Soft Skills: Identifying Personal Strengths When hiring future workers, employers look for hard skills, which are those we learn such as mastery of software applications or accountancy procedures, and soft skills. Soft skills are personal characteristics,
strengths, or other assets a person possesses. Studies have divided soft skills into four categories:

• Thinking/problem solving

• Oral/written communication

• Personal qualities/work ethic

• Interpersonal/teamwork

Your Task. Using the preceding categories to guide you, identify your own soft skills, paying attention to those attributes you think a potential employer would value. For each category prepare lists of at least four items. For example, as evidence of problem solving you might list a specific workplace or student problem you recognized and solved. You will want to weave these words and phrases into cover letters and résumés, which are covered in Chapter 15.