# Introduction to Soft Skills

**Channel:** Soft Skills
**Source:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUlsNJtg2L8
**Transcript page:** https://www.withtranscript.ai/video/DUlsNJtg2L8

## Chapters

- 0:18 — What Soft Skills Really Mean
- 6:30 — Soft Skills Versus Hard Skills
- 12:43 — Behavioral Skills for Employability
- 20:35 — Recruiters Want More Than Degrees
- 29:11 — Communication, Meetings, and Representation
- 36:40 — Global Awareness and Lifelong Growth

## Transcript

**[0:18]:** most welcome to the course entitled soft skills the very first lecture is entitled introduction to soft skills soft skills nowadays is not not a new term as you hear it quite often by your friends relatives and in various other circles you often attained but then hearing alone is not enough you often think what actually are softer skills you might have come across the term skills but when the word soft is added it makes you more curious the other day when father returned from the bank and said oh the new manager has very excellent soft skills you started thinking what were the soft skills you not only thought to yourself but then the other morning you asked your father was he so handsome does he get a very good salary then you decided you should rather go to the bank and see how was the manager that his softer skills are being appreciated every now and

**[1:39]:** then on your reaching there you saw that the man was sought in height and was not attractive also but then there was something which could have made people appreciate some of his skills suddenly the word skills created a sort of sensation in you and you started thinking that people have some skills say for example a carpenter may have the carpentry skills a doctor may have the medicinal skills a teacher may have the teaching abilities and so on and so forth a driver a lawyer anyone for that matter in any of the profession will have some skills or the other but what actually are the soft skills perhaps they are some special skills and you wanted to make some more inquiries about that soft skills is actually a Burge word all around the world it is always better to understand soft skills before we can come to Define it and the the better way to understand

**[3:01]:** it to know its specifications let me give you an instance so that you will understand the term softer skills better once I was invited to a marriage party at a very short notice attending the party was a must and it was the month end I didn't have much money in my pocket and I was feeling both guilty and Asam as to how to give a suitable present to the couple I entered a nearby shop and was really attracted to see so many valuable items in the form of gifts I was really upset I was not in a position to decide as to what should I buy and then suddenly the young manager of the shop intervened and said may I help you the gesture of the young man attracted me too much and then I could see that he sold me so many things and then one after another he also kept on telling me

**[4:13]:** the prices as well as the importance according to the need of the function and I finally bought one PR from him and was really feeling glad I was so tempted and fascinated by the behavior of the young man that I asked him how far have you read and his answer really made me think a lot since he said I dropped my final year at the college because of the economic difficulties after all what was it in the young man that attracted me and persuaded me to buy the gift from him actually it were some of his personal skills he was so friendly handsome though he was not but he was always a helper his helping attitude made me think highly of him and the way he started analyzing my needs and made me understand the importance of dealing really can tell a lot about the skills that he possessed the this can collectively be called

**[5:32]:** soft skills and here there's a point of caution to note that many of us often think that soft skills are communication skills but then was communication skills only the remedy there because the other salesman who was showing me the items also spoke but he didn't have that aura that extra Edge which the young man manager really had he had some amount of perseverance some amount of friendliness some amount of reassurance which made me feel that he was the person from whom I should bu you also come across so many such situations where you also feel that soft skills are very important perhaps you could realize now what your father was talking about the manager soft

**[6:30]:** skills soft skills thus is an umbrella term for various skills now another question that arises in your mind is because when the term soft skills is used you are reminded of hardware and software because you are living in a digital age so soft skills and hard skills do they also fall in the same line it is really very important important to understand the difference between the two soft skills complement one's hard skills now the question is what actually are the hard skills let me give you another example in your town you come across two doctors having their clinics on the same road just a little bit of difference and when you look at their prescriptions you find that they have very good degrees very good qualifications both of them had a foreign degree in their hands but then what makes you wonder is that while one doctor's uh Clinic is always crowded the others is

