teamwork
Responsibility
Dependability
Leadership
Motivation
Flexibility
Patience
Empathy
In a work environment, strong interpersonal skills are an asset that can help you navigate complexity, change and day-to-day tasks.
Why are interpersonal skills important?
Strong interpersonal skills can help you during the job interview process as interviewers look for applicants who can work well with others. They will also help you succeed in almost any job by helping you understand other people and adjusting your approach to work together effectively. For example, while a software engineer may spend the majority of her time working on code independently, she may need to collaborate with other programmers to effectively bring a product to market.
This is especially true as more companies implement collaborative agile frameworks for getting work done. Employers will be looking for workers who can both perform technical tasks with excellence and communicate well with colleagues.
Interpersonal skills examples
Unlike technical or “hard” skills, interpersonal skills are “soft” skills that are easily transferable across industries and positions. Employers value interpersonal skills because they contribute to positive work environments and help maintain an efficient workflow.
Here is a list of interpersonal skills for you to identify interpersonal skills you may possess that are valuable to employers:
Active listening
Active listening means listening to others with the purpose of gathering information and engaging with the speaker. Active listeners avoid distracting behaviors while in conversation with others. This can mean putting away or closing laptops or mobile devices while listening, and asking and answering questions when prompted.
Dependability
Dependable people can be relied on in any given situation. This can include anything from being punctual to keeping promises. Employers highly value dependable workers and trust them with important tasks and duties.
Empathy
A worker’s “emotional intelligence” is how well they understand the needs and feelings of others. Employers may hire empathetic or compassionate employees to create a positive, high-functioning workplace.
Leadership
Leadership is an important interpersonal skill that involves effective decision making. Effective leaders incorporate many other interpersonal skills, like empathy and patience, to make decisions. Leadership skills can be used by both managers and individual contributors. In any role, employers value people who take ownership to reach common goals.
Teamwork
The ability to work together as a team is extremely valuable in every workplace. Teamwork involves many other interpersonal skills like communication, active listening, flexibility and responsibility. Those who are good “team players” are often given important tasks in the workplace and may be seen as the good candidates for promotions.
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