**[7:46]:** not so though both of them had read from the same College had been the Toppers of their batches but what actually mattered in their case is that while the second one had a roaring practice the first one didn't have that here again you will find it is a question of soft skills because if you look at the dealings of the two doctors you will find there is a vast difference between the way they talk to their clients they talk to their patients their staff members behave actually it is always better if you can have a look at the two pictures here in the one picture you find uh while the patient is anal while the patient is describing his case to the doctor the patient says I have pain in my neck in my legs in my back and I feel weak and sick the doctor after some moment says you are suffering from hypochondria

**[8:57]:** and the patient stares the doctor in in the face the patient couldn't understand what this hypochondria was and started thinking that it was perhaps some deadly disase now here you can find this doctor could not understand the limitation of the patient and used a word which was actually very difficult for him on the other hand you see another case where the attendant tells the patient the doctor will see you now I can't promise that he will talk to you but he will see you now here are the two two situations and you will find uh that you often want to go to a doctor who actually takes a case history of yours a doctor who actually uh knows the diagnosis and the Doctor Who prescribes you less medicine and whose staff are very friendly and they always have a solution for you now this goes on to tell us that soft skills are very important

**[10:07]:** it is actually not only in case of life but you will find as you grow up the Ladders because all of you are presently if you are following a degree in a college or a university you often are thinking of nothing but your cgpa or the percentage and then once you get get your cgpn percentage then comes the time when either the campus selections are there or you're looking for jobs and then one day you come to know that while you had a smaller package your friend had a better package why was it so what actually mattered here again dear friends mattered your soft skills now we can say that soft skills can help us come out of difficult situations you have seen both the situations that narrated the one when I was looking for a gift and was not able to decide without the help of a person who was the shop manager now

**[11:12]:** here also is another example and the way the two are dealing with each other here again the question of soft skills arises soft skills can ensure reassurance and reliability after going through these examples you will come to realize that soft skills are a set of skills now there are often people who say that either the number of soft skills are is so many that it is very difficult uh to tell you in brief how many skills are needed you also often think how many skills are needed in order to be considered a person with excellent softw skills some people say that while there are 28 skills the others say there are 60 skills yet some others feel that there are only 10 skills because many of them some way or the other in their anest to soft skills they actually overlap now the question is once we have had an analysis of soft skills we

**[12:21]:** can also create a sort of working definition for softer skills softer skills comprise personality traits social gra facility with language personal habits friendliness and optimism that Mark people to varying degrees dear friends there was a time when you

**[12:43]:** were pursuing a course and you when become eligible you got a job and then you worked alone now we are living in an age where you cannot work alone nowadays you cannot work only with machines today we are living in an age where we have to deal with people where we actually have to come across certain situations where only the machines cannot work rather the Machinery of language the etiquette the manners the behavioral tricks and then some other extra edges alone can help so we can say that soft skills are behavioral skills when we talk about behavioral skills we also have to understand what actually are these behavioral skills are these behavioral skills inherent in us or should we learn them because we are going to survive in a world today where we have to deal with people who have differing Natures different tastes people from different backgrounds different cultures different identities and then once

**[14:02]:** you get a job what is important in your mind is to climb the ladder of success in a short time you cannot do that unless until you have learned certain personal charms what are those charms first is self awareness how aware you are of the present day needs of the world if you might be having a look at the newspapers today and especially if at the asent page of times of India you'll come across different sorts of job requiring different sort of abilities though in many cases they simply mention the criteria such as ba ma BSC MSC btech mtech or having some other additional degrees but actually they do not mention uh the other criteria which come come under the category of soft skills nowadays uh it is no wonder uh to come across people who often say that many of the graduates and postgraduates today are not employable they actually do not have that

**[15:18]:** skills which can make them employ employable this is actually a very Grim picture and you most often come across newspaper captions and headings also now at that time you ought to make yourself aware of what are those skills that can make you go an extra mile an extra Edge then comes flexibility and then comes persistence and perseverance as I said earlier that soft skills are actually life skills people skills behavioral skills and we can keep them under an umbrella term but then as I said earlier many people are under the impression that soft skills are communication skills of course they are there but communication skills are simply a part of the soft skills what actually are needed are some other additional skills such as interpersonal skills management skills leadership skills Team Dynamics all the skills cannot be learned just in one day it is actually a lifelong learning process the more you are acquainted with

**[16:41]:** people the more you are exposed to people the more you most of the time encounter people in dealing certain intricate problems you are to be aware that you are going to learn something or the other so that your soft skills will prompt you to have an extra Edge against others now soft skills though it cannot provide you a job instantly because whenever the question of job comes it is actually your hard skills now let us differentiate between hard skills and soft skills what actually are hard skills hard skills are the subject knowledge the technical expertise that you Garner during your college and university days but then when you come out of the college or the university what actually you need are the soft skills you of course have a technical competence but then because of your nature either uh sometimes you become very introvert and you are not in a position to talk to so

**[17:55]:** many people naturally such people cannot go in extra mile they cannot go in they cannot have an extra Edge over others because your technical competence is well but what will make you excellent sign in the job is your softer skills here you can find that self-awareness and self-confidence they are actually the tools to enable you to face other people and then when you are in a job what you will find is there are certain situations where some decision is to be taken there are times when you will have to participate in meeting there are times when you will have to write certain technical documents there are also times when you'll have to take certain decisions when you are either the CEO or the in charge of a company whatever profession you are in you certainly require some amount of soft skills without soft skills your hard skills are hard only what actually you need is

**[19:01]:** you actually need to drive your hard skills through the engine of soft skills so in order to differentiate we can also say that these soft skills are performance skills just you go back and look at certain examples and you will find the young manager who didn't have that much of qualification as compared to an MBA but had an edge because the way he performed the way he behaved the way he dealt with the situation proved better so we can say that soft skills are performance skills hard skills as I narrated earlier are part of one's College curriculum softer skills are not taught in any college and universities nowadays you find several workshops are organized there are several in service training programs all these are there just to make employees more effective in order to carry out the desired results soft skills thus can be said to be a part of continuous learning it is a

**[20:18]:** process of continuous learning every now and then you are in search of new knowledge new skills and how is that possible that is possible only when you are self-aware and once you become self-aware and you start learning confidence

**[20:35]:** will start coming to you you would start bubbling with confidence after a certain amount of time many youngsters they often once they appear at interviews and sometimes or the other they cannot meet the requirement of the recruiters then they perhaps get very frustrated some of them also become so disappointed that they often say nothing can be done but no dear friends it this is not only the end of the road you actually need to learn you need to go within you need to make some personal inquiries you need to have a sort of analysis of your own achievements analysis of the answers that you provided to the recruiters it is very pertinent to say what what a famous recruiter once said and that will give you a lot of clue about the need of the recruiters as well as the need of the organizations what the recruiter said was I would love to hire a

**[21:48]:** girl with plagi and smile and better communication skills than one having a very good cgpa and doing nothing now here is a clearcut statement that tells that your cgpa alone is not the one that can make you get a job rather there are other skills and these other skills are softer skills you may sometimes come across certain capses which which actually reveal startling facts what are the a startling facts now look at uh these data which have been Cur from some newspapers data emerging from census 2011 suggest unemployment rate is high among the better qualified this is actually a report by one of the famous newspapers named Hindu what it suggests is the unemployment rate is high among the better qualified now the question is you go to the college you get a good degree you also have a very good cgpa but then you are not employable you are not employable and what actually

**[23:15]:** are lacking in you you perhaps require some of those key skills which are actually very important from the recruiter's point of view how do you know what the recruiter wants as I told you the newspaper advertisements will give you a picture of the recruitment Trends now there's another caption which will make you more painful to understand 23 lakh people want Pan's job in up engineers and doctors also included now this is really a very tragic figure when we provide a lot of facilities to the budding engineers and doctors and other professionals at the end of the day they are not employable this is really a very gloomy picture and we need to analyze these pictures from the point of view of the recruiters what actually do the rec recruiters need they do not need only the people with degrees people may have degrees but they may not have the requisite skills another survey in aspiring

**[24:33]:** mind that says that a good percentage of professionals today are not employable because of their poor communication skills of course as I told you earlier that you may have a good cgpa but in order to prove yourself suitable for the job market today what you need are the communication skills which can help you negotiate which can help you understand the requirements which can help you analyze which can help you evaluate which can help you estimate which can help you go through a particular problem with a solution that you have and for that you need to go an extra mile as I said you need to be more intelligent which you really are but you are not utilizing your intelligence in the right manner how to do that there nowadays have several measures being taken by even the government there are several ways that employability is going to be generated but then you need to learn

**[25:52]:** certain skills why after all soft skills are relevant you see nowadays the nature of jobs is changing whether it is in your country or in some other country people actually require them who can take initiatives who can take who can have innovative ideas and these innovative ideas will come not only from books but from other sources also the way you become aware the way you try to understand you know there is a debate going on between the policy makers and then the job agencies the organizations that there seems to be something a Miss there is certainly a gap between Academia and Industry that is why most of the organizations even though they recruit you they take you but after some time they actually try try to provide you with a training that can have better results you know in order to be successful whether from the point of view of individual or from the point

**[27:11]:** of view of organizations in order to be successful what you require is a better employee and a better employe is one who is aware who is confident who is commun communicative who actually can take decisions who actually can negotiate who actually can pull the organization from the critical conditions and from the critical situations otherwise what will happen the way nowadays there is actually a mushrooming uh business of colleges coming up and that is perhaps the reason that the number of graduates and postgraduates are increasing like anything but perhaps some way or the other we are failing to instill in these graduates and postgraduates the requisites skills which are actually required by the industry in order to cater to the need of Industry soft skills play a major role soft skills can make an employee more cordial it can make him more accountable it can make him understand his responsibilities and it can also allow him

**[28:34]:** at certain situations to take decisions because you know there are certain situations where some amount of risk is also involved there are certain situations where most of the time your boss is not sitting to give you Direction during that time your real initiative will have to be tested and the way you take decision or the way you come out of that crisis makes you a better informed makes you a better equipped employee now looking at the

**[29:11]:** trends of the newspapers and the Gap that exists between the industry and the Academia the former president of nascom Mr Kieran carnik had said we have to think of ways to groom the qualified students in an effort to make them employable in the industry now employability is the key word now what actually can make you impliable certain soft skills though your personal charms may not work always because you have to mingle your personal charm with the sort of the Felicity of your expression the way way you use words the way you use words while writing a document now it ISS it is not a world where the written word alone is important there are other things which are also important are the unwritten codes and it is very difficult to understand those Unwritten codes how to understand them we shall be in the Cod of uh these lectures we shall be discussing how certain situations

**[30:35]:** require certain key skills and then in certain situations not only your words but your nonword will also prove to be more beneficial today you have to write messages not with a pen and paper not always with the written document being sent and received but you have have to deal electronically also now electronic writings they have certain limitations which we shall discuss when you go to the writing section likewise you also have to deal with certain communication Technologies which have some other requirements and limitations depending upon the situations at times we also have to talk to people for certain deals over telephone and all the way you talk and the the way you discuss the business deals that actually are very important and for that what actually you need is some amount of expertise amount of expertise in terms of language in terms of the organizational structure of the document that you are going to draft

**[31:58]:** in terms of the way you are putting a problem and then finally thinking about a solution all these are very important nowadays because of new challenges that are being faced by us every now and then we need to be extra conscious you cannot write anything and everything you have to have a proper selection of words while you are actually drafting a business documents so is the case when you are participating in a business meeting most of the time you come across certain statements that nowadays there is actually meeting after meeting sometimes or the other you think that these meetings are simply a waste of time but if if you think in the real Spirit of the meeting you will find that certain business transactions can be discussed and we can reach a solution after a meeting you will sometimes find the way meetings are organized actually it is organized to know the viewpoints of other

**[33:18]:** people also because you know you alone cannot take a better decision a better decision should have a sort of coherence should have a sort of mingling of the ideas because you never know whose ideas can be more effective whose ideas can be more salable on other occasions you also come across group discussions when a company is facing a critical problem there are times when a discussion is being made there are times when some people are being called to discuss both the pros and cons of a situation and then in order to take a conclusion while you are going to discuss you sometimes find yourself very incapable why sometimes it is either because of the Fear Factor of your boss sometimes also because of some of your ego problems with some of your colleagues that you try to hide your Expressions but then this is not the right Spirit actually in a gdr in a meeting

**[34:36]:** all you need to do is you need to look at others viewpoints also and you also need to present your own viewpoints also as you grow up the ladder in the organization your responsibilities will increase and you will find the way you have to deal with people is not not one but different because different people may have different nature they have different Behavior since you are at the Helms of Affair you are at the top slot and you want that the job has to be done you also will have to understand the needs you also will have to understand the gaps wherever it may be and for that the way you interact with your senior Junior Superior peer level people and others there you need to be very particular about the sort of language that you are going to use on another occasions you'll also come across some other situations where you need to represent

**[35:45]:** your own organization you need to represent your own Institute and there also you have to prove a mark however sometimes it so happens that you may not have a very good term with your boss but then when you're going to represent your own organization you have to build a positive image of your organization and for that you sometimes have to suppress your anger you have to suppress some of the facts but then you have to represent in the right spirit that will actually provide a better image of your organization dear friends life is full of challenges it is full of opportunities at times you may feel a bit low because of some other impediments but

**[36:40]:** feeling low alone is not the solution you need to come out and for that you need to have a sort of optimism which is also an ingredient of softer skills you need to be optimistic you need to look ahead you always should try to learn lessons from past mistakes you'll also find that nowadays the world is in a condition where the geographical boundaries are shrinking many multinational organizations they are also opening their offices in India and then there are jobs that also require foreign posting now in such situations what you need to do is you you need to be culturally sensitive you need to be aware in the present day world the organization is composed of people from different states different countries different cultures different faiths different Traditions but when you are at a particular organization you need to respect the sentiments of others as well and for this what you need to do is

**[37:59]:** you need always to be more accommodative you need to be more accommodating you need to listen from others you will find when we go to the section on communication we'll talk on how you can become a good listener and then how you can become a good speaker as well because as I said the world is going to become one platform somebody has rightly said that the world is a global village because of the spreading wings of globalization these cultural biases will have to be eliminated you will have to think that you are working in an organization and you are to respect the aims and objectives of the organization and for that you need to respect you need to respect the cultural faith of other people also sometimes or the other you will find you know as as uh I was I was going through a report of the ILO Indian labor organization where it was

**[39:10]:** said that India is facing a sort of jobless growth jobless growth now the question is how to combat how to tackle this jobless growth in this connection the views of a VP vice president of Indian Staffing Federation Mr rorno chakrawarti is very important and it actually needs serious attention because what he stated was we need to invest in and build skills among the youth you know as we have been listening from various quarters hence we have to look at the need of the hour what is actually mandatory today is building skills that is why the vice president of Indian Staffing Federation says that we need to invest and build in skills especially among the youth our prime minister also reiterates in one talk after another that youth is a great capital and we we need to invest in that and how can we do that of course according to chakraverti there has to be a

**[40:32]:** complete overhaul of our education system closely integrating it with an effective Apprentice resign now if the Youth of the country are skilled naturally the country will sign because what we need today is a skilled India that is why there are certain majors like a skill India for many of those who simply think the jobs are the only end they should realize that there are other measures also being started like startup India making India and then one of the most important through which I'm delivering this lecture that is nptl fine now the motive behind this program is to empower the youth to briis the Gap to create a sort of Consciousness among the youth so that they may come forward and make India sign like anything practice my dear friends always makes a man perfect one should try to keep practicing all apart from one's hard skills or core skills one should try to enhance one's

**[41:56]:** sof skills and once you are honed in soft skills you will find life will have a variety of flowers life will have variety of opportunities and success will always wait for you at the front door you need not feel disappointed because you didn't get one job you should always feel optimistic that if one job you didn't get another job is waiting for you but for all that what you need to tell yourself as Swami vianda had taken a mantra and the Mantra is and all of you should go with the Mantra arise awake and stop not till the goal is reached dear friends in your case when you arise you become self-aware when you awake you become self-confident and when you do not stop you become Dynamic and dynamic through soft skills so that you are going to attain the goal that you started once with I hope the very first lecture on soft skills

**[43:18]:** will generate in you a sort of Consciousness we have to go a long way life is a journey and and we have to prepare ourselves for the journey both for the rainy days and for the sunny days thank you very much we shall discuss further in our next lecture which will be on the various aspects of soft skills thank